4 Subtle Signs You’re An Entrepreneur Who’s Growing
4 Subtle Signs You’re An Entrepreneur Who’s Growing
Frustrated that your progress has been slow on your growth? Read this.
Erda Estremera
Have you ever looked back at a year of your life or your life overall and been pleasantly surprised at how much you’ve accomplished?
We most appreciate our growth when we can collectively see all of the accomplishments stacked up after years of trying. We don’t see our growth progression as clearly when we’re in the thick of it. In fact, it can feel like we’re not doing much at all when we measure our growth in hours and days.
It’s easy to downplay how much we’ve grown as entrepreneurs when the improvements take place over a long stretch of months. These subtle movements are often difficult to notice unless you get into the habit of recognizing when you’ve grown.
Plus, when you’re so anxious to hit your revenue goals and milestones, you immediately move on to the next item on the list. There’s rarely a pause to reflect and appreciate, or even notice how far you’ve come.
Here are four subtle signs that you’re growing as an entrepreneur, to encourage you to celebrate the small wins that lead to big growth.
1. You pause before answering uncomfortable questions.
You no longer say “yes” on autopilot and pause to think of a thoughtful way to communicate a solution that’s respectful of what you and your business want. When you’re a newbie who’s fresh to entrepreneurship — you grab at any sale, opportunity, etc. that comes your way because you haven’t built the confidence or pipeline yet to trust that you have enough coming your way to be selective.
When you’ve grown the business to a place where it’s generating enough demand and you’ve mentally caught up to feeling worthy of selectiveness, you step into a space of no longer entertaining uncomfortable questions. You say no and don’t feel guilty about it. You’re becoming more firm in the idea that saying no is a respectful way to honor someone’s time and energy.
Want us to be cheaper? We’ll happily point you to someone who fits your budget.
Want to negotiate? Tell us the terms, but if they’re not a win-win, it’s going to be a no.
You no longer feel obligated to say yes or appease, and the word “no” has entered your vocabulary in a big way.
2. The current iteration of your brand, product, and business embarrass you a little bit and you’re craving to do better.
This is a huge sign that you’re internally growing — you’re a little embarrassed by what you currently have out there and you have a vision to do better. You’ve grown out of your old skin and are ready for a new one.
You don’t get to this place unless you are critically analyzing your outputs and how you’re representing your brand to your customers. You can have a pretty perfect website, Instagram account, etc. but if you’re optimizing your platforms for sales and customer engagement — there’s always room to improve.
3. You’re becoming accustomed to the mindset shifts you’ve implemented and now believe them, fully.
Confidence, belief, and bravery you didn’t have months ago now come to you naturally. You feel comfortable in the mindset shifts you fought so hard only months ago to adopt and embody.
You’re no longer asking the same questions or having the same conversations you used to have. You’re asking new questions and continuously raising the ceiling of your curiosity and looking for other ways to expand yourself mentally. You’re becoming curious about opportunities to uplevel that scare you a little bit.
4. Fear that gives you happy butterflies is a sign that you’re stretching yourself for an upgrade.
Speaking of upgrades that scare you a little bit — you know that you’re going big when you still get a little nervous before a new release, business move, investment, customer event, etc. It means that whatever action you’re taking is stretching you to step into something bigger.
Although you shouldn’t be in a perpetual state of anxiety and fear, keeping yourself in check every quarter to do something that gives you happy butterflies is a happy way of staying vigilant in your growth as an entrepreneur.
Want to turn your startup chase into a victory lap? My Friday morning emails will help you get over your Crux.