Starting Up Is Hard. Here Are 8 Ideas to Make It Easier

You cannot control how the world will react to your next idea. But there are a surprising number of things you do have control over.

This post is going to be all about you, but to get there I have to spend about 42 seconds talking about me.

I'm in the midst of an 18-month experiment in which I will try to reinvent my career. (The details why are boring.)

I knew going in the reinvention process was going to be difficult. And I also knew there were going to be countless false starts and failures.

And I thought I knew how to handle those failures.

I would follow the advice I had given people for years: I'd make sure that the failures (should they occur) would not hurt me too much financially or in terms of opportunity cost--it might have turned out that the time I spent on X (that didn't work out) would have been better spent trying Y (which might have been a smash).

Well, I was right about the approach, but wrong about having a complete handle on how to deal with the setbacks.

As a result, I have come up with a list of rules that I am now following. They probably will evolve before the 18 months are up, but here's where they stand now.

The idea of taking small steps was right. As was never risking too much money. And so they remain my first two "rules." Here are six others I have come up with.

3. No one cares about your journey but you.

When you are trying to start something new, it would be nice if people were supportive. I have found that they are not. No one has been rude, evil, or mean. People don't care enough to invest in that much reaction. They are concentrating on their lives, and not mine. Understanding that makes the rejections (slightly) easier to take, which leads me to the next point.

4. You are allowed to feel bad for 14.2 minutes.

I simply overlooked the fact that failure makes you feel bad, no matter how you try to rationalize it. Since saying "well, don't feel bad" doesn't work, I now give myself about 15 minute to wallow, and then I try to move on.

5. Take even smaller steps.

I am the world's biggest advocate of taking tiny steps toward your goal, pausing after each one to see what you have learned, and bundling that learning into the next step. I have had that idea confirmed for me during this experiment. But there is a natural tendency to always want to move faster, and that is where I have gotten into trouble. The best way to deal with failure is not to experience it. Taking even smaller, slower steps mitigates potential damage.

6. Assume no money is going to come in.

I figured things might be slow at first, but I should have been even more conservative. The assumption going in should have been that there would be no money coming in during the entire time I was getting underway.

7. It's okay to keep the old stuff that works well.

Just because you are heading off in a new direction doesn't mean you have to jettison everything that you did well in the past. Keep a strong core, if you can, and go from there. Efficient back-office strategies, for example, continue to work well no matter what you are doing.

8. Yes, you certainly want to learn from failure.

But make sure it really is a failure first. Just because the first potential client, or first couple, said no doesn't mean it is truly a bad idea. Only give up on an idea when there is a clear pattern of rejection.

Keeping these thoughts in mind are making my journey a bit easier. They may help you as well.

From Inc. Magazine