Things To Make Myself Happier

I had it all planned out nicely for this morning. 8 to 9:30, I would do my Business Law seminar work. 10 to 12, I would read my Global Environment of Business readings. I wanted to clear some of my work so I do not get so overwhelmed by them during the weekdays. Yes, it's Sunday today. That was the plan until I woke up half an hour before my alarm rang, when this thought came into my mind:

Just ask yourself, how do you feel about it? Do you love it? If the answer is no, think about how to change it. This exercise is for those times when there are parts of your life where you find yourself waking up every morning not loving them. - Hiten Shah

Steve Jobs said something similar way earlier in the commencement speech he gave at Standard in 2005:

...for the past 33 years, I have looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself: "If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?" And whenever the answer has been "No" for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something. - Steve Jobs

Every once in a while, I question myself if I like what I'm doing now. Very often, the answer is no. I'm annoyed by the fact that despite knowing that I want to be an entrepreneur, I'm not doing much in that direction. (Having to do homework just makes the feeling worse.) To resolve this conundrum, I sat down to think about the things I can do. Here are 4 things that came to my mind:

1) Reframe the situation in my mind

It often leads to a reframing of the situation or relationship in my mind so that I can love it for what it is instead of longing for something I can’t change. - Hiten Shah

I think the most important thing to do first is to have the correct mindset. I have been pressuring myself to think of THE business idea to work on as soon as possible so that I have a business before I graduate. Needless to say, this gave me huge pressure on a very frequent basis which is neither helpful nor healthy. In Hiten Shah's words, I should reframe the situation in my mind so that I can love entrepreneurship for what it is. I have to recognise that entrepreneurship is a long journey and it is rare that the first idea, or even the first few ideas will succeed. And most importantly, businesses do not become wildly successful overnight. I should learn to enjoy the process of looking for an idea and not feel pressured that I need an idea to work on immediately.

2) Help others often

Recently, I attended an event by Warwick Entrepreneurs and one of the speakers said,

Entrepreneurship is about helping others

If you think about it, it is very true. Most business ideas are about helping people - to do something better (eg. Evernote for taking notes) or faster (eg. Wordpress for creating a website) or remove the pain of doing something (eg. Buffer for removing the hassle of scheduling your tweets manually). I believe that by looking out for areas I can help others with and try helping them, I will eventually have an idea - a problem worth solving.

3) Prepare myself

Do activities to improve all aspects of yourself - Joel Gascoigne

Instead of constantly looking for an idea, a thing worth doing is to prepare myself. Execution of an idea is much more important than having the idea itself. A good starting point is to think of what knowledge or skills I will need after I have an idea. Perhaps at least some basic coding and technical knowledge (since I'm more interested in tech solutions)? I would definitely need to have some knowledge on marketing and sales too. Now I have a list which seems quite overwhelming. For a start, I will try a bit of all and see which area interests me the most. Then I should focus on that before working on the rest. A note on this is that learning is best done through practicing and not simply reading articles and book.

4) Make more friends genuinely

I have a friend who decided to skip college to start a business. He self taught himself how to code and managed to gather a team and raise some investment for his idea. Another friend started an e-commerce business in college and recently opened his first brick and mortar retail store. Having a circle of friends like this has been helpful in keeping me inspired. Furthermore, we are able to help and share our experiences with one another, which make this journey much more fun and enjoyable. Most importantly, these friends provide me support and encouragement when I need them. Having thought out these 4 things to do, I hope to wake up most days feeling happy about what I'm about to do for the day! Have you been in such a situation before? How did you resolve it? Let me know below (: