5 Factors That Prevent Most People from Starting their Business

Starting a business is easy once you have known the 'why' you must start your business. However, most people who already know 'the why' have found it still difficult to start their business for various reasons. Let us look at those factors and how to conquer them. 

1 : Fear of failure: Most would-be-entrepreneurs have the fear of their businesses failing and so would not dare starting any business . You see, if you don't start, you will never fail at all and you will never succeed either. The experts you see today have failed severally. This is why Nightingale said “all of us are self made, but only the successful will admit it”. 

An expert is that man or woman who has made 1001 mistakes. You must be prepared for failures if you have to start a business and become successful. Innovations in the world such as the fluorescent tube, cars and others never came into existence without failures and several trials. 


One of the best ways to conquer this fear of failing is deliberately becoming an Inverse Paranoid.  An inverse paranoid is one who sees the world and every challenge that comes to him as being to his advantage for a better tomorrow. He believes that all the challenges he experience including temporal defeats, rejection, disapproval, bankruptcies etc are not failures but are elements that are working and pushing him towards a better goal in his life pursuits.

You have been created with all success intelligence inside you by God and what you need to do is to bring it out. Therefore, you must decide to nurture your ideas, your dreams and ideals into reality. 

There is nothing wrong in having fear inside of you as it makes life complete. But let me address another side of fear that can be used to your own advantage. It is called positive fear. Positive fear will push you into starting your own business and making money with it. Positive fear is the fear that you don't want to be poor. You don't want to be in the crisis of not being able to pay your children's school fees as and when due and you want to secure the future of your children by giving them the best things of life and this motivates you to make it by taking a bold step. 

I must emphasize here that fear has a way of bringing your dreams to naught. Therefore, instead of focusing on the fear of failure, begin to visualize yourself in what you want to achieve and occupy your mind with verbalization and thought of success instead of failure. See yourself as that CEO achiever in whatever endeavor you want to get into.

According to late Bahama-born motivational speaker and peak potential expert, Miles Munroe, “most people are not living their dreams because of lack of self esteem and limited vision”. Fear kills. What is the benefit of allowing it to take over you? You are going to make mistakes quite right, but keep striving to be better than what you are right now.

2: Sitting in your comfort zone: Most people are earning a living with their day-job and are completely comfortable with it. The truth is that if you don't plan for your retirement from today, you are actually not  helping yourself. You see, analysis and reality have shown that most people are rich between 25 to 40 years of age and there after they are broke. This is because they have lived on the comfort zone without planning.

You need to leave your comfort zone. Life is pain and gain. You are successful to the extent you can perceive. You become the CEO of a big business when you can see it in your creative mental ball and live it in reality by taking action. Note that dreaming and reality are two different things.   If you want to live it in reality, it is going to be challenging, you are going to be criticized, and you will face rejection, isolation and trials as well as temporal failures but do not be afraid as there will be light at the end of the tunnel.

Everyone who has achieved big successes left their comfort zone and continued to push. PUSH YOUR DREAM.

3: Friends and family advice: One of the biggest factors that work against most people staring their own business is advice from friends, relatives or loved ones. You see, your friends or relatives will not live your life out for you. If you have a business idea or an expertise you want to turn into business, it is healthy to discuss it with your husband, wife, relatives or friends. But be careful as there are those who will dissuade you from carrying out your dreams. I called a friend when I was starting a bread bakery business and all she told me was 'hey Henry, don't do bread business as it is saturated. Instantly I told her I was not going to go back’

There are those who will kill your dreams. Dream terminators don't need to be with you. There is nothing wrong with you doing away with dream terminators as friends. If you have to progress in all aspect of your life; spiritual, financial, mental and physical, then you will have to decide who your associates should be. Birds of a feather flock together. You need only the counsel of the wise to become wise and not from fools. If you are in the midst of 9 poor fellows, soon you will become the 10th one. 

It is better for you to have too few friends than having a bunch of friends that will prevent you from making progress. Instead of following flocks of friends for that social drinking spree, use that time to have personal time with yourself to think about why you were created and what you need to achieve with your life. Withdraw yourself from the disturbing crowd and think within you to bring out the real you that will launch you to the next level. Continuously dwelling on your goal and passion will bring quick result than you think if you apply this principle. 

You are uniquely created by God and you can't be everyone's friend. Do away with friends that will not get you to the next level. Associate yourself with those who have been there and model your lifestyle, business, thinking along with theirs. 

4: Have Faith: Though it may seem that you are not there at your goal now, developing a positive attitude about things of life will help you get there in no time. If you have faith in God, you will move mountain. Wars are fought and won first in the spiritual before it is won physically. Empires were created by faith. Goals are accomplished first by faith before it comes into physical reality. You have to act who you want to be. 

Exercise that faith and see yourself as that man you want to be. Picture yourself sitting there as the CEO, see yourself closing deals and impacting lives with your vision and God will bring all the necessary raw materials needed.

Your belief that it will get better even if it's tough with you today will move you to the next level. For years I started a business and had it rough. But I had one thing going for me and that is faith. I have been in crisis of life; I got abandoned by even people who would not believe in my dreams including closed relatives and friends that I personally would never think of abandoning me.  I have been lonely, frustrated and penniless as a result of firm believe in my vision even when no one believed in me. But faith plays itself into reality of our goals when we firmly hold on. Faith is the evidence of things hoped for. Go for it. Surprisingly, they are all back in good relationship with me and now buy into my ideas because it has blossomed

5: Have a vision: If you start and sustain your business, then concentrating on vision instead of concentrating on money will bring you to the top. Your vision is to impact positively on the society with your ideas, expertise, your mistakes, your passion or your hobby. Once your vision which is the impact your business will have on the society is achieved, money will flow along with it. 

If you have to make money all you need to do is have a valuable vision of impacting positively on the society with your idea, talent or expertise. Do not focus on money or profit but on adding value in solving problems and profit will flow. 

A lot of great ideas have been sent to the gutter because of concentration on money making rather than on impacting life. And a lot of ideas have gone international because of the impact they had on the people and money continues to flow. For example, Forbes Magazine, Facebook, Microsoft etc