The Power of Perseverance: How to Keep Going as a Business Owner In Tough Times and Why It’s Important

Sometimes as a business owner, we can find ourselves in circumstances or facing situations where it can be tough to keep going. Or even feel like you can keep going. It shouldn’t surprise you when you have these feelings or experience these moments because it’s just a part of it—owning and running a business isn’t always easy.

Yet, if you want your business to be successful you must do just that… keep going when the going isn’t easy. This is called perseverance and many successful entrepreneurs – and even many personal development leaders and prominent psychologists – will tell you that it just might be the secret of business (and personal!) success.

As Steve Jobs, founder of Apple said, “”Exceptional founders all have the ability to ‘keep on keepin’ on.’ I’m convinced that half of what separates the successful entrepreneurs from the non-successful ones is pure perseverance.”

Officially, perseverance can be defined as the ability to keep pursuing a goal, even when faced with difficulty or obstacles to success. For entrepreneurs, there may be no greater predictor of business success – or of business failure – than whether or not one can persevere despite whatever comes their way to trip them up, in the pursuit of whatever it is they are trying to achieve.

It’s easy for nearly any business owner to find that initial passion or desire for success for success. And when things are going smoothly, it’s easy to keep that passion ignited.

It would be ideal for an entrepreneur if things stayed smooth and rosy all the time—if every plan went… well, according to plan. Or it would be amazing if — when you did everything you think or even know you are supposed to do — you achieved spectacular results. But unfortunately, that is just not the case. All too often, you can do everything right, and still come up short. Unfortunately, that is just life and especially, the life of an entrepreneur sometimes. And it stinks.

Winning in business or with a new product or service launch, often takes longer than you want and is tougher than you imagine. Yet, if you give up and give in when you face tough times, you will never get where you want to go.

Some entrepreneurs have the “perseverance gene” built in—as part of their makeup. If that is the case for you, great. But what if it’s not? How do you build or grow perseverance?

Here are 3 simple tips for entrepreneurs to grow perseverance so you can get past what is holding you back or down and get back on the road to success:

1.  Set small goals to moving past your challenges or obstacles.

One reason entrepreneurs often feel like they are falling down or failing, is because the goals set are too big or too ambitious. Very few entrepreneurs grab the brass ring or achieve everything they want to achieve, on the first try or with minimal effort. Setting smaller, more easily attainable goals, increases the likelihood of success and gives the motivation to keep moving forward.

2. Plan to fail.

Planning for failure may seem contrary to what should or would work but it’s actually a very good way to build perseverance.  Whenever you are setting goals, making plans, or developing solutions for problems, try to anticipate where you might fail. Then, create contingencies or alternate pathways to success. In doing so, you naturally increase optimism in your chances for overall success and optimism is an important ingredient in perseverance.

3. Build a network of support.

Sometimes, no matter what you do — set the right goals, develop the right contingencies, etc. — things still might not go your way. Studies show that having a strong support network for the times that may or might happen, help to build and enforce hope that you still can succeed in the future. And hope is yet another magic ingredient in perseverance.

As you’ve likely noticed from all the points made above, the main key to perseverance is a belief that not only can it get better, but that it likely will. Keep that in mind and challenges and problems, big or small, fall into perspective just a little more.