Startup Stress: Dealing With Pressure While Delivering on Ideas

We generally use the word "stress" when we feel that everything seems to have become too much - some give it a name of overloaded and wonder whether we really can cope with the pressures placed upon us.

Most of us have varying interpretations of what stress is all about and what matters. Some of us focus on what happens to us, such as breaking a bone or getting a promotion, while others think more about the event itself. What actually matters are our thoughts about the situations in which we find ourselves.

We are continually sizing up situations that confront us in life everyday. We assess each situation, deciding whether something is a threat, how we can deal with it and what resources we can use to avoid difficult situations. If we conclude that the required resources needed to effectively deal with a situation are beyond what we have available, we say that that situation is stressful - and we react with a classical stress response. On the other hand, if we decide our available resources and skills are more than enough to deal with a situation, it is not seen as stressful to us.

Overwhelming Startup Stress

Entrepreneurs know that stress is a part of the job. Unfortunately, some days it’s your greatest asset and others it's your toughest competition. Just as the relationship between co founders is more intense than it usually is between coworkers, so is the relationship between the founders and the company.

Running a startup is not like having a job or being a student, because it never stops. This is so foreign to most people's experience that they don't get it till it happens.

The biggest challenge that major founders of startups face is the ups and downs that are waiting for them every single day. Things seem great one moment and hopeless the next.

There are hell lot of reasons like control over investors, customers , funding techniques etc that become a headache for the founders.

The major aspect that leads to stress is uncertainty and doubts, one has to rule with all the mechanisms of starting up a business entity in order to sustain in the ecosystem.

The stress of “expectations” - This causes serious heartburn and is the biggest cause of all stress. Most entrepreneurs believe they can be successful in their own right and when their own “expectations” of self defined success don't match with the progress of their startup, they tend to go into a vicious circle of blame, guilt and introspection.

The expectations that you set for yourself, comparing your progress either in terms of your product, traction, funding or hiring will cause you more sleepless nights.

The stress of “competition” - Competition leads to drastic changes whether it be positive or negative. In my opinion, the feeling of competency often takes you to a different level of stress.

The level that creates a sense of insecurity and proving yourself to be the best. The stress of what competitors could do, would do, will do, should be the least of your worries in order to concentrate well and control your own actions, strategy and plan.

The stress of “closure”- We have all been in this position. You email that certain angel investor, advisor, customer, potential key hire, then call them, drop them a voice mail, send them a LinkedIn invite, stalk them on twitter, only to get largely ignored. The best way to counter this stress is to keep going. Develop “Temporary Forgetfulness” – which one should definately adopt.

One day the founders think themselves as the next Google and dream of buying islands ; and the next day pondering on their failures. In the race of surviving, many startups fall down due to lack of motivation, many startups set their standards in the ecosystem.

The most basic advice to most of the startup founders is "just don't die,".There's always a limit to how much you can take. If you get to the point where you can't keep working anymore, it's not the end of the world. Plenty of famous founders have had some failures along the way but they didn’t stopped their way.

Smart Ways to Reduce Startup Stress

To be successful in the startup world requires an unrelenting amount of determination, persistence and trust. More than anything, though, it takes resilience to deal with the stress that seems to perpetually grow and not show any sign of slowing down.

Of the myriad strategies to execute and the relationships to develop as an entrepreneur, the stress associated with everything necessary for success can be unrelenting.

1. Get rid of the to-do list-

Checklists have an unwelcoming way of growing and growing and growing. The more unchecked boxes that appear in your little green notebook, the heavier the weight that bears upon my shoulders.

2. Release your inner writer-

When we write according to our minds, we tend to decline stress levels by vomiting our inner sights of ideas into our writeup.

3. Forget the goals. Focus on process-

Don't rush up work just to achieve the goal, be calm and composed, focuses on what you are doing, let it be the smallest work. If you do all your work with patience and hardwork, all your goals would be settled.

4. Fail fast-

In my opinion you learn more from your failures. Don't escape or develop insecurities from failures. “ Failures are stepping stones to success ”

5. Exercise your entrepreneurial chivalry-

Attitude is contagious. Random acts of kindness help brighten anybody’s day. The person on the receiving end will be pleasantly surprised that you went out of your way and in return, you'll feel positive from helping another.