Interested in starting a new project or business, but don’t know where to start? You’re in the right place!
In case you haven’t heard yet, last year I created an online course in grassroots fundraising and marketing. In it, I teach people how to tell their stories, market themselves, and raise money for their work. It was the fulfillment of a long-time goal to step up my game and create a substantive program for all the folks who’ve asked me for help over the years.
A few months ago, I set a personal goal to give away 30 coaching sessions in 30 days. In the process, I learned a lot about the top challenges faced by people starting a new project or business:
1. Disorganization
Perhaps the most surprising aspect of the challenge has been the amount of people who schedule a discovery session and don’t show up. I chalk this up to disorganization, ie, not checking emails (for reminder alerts), reading texts (again, for reminder alerts), and communicating in advance when a conflict arises.
If you struggle to remember meetings, keep a calendar and set up notifications to ping you a day, hour, or 10 minutes beforehand. If a conflict arises, communicate no less than 24 hours before your meeting and never, under any circumstances, stand somebody up. That allows the person you’re meeting to re-adjust their schedule and perhaps take another meeting instead.
One of my potential clients, who missed two scheduled meetings, said, “Unforeseen circumstances, that are out of our control, occur all of the time.” I couldn’t disagree more because, no matter what happens, you are always in control of giving someone else notice and showing respect for their time.
Are you finding it hard to build a team? Respecting other people’s time will go a long way toward finding support, partners, collaborators, and mentors for your work.
2. Lack of business or vision planning
You lack a clear idea for your business structure, plan, pricing, marketing strategy, and feel somewhat overwhelmed at the thought.
You know there’s some knowledge required to get set up your consultancy and are looking to make time and space, but haven’t gotten to it yet, so you lack a clear plan for the future.
Sometimes it feels like days, weeks, and months go by without making any real progress, and you wonder where the time has gone.
This is all about fear and “stuckness” disabling you from planning the future you’re building towards. You are thinking of the big picture and it’s overwhelming you to the point that you can’t break it down into the steps you need to do today and tomorrow, so you avoid doing it entirely.
My advice: pick three immediate things you can do today and do them. Then do the same tomorrow. Eventually, this little bit of space you’re creating for your dream will take over, and you’ll start devoting nights and weekends to your dream until you have a clear roadmap. Practice vision planning by creating a Dreamline.
The Dreamline Exercise is excerpted from Tim Ferriss’ book The 4-Hour Work Week. It’s a timeline for your dreams.
The Dreamline exercise will help you to start breaking down your life goals into 6-12 months increments and action steps to achieve them. It may also bring up a lot of uncomfortable feelings that may make you procrastinate on finishing it. Push through and it’ll get you started off on the right foot!
3. PERFECTIONISM PARALYSIS
You want things to be done 100% right the first time, as opposed to letting yourself and your work evolve organically over time. The solution here is to empower yourself to try something new, fail, and try again, trusting yourself to make the right choices and to learn from your mistakes.
4. lack of financial planning
You’re in desperate need of a financial plan for your vision that takes into account your expenses, income, debts, startup costs, and contingencies. Without it, you’re working in a black hole, and that alone can stymie your progress.
The Dreamline exercise can also help tremendously with this, as it requires you to attach income and expenses do what you want to be, have and do, so that you can begin figuring out a financial plan for getting there.
5. You (think you) need a mentor and are waiting (and waiting) for one
I like to think of this as waiting for lightning to strike. I can’t tell you how deeply I believed I needed a mentor for the first several years of film school. How many people I asked, how many speakers I ran up to at the end of panel discussions trying to get their email address.
The truth of the matter is, mentorship is a calling, and most practitioners are too busy to really mentor. (And if you’re a woman of color, notoriously underpaid and overworked, mentorship is a luxury activity.) I also happen to think it’s a tall order to ask of a stranger.
Many of my potential clients cite a lack of mentorship as a huge obstacle to their success. And I can attest that, all throughout film school, I also fantasized about having a mentor. This person would have accomplished a lot in her career and would be able to pave the way for me, foresee upcoming potholes, and help steer me in the right direction. I was truly demoralized that this person never showed up.
In time, you’ll realize that a lot of what you want in a mentor can be found in other people, resources, networks, and inside yourself, so you can stop waiting for this person to show up and start charting your own path.
5. procrastination and poor time management
You have a lot on your plate and struggle to manage it all. You set large goals and the thought is so overwhelming you don’t do anything, not even the first step.
This is connected to your feelings around the task you have to do. A wise man once said, if you confront your feelings, you’ll have no problem doing any task, no matter how large.
6. YOU’RE A PHI BETA SLACKER
Having attended Stanford for undergrad, and NYU for grad school, I am very familiar with this subset, and in fact have been such a person at various points in my life. Here’s a quote from writer Po Bronson:
“Here’re some of the obstacles that hold Phi Beta Slackers back. First, they use money as a measuring stick. They jump among high-priced jobs, believing the elevated salary is a proxy for respect. Second, the have a strong need to belong to the smartest crowd. Third, they continuously find something to prove. They keep finding new challenges, new crowds to win over. Eventually, there’s nothing left to prove, and they have to face the question, ‘Okay, I’ve proven I’m smart. Now who am I? What am I going to do with my smarts?’”
Po Bronson, What Should I Do With My Life?
It’s worth stating that Phi Beta Slackers need not be wealthy or inhabit high-paying business jobs; among artsy folks, they’re the ones who jump from one amazing, potentially life-changing opportunity to another amazing, potentially life-changing opportunity without ever really being…well…changed. (Think: Lynn from the show Girlfriends.)
Your ideas and goals are lofty, but concrete results have been limited and you often feel you don’t have as much to show for your efforts as other people, or that you should be further along in your path than they are. Paradoxically, you can be self-critical and have trouble giving yourself credit for well-earned achievements, especially if they diverge from what society deems as success.
The solution? Figure out what you really want, your heart’s desire, and go for it. Make a commitment to seeing it through. For added measure, grab an accountability partner to hold you to it. If you can be really great at a bunch of things you try, you can be great at one and make a real foundation for yourself.
Does any of this resonate with you? What was most surprising was how people, who felt they were struggling alone, had so much in common with perfect strangers who were also building something from scratch. You’re really not alone. Embarking on your dream is hard work and takes patience.
But if it’s something you love and are passionate about, you can truly create the freedom to live the life you want.
