Consider These Key Career Prep Steps During High School, As An Aspiring Teen Entrepreneur
Entrepreneurship can feel like a calling to many people. Perhaps it is the allure of being your own boss, calling the shots for yourself, hustling to grow, and the opportunity to be wildly creative. There’s just so much potential within the realm of entrepreneurship. And, entrepreneurs are getting started earlier than ever along their paths.
Choosing to become an entrepreneur is choosing to commit to an exciting professional journey. When you start out, even with a good plan, you just never know how your pathway might evolve over time. It’s also an innovative time in the working world these days, as new technologies leap to the forefront at an increasing rate.
As an entrepreneur, you will ultimately be building your own business, and your own brand. And, in many cases, you will also have to create your own unique path forward, towards your own version of success. You are, in essence, defining and creating success for yourself, and that is both bold and brilliant. But, becoming an entrepreneur also means engaging in strong career prep for teens, personal development processes, and extensive planning sessions before making the leap. Here are some important career prep steps to take, as an aspiring teen entrepreneur…
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Step #1: Seek to develop a greater sense of risk tolerance and learn not to fear failure, as an aspiring teen entrepreneur.
Simply put, risk tolerance is the level of risk (personal, professional, and financial) that a person is willing to take (on a specific issue, decision point, or overall). As a teen entrepreneur, you will ultimately be responsible for all of your business outcomes, and making bold and beneficial moves will often involve varying degrees of risk.
It can be difficult in our culture of social media highlight reels not to fear risk and, by extension, failure. And, fear of failure will tend to make you more and more risk averse as you progress, not risk tolerant. But, it is understandable. When everyone around you appears to be sharing only their successes, processing failure in private can be daunting. But, failure is a natural part of life. Everyone experiences it, whether they choose to share that information publicly or not. And, in fact, failure is part of the learning cycle. We try, we fail, we try perhaps several more times, and then we learn how to succeed.
Instant success is typically a matter of luck. Endurance when we experience failure gives us learned and earned success… not to mention greater degrees of risk tolerance within our psychological framework. Work on getting comfortable with temporary discomforts, as an aspiring teen entrepreneur. And, allow yourself the gift of failure as you learn. If you keep at it, you will reach your entrepreneurial goals.
Step #2: Seek out career prep programs that teach problem-solving skills, as a teen entrepreneur.
Every teen entrepreneur will face their own individual sets of challenges, as they seek to build their business, brand, and target audience. Discovering your niche may also come with a very steep learning curve. And, we all know how fast the world can change these days, so adaptability strategies are also a must-have in relation to problem-solving skills, as a teen entrepreneur. A solid career prep program will instill knowledge of professional problem solving, while also teaching the key skills that go along with learning an area of specific work industry expertise.
All successful businesses provide an otherwise-lacking service or solve a problem for the communities that they serve. Challenge yourself as early as possible, along your career prep pathway, to spot lacking services and problematic issues in both your local and online communities. As a developing teen entrepreneur, you can then brainstorm, using the prompting question… “How could this community need be better met?”
See what answers you come up with, and also how those answers could possibly build out as potential business models. Get creative!
Step #3: Get involved in career prep programs that have long-term goals and planning initiatives, as a developing teen entrepreneur.
Before launching your very first teen entrepreneurial venture, it is important to have some experience with both long-term goals and strong business planning. A comprehensive understanding of long-term goals gives you the persistence needed, as a new teen entrepreneur, because overnight success is not a target that is likely to get your where you want to go. It can actually take anywhere from 5-10 years for entrepreneurial efforts to get to their desired level of growth, in some industries. While a business-focused career prep program will certainly check a lot of boxes for that aspect of education, you should also make sure you are exploring other industry areas that peak your curiosity, too.
And, since efforts of professional growth for entrepreneurs can take years to result in the desired financial fruits from your labors, it is also important to save money before officially beginning your entrepreneurship endeavor. Don’t hesitate to seek out professional advice from a financial expert, as a teen entrepreneur.
Step #4: Make sure you are consistently building your network, as a new teen entrepreneur.
Entrepreneurs benefit from the input of others, just like all professionals do. While it can be challenging to get a new business up and running, you can make this easier by surrounding yourself (online and locally) with other professionals, mentors, and creative contacts. Networking with others can bring in relevant advice for your venture and alert you to new and better opportunities down the road, as well.
Always remember, as you contemplate a business and brand that you want to create, that you will need pre-defined S.M.A.R.T. goals, which are able to be implemented in steps. Each step along the pathway of your goals will lead you closer to your teen entrepreneur objective.
Interested in becoming a teen entrepreneur, with a focus on agriculture? Be sure to read the article, Becoming An Agriculture Entrepreneur!
To read a Stride Student Advisor’s perspective on preventing burnout, be sure to visit the article: Knowing When To Take A Break From Schoolwork.
And, check out the latest tips on Balancing Work And High School, from a Stride Career Prep Success Coach, too!
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