When you are an entrepreneur, you know the statistics: Forbes acknowledges that 80 percent of businesses fail. Financial shortcomings are a common reason for this, but there are other things you may not realize you are doing that can derail your entrepreneurial dreams.

Not Writing Down Goals

Writing down your goals is a powerful step toward achieving them. The jury is still out on whether trumpeting your goals aloud is useful, but writing them down forces you to focus on their specifics. There is also a built-in visualization process that goes into writing down virtually anything.

Negative Self-Talk

Often, entrepreneurs fall into the trap of speaking negatively, even abusively to themselves. This type of self-talk can sometimes be motivational, but can drift into causing a person to become indifferent. Dr. Raymond Richmond discusses how anger can become indifference, which can end even a business with solid external prospects. Speaking negatively to yourself, even to “psych up,” should be avoided to the extent possible. If you begin speaking negatively to yourself, particularly in a defeatist sense, stop immediately and replace what you are saying with something more constructive.

Making Excuses to Give Up

There are situations when giving up is a reasonable course of action. In other situations, people make excuses to justify not wanting to put in the work. Being “too old,” “the wrong race,” “in a bad market,” or other such excuses can mask an underlying problem within the entrepreneur. If you find yourself making excuses to stop, ask yourself why you really want to quit. Often, entrepreneurs succeed not long after they felt like giving up the most.

Listening to Naysayers

Much of the world is thoroughly trained to simply go to work, collect a paycheck and expect the same of everyone else. When your entrepreneurial efforts have not yet succeeded, people who do not share your vision will question and challenge you incessantly. If you listen to their numerous reasons why you will never succeed, you will never allow yourself to succeed. Ignore anything that does not help you move toward your goals.

Not Focusing

When you start a business, there is a lot of energy. It is tempting to flit from business to business, as each idea is fresh and exciting. Fight this urge, as each business must be cultivated until it can function properly. In time, you will be able to start them all — just not all at once.