The Rewards of Being a Self-Starter, not a Self-Stopper

By Jack Perry

“Be a self-starter. Let your first hour set the theme of success and positive action that is certain to echo through your entire day. Today will never happen again. Don’t waste it with a false start or no start at all. You were not born to fail.” – Og Mandino

They’re swashbucklers, explorers, and pioneers, not couch potatoes. They launch the offense, brave the onslaught, and get things done. They don’t run an idea up the flagpole, take a few meetings, and hope someone else makes it happen.

They’re self-starters. Are you one? Or are you a self-stopper?

If you’re a self-starter, you are an original. You find that you usually get to the goal faster than your competition. You thrive on movement and change and live for the sense of discovery that comes with taking  decisive action. You’re a cutting edge person who runs ahead of the pack. You’re generally a positive person and fun to be around. You listen intently to the siren song of a new idea.

But this doesn’t mean it’s all roses and rainbows: self-starters encounter ups and downs that sometimes end in insurmountable challenges and some pain every once in awhile, but more often they experience movement, results, and change. You experience excitement, change and discovery at all times if you’re a self-starter. 

Self-stoppers, on the other hand, simply lack initiative. They seem always to be getting ready to get ready. They procrastinate and listen to that small, insidious voice of fear, getting lost in minutiae without focus. Self-stoppers know only the status quo and wouldn’t think to question it or look for new solutions to problems. When a competitor appears with a new feature on their product or a new process, the self-stopper STOPS, gives up, and believes the situation is simply hopeless. 

But the self-starter will find new uses for the product or equipment, or add value to it. They take a situation in hand, believing nothing is beyond their control. They know that, while they can’t change the weather, they can change the way they react to it.

Self-starters choose to sail directly and fearlessly into uncharted waters, often with revolutionary results. Consider the boldness and the consequent payoff for those who started Home Depot, compared to those smaller hardware stores that were left in the dust as people flocked to the volume-buying warehouse style home improvement centers.

Challenges are Inevitable 

If you’re going to become a self-starter, you must at once be able to ignore the naysayers (and you will encounter plenty of them) and develop some humility and adequate resilience, because you aren’t going to win every time you set out to do something. You have to keep getting   up quickly off the floor. 

From time to time, self-starters will find relationships challenging, because some people will be fearful, threatened, or jealous of you and won’t confide in you or let you earn their trust. 

Self-starters need good communication skills in order to bring people on board to help with a project or the issues at hand, as well as a deep and unwavering commitment to their own ideas. 

Of course, as a self-starter, you will inevitably run into self-stoppers. Their stop signs sound like this: 

“That’s a good idea, but it won’t work...” 

“Um, I’ve never heard of this before, so I don’t think we ought to try that…” 

“No one has ever done that, so it can’t possibly be done...” 

“Maybe we should do a few more surveys and studies before we try anything like that…”

Self-starters choose to blow right past those negative stop signs.

Self-Starter Models of Success

Love her or hate her, you have to admit that Martha Stewart was a self-starter; she created an industry. Likewise, the Google founders opened up a whole new world on the Internet and profited richly from it, all while giving a beloved service millions use at no charge. Charles Schwab was very much a self-starter, creating not only a new direction within the investment industry, but also a giant company. He eventually sold the company to a major firm who mismanaged it, so Schwab bought the company back and built it back up again.

Very often you’ll see self-starters as turnaround specialists. Hired to put organizations back on track, they can work without map or precedent and use tools and resources to make a business competitive again.  Self-starters aren’t necessarily the best people to stick around and run an organization forever, but they can work without a manual and fearlessly without a net to get it going. 

In sales, to be a self-starter, you can’t sit still and wait for prospects to come to you. You must go out there and find them. Initiate communications to deliver pertinent information to them and build personal relationships with them, and fight whatever obstacles stand in the way of your reaching who you need to reach. Ask yourself who your prospects are, how you can reach them and communicate with them, and what it will take to meet their needs. Remember, the right person doing it the right way will succeed.

It’s Never Too Late to Be a Self-Starter

You can develop self-starter skills in any industry and succeed beyond your wildest dreams, even if your career is sputtering now, even if you’ve been a shrinking violet all your life. But you have to be willing to transform yourself. You have to be fully motivated and stay motivated, undaunted by roadblocks (a.k.a. problems) and always looking for ways to solve them. When you believe there’s nothing you can’t handle, you will truly be a self-starter! Are you ready to get started?

Starter from The Respect Factor® Series

THE RESPECT FACTOR® is a trademark of Jack Perry in the United States and other countries. Used with permission.  ©2009 Jack Perry. All rights reserved.