One great advantage of being your own boss is the freedom to work on the job of your own choice. This luxury is what a 9-to-5 employee misses. However, like many freelancers, you may be at a loss as to what business you should engage in. You face a dilemma caused by the wide range of choices open to you. You may become so fickle-minded that you jump from one business to another in matters of weeks, or less. You soon find this very expensive, time-wasting, and downright frustrating. Then, you start to wonder if leaving your 9-to-5 jobs has been a mistake.
Do not worry, you made the right decision. By being your own boss, you can achieve faster your goal to be successful if you learn how. The first decision you should make is to get the right business to for you. However, you need not search too far this because the answer is right before you — your passion.
Find Your passion: What is it that you are most enthusiastic about; something that you have always dreamed of doing but your 9-to-5 job kept you from indulging in? Now is the time to enjoy it and earn as well. Perhaps, it is a hobby such as collecting objects, or a sport, or even an activity like writing or travelling or taking photographs. If you still find it difficult to pin point your passion, get an aptitude test and consult a professional life-coach.
Develop your passion: Whereas it was just a hobby or a pastime before, give it your full attention now. Remember that your future and your success hang on it. Develop it until you gain some level of expertise in its field. Join groups with similar interest. Enrol in seminars or workshops that will develop your skill with it. Invest in the requirements of the passion you have chosen. If it is photography, buy a very good camera; if it is fishing, get a set of professional fishing gear, etc. Practice makes perfect so keep a regular schedule each day to work on your interest. Join competitions involving your passion to hone your skill further.
Come up with work plans: Make one for your daily schedule including your goal for the day. Make another for your monthly activities with your goal for the month. You can be so thorough in this exercise that you draw up a work plan for an entire year. This way, you can keep track of your daily, monthly, and even yearly progress towards your goal.
Find accountability: Form buddy systems with people who share your passion. Make arrangements with them wherein you check on each others’ progress and exhort each other to move on especially at times when you are slacking down. Get the services of a qualified coach or mentor to guide you along the way.
Take time-offs: Avoid becoming too involved in your passion that you ignore your personal life with your family and friends. This may be detrimental to your personal life and to your overall health. You should build in relaxation and breaks in your activities to prevent premature physical and psychological burnouts. These can result to the abandonment of your project. The enthusiasm may remain but you may be too weak to go on.
Keep track of your progress: Monitor your progress and development regularly. See that you are not going off track from your goal. Being too engrossed with your day-to-day activities may lead you astray from your plan unknowingly. By the time you realize it, retracting from what you have done may be too late or be very expensive. Furthermore, failure to review your development regularly can result to waste of time.
Continue growing your passion: Once you have attained the level of expertise in your passion, do not rest on your laurel. Keep on growing. With the ever evolving technical development in the market, new and much improved versions of products come out regularly. Keep abreast of these trends to prevent the product you have developed with passion become obsolete. Continue attending seminars and conferences for the latest information. These will continually feed your enthusiasm and interest to the passion you are now earning from.
Having found your passion and developing it to the level where it can now successfully make your dream a reality, aren’t you happy you decided to be your own boss?