“Being an entrepreneur is like constantly oscillating between euphoria and terror”, a young lady said, on an entrepreneurship TV show on Kwesé TV.
As those words hit my ears and sunk into my spirit, they resonated with such familiarity that I knew for certain what she meant. Entrepreneurship is a great journey but it is taxing nonetheless. It isn’t for the faint-hearted. Many times, it takes a lot of strong will to keep motivated and avoid being discouraged. I know this first hand.
Last year, I had the privilege and honour to listen to an influential and motivating Ugandan man speak in a mentorship forum. His name is Mr. Peter Byansi. In my words, he is a natural born leader, a philanthropist, academician and businessman. He is an influential and significant leader in this beautiful pearl of Africa.
He spared some time to come and speak to young minds at the ACFODE offices in Bukoto, Kampala. He gave a very insightful and inspirational talk about personal development with a key focus on execution of goals and individual self-awareness. I learnt a lot, to say the least. It was clear to me by the end of the discussion that he is a very motivated and self-driven individual who systematically works towards succeeding in his goals. In addition, he spoke about his resilience, despite many challenges in his childhood. I was particularly curious to find out how he keeps motivated and keeps striving forward. After the session, I approached him and asked how one can keep motivated when ones dreams may seem far away from their reality and far out of reach.
The two main ways he gave were “enjoy the journey” and “celebrate even the little you’ve achieved”. It was a reminder, as we looked at last week, that the journey matters more than the destination and that every single milestone you make counts and should be celebrated.
Sometimes we are extremely hard on ourselves and we belittle our small successes always looking at the future rather than the present. Mr. Byansi’s remedy for that? Don’t beat yourself up. Much as you may not be where you want to be yet, for as long as you are keeping on track on your path towards achieving your goals, you shouldn’t beat yourself up. In addition to that, celebrate the achievements you make along the way.
Host a good party to keep you motivated about life and your goals. It may be as simple as buying yourself an ice cream. Or, simply taking some time off to relax. Your little celebrations can be as simple as you want them to be. What matters is that you acknowledge that you have reached one more milestone towards your bigger goal, whatever your goal may be.
My particular hurdles at that time, revolved around entrepreneurship. However, you may have a different hurdle to jump over. Whatever your goal revolves around, for as long as you are on the right track and path to achieving it, you have the right to celebrate your different milestones.
Have a beautiful week.
Regards,
Keziah.
NOTE: Most of the images used on this blog currently, are downloaded from the internet through random searches. Where an image source is not acknowledged, this blog DOES NOT claim ownership of it and we therefore acknowledge alternative ownership. Thank you.
Keziah Elaine Ayikoru 