There’s plenty to talk about in entrepreneurship.
That’s for sure.
The entry-level conversations about entrepreneurship seem to revolve around things like passion, being unemployable, and hustle.
Those things are nice, but they don’t describe the complete story of entrepreneurship.
Building businesses involves so much more than those simple topics.
Yes, building successful businesses does require habits and skills like hustle, persistence, consistency, and focus. There are probably a billion other skills that we could think of that contribute to entrepreneurial success.
But there’s one skill that I think is essential to building incredible businesses.
And we don’t talk about it enough because it’s not sexy.
We talk about motivation a lot in entrepreneurship, but that’s the wrong discussion.
Motivation is all about making yourself feel a certain way so that you can do a certain thing. So what happens if you can’t make yourself feel a certain way? What are the things you wouldn’t do?
Personally, I never feel like doing my taxes. But I have to do them, regardless of how I feel. My government doesn’t care if I ever feel like doing my taxes!
Instead, we need to talk more about self-discipline.
It’s difficult. It’s not fun. And it even hurts sometimes.
But self-discipline is essential.
Really, self-discipline is more than essential. It’s liberating. We don’t have to feel a certain way in order to do a certain thing.
We just do it, and things just get done.
Done. What a beautiful feeling.
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Photo: Flickr/Nimish Gogri