How to ride the emotional rollercoaster of self-employment (from a serial entrepreneur)

How to ride the emotional rollercoaster of self-employment (from a serial entrepreneur)How to ride the emotional rollercoaster of self-employment (from a serial entrepreneur)Entrepreneurship has been seriously glamorized.Everywhere you look, people are extolling the values of hustling, grinding, and burning the candle from both ends. If you just put in the work, the story goes, youre going to be riding in Lambos and rolling in money.Yeah, maybe.Follow Ladders on FlipboardFollow Ladders magazines on Flipboard covering Happiness, Productivity, Job Satisfaction, Neuroscience, and moraThe reality is that entrepreneurship is an emotional rollercoaster- its either going to kill you or make you stronger. Most entrepreneurs out there are wrestling with this flux day-in and day-out. No doubt, the lifestyle can be exciting. The work can be incredibly fulfilling. But it can also be insanelystressfulat times.If youre going to build your life around your company, you have to learn about the ups a nd downs, and figure out a realistic way to keep yourself from flying off the tracks every time you hit a peak or a valley.After starting my first of many businesses nearly two decades ago, heres how Ive learned to think about itYoull feel every type of emotion at some pointThere are so many dualities to the emotions you feel as an entrepreneur.Victory and defeat.Passion and hate. Bliss and stress. Youre going to be bouncing from one side to the other regularly in the early days.Some days youll feel an amazing sense of independence.Youll get that rebellious feeling that comes with stepping outside a normal nine-to-five job and making it work. I got the client. I won this pitch. Nothing feels better.Other days youre going to be seriously stressed.A rejection might stir up anxiety about whether you can actually make your company work or bedrngnis. Youre going to have sleepless nights and frantic thoughts about what the heck youre even doing.So you have to learn to look at emotions mor e objectivelyIf you lose yourself in those peaks and valleys, youll wind up completely drained. To avoid exhaustion, you have to learn to be less reactive.Im not saying you need to rid yourself of emotion and never take any joy in your accomplishments as an entrepreneur. But when youre riding a hot streak, you cant get cocky. And when youve been rejected ten times in a row, you cant let it destroy you.Personally, whenever I lose a pitch ormiss out on a client, I immediately think about what Ive already accomplished and the number of times Ive succeeded. It helps me stay balanced in that moment of doom and gloom.You can even look at it from a more analytical angle- its a numbers game. You can increase your odds by honing your skills, but youre still going to get rejected sometimes. All that matters is how you deal with that dismissal.Brace yourself to handle rejectionI cant stress enough how important it is to handle rejection well.If you had a 100% success rate with pitches, youd be the wealthiest person alive. Obviously, thatsnot going to happen.In the words of Seneca, A gem cannot be polished without friction, nor a man perfected without trials.Of course, youre going to make some mistakes along the way, but the only way to get better is by learning from them. When you get rejected, take a step back, analyze what you could have done better, and then move on.That last part is important.Dwelling on rejection past the point of analysis wont change anything. So you didntsell themon your product. Well, the earth revolves around the sun, and zebras have stripes. Its just the way things are.Quit worrying about the facts, and start thinking about how to improve your pitch.Create a erfahrungen for internal workEvery entrepreneur needs to have a way to center themselves and handle the pressures that come with setting out alone.For me, that meansmeditationand visualization. I practiced martial arts growing up, and that was where I learned a lot about discipline, respect , and the importance of being humble. Mediation is a part of martial arts, but I ended up adapting it to what I do in the business world.When I started in sales, I visualized myself being more approachable, being more effective when I was pitching. It was my way of de-stressing and doing internal work.But as much as Id love to say that was all it took to keep my emotions in check, it isnt true. Sometimes, youre going to need more than you can offer yourself.Look beyond yourself to build a great support networkI had to learn this one the hard way.When I first started out on my own, I thought I had to take every bit of work I could get my hands on. I chose to be the cheapest option to get the most work. Of course, I eventually learned that I should be doing the opposite- being selective with clients, charging more, doing great work.Butthose first coupleof years as an entrepreneur were rough. I was under a lot of stress. I lost weight. My stomach was killing me. And finally, I realized I was just sick and tired of being sick and tired. I was like a plant dying to get a little sunlight. Fortunately, I figured out what I needed to do.I had to talk to people who knew what I was going through.So, I started looking for like-minded people- other entrepreneurs who were in the same boat or had been there before. It changed everything for me to be able to talk to people who knew aboutsleepless, nerve-wracking nights.The stereotype of the entrepreneur is a lone-wolf genius grinding 24/7. And like a lot of the cliches about entrepreneurship, its not only wrong, its unhealthy.Striking out on your own can genuinely be the most rewarding experience of your life. I wouldnt trade it for the world.But just like any rollercoaster, youll have a lot more fun if youre not riding it alone.This article first appeared on Minutes Magazine.You might also enjoyNew neuroscience reveals 4 rituals that will make you happyStrangers know your social class in the first seven words you say, study finds10 lessons from Benjamin Franklins daily schedule that will double your productivityThe worst mistakes you can make in an interview, according to 12 CEOs10 habits of mentally strong people