Moving mountains: the importance of taking initiative

In the work that I do, I talk to entrepreneurs daily. I listen to their pitches, advise them on financial projections and work with them to improve their business plans. But the entrepreneurs I enjoy working with the most are those who take initiative.

Sometimes initiative might be simply knowing and understanding your target market like the back of your hand, but other times, initiative looks like a constant uphill battle that time and time again threatens to pull you down.

I'm thinking of one entrepreneur in particular.

Today she owns a small, successful company but rewind 15 years ago, she thought her life was headed in a different direction. A teenage mum who had dropped out of high school, she worked part time jobs to help pay the rent and buy her child warm jackets for the winter. Determined to give her son a better life, she found a program that would pay for her education and enrolled in a bachelor degree. 

Working part time, studying full time and being a single mum had it's fair share of pressures to the point where she found herself lining up at a soup kitchen to feed herself and her son. Looking at her surroundings, she was determined that this was not the life she wanted. As soon as her son was old enough to be enrolled in school, she began to teach herself business. She attended every free workshop she could find, built her own website and launched herself into running her company. Then she broke her back. 

Faced with potentially never being able to walk again, she was forced to reconsider her options. Even still, the day following her surgery, lying in a hospital bed, she hit launch on her business website and knew that she would find a way.

Now she runs it full time with the help of her best friend, also a single mum, and together they are building a sustainable, profitable company.

This to me is the importance of initiative. You can either take the lemons life has offered and wallow in self pity, or you can take initiative and move mountains.

It takes guts, it takes determination but sometimes, even a small amount of initiative can be the difference between living a life of happiness and fulfilment or that of regret.

Now what are you waiting for, go take some initiative! You'll never know if you never try.

This article was originally posted on LinkedIn. Click here to see original post.