How to beat the 4 biggest reasons for not starting your own business
My new book Screw Work Let’s Play is all about doing something radically different with your life. It’s about giving up once and for all on wasting your life away in unfulfilling work.
It’s about discovering the things you would choose to do if you never had to work again – then finding a creative way to get paid to do exactly that as quickly as possible. That means going freelance, starting your own business, launching something on the internet, or creating your own job from scratch – and all while having some fun doing it.
Sounds good huh?
So why isn’t everyone doing this? It’s not for a lack of wanting it. And I don’t believe it’s laziness. There are 4 big reasons that commonly hold people back. Watch me take a flamethrower to them…
1. “I don’t know what work I would actually enjoy doing”
People spend years just stuck on this first one. The fact is if you enjoy something you will already be doing it somewhere in your life, it just might not look anything like work. When do you feel most alive? Cheering up a friend in need of support, giving a speech, reading a book and learning something new, organizing a friend’s party, shopping for bargains and negotiating the best deals?
What you enjoy is usually what you’re good at. Think of jobs and businesses where being good at these things would be a big asset. Whatever it is you love to do, you can bet there’s someone somewhere in the world getting paid to do it right now.
Watch out for ‘pinball thinking’ – bouncing backwards and forwards coming up with ideas then quickly discounting them when you think of a reason they won’t work. Instead of that, write down everything you think you might enjoy doing even if it seems impossible. Then for each idea, write out what appeals about it, what doesn’t, and what obstacles might get in the way of making a living from it. Get some positively minded friends over to help you brainstorm ways to get as close as possible to the work ideas that appeal most.
Download free worksheets to guide you through this process at http://www.screwworkletsplay.com/
2. “No one will pay me for what I really enjoy doing”
It’s true that some things you love doing are more marketable than others. I’m not an advocate of doing what you love and hoping the money magically turns up. The key is to look at the things that come naturally to you (and that you enjoy doing) then find a way to help people while doing them.
The secret is to solve problems for people. Whether that problem is mild (such as boredom, or struggling to find clothes that fit) or severe (such as back pain, the stress of divorce, or financial worries), people with problems are motivated buyers. If you can provide something that helps with the problem, you should be able to get paid for it. It also happens to feel good!
If the thing you most love to do looks like it could never fulfill this test, work out what it is you most love about doing it – there will always be another way of having that experience and getting paid for it. For example if you love watching documentaries, ask yourself what it is about that experience that excites you. Perhaps it’s learning something completely new or it’s the analysis and detective work that goes into making the programme. These are things that journalists, consultants and researchers get paid for every day.
3. “I just don’t have the confidence to make the leap”
This is a biggie without a doubt. In fact most of the problems people see with their career are really limitations in their own confidence.
Here’s what’s really going on. If you can’t decide what you want to do with your life, or there’s something you want to do but you never seem to make the leap, there’s one culprit behind it all. It’s the number one enemy of your confidence, success, and even your wealth. And the enemy is inside of you. It’s a subpersonality referred to in Gestalt Psychology as the Top Dog.
The Top Dog is the part of you that says the most damning things:
“You’re mad to change career in a recession”
“Who are you to write a book?”
“If you get up and give that talk, you’re going to make a right fool of yourself”
“If you try to start your own business, you’ll lose your house and end up on the street”
When you believe and obey these messages, you limit your progress, your happiness, and your life. The Top Dog is an amalgamation of all the most unhelpful ideas you picked up in childhood. Now these messages are a deeply ingrained habit within your own mind. But the real damage is caused when we take the Top Dog as the truth, The Voice Of Reason – rather than just a bad habit.
The first step to taming your Top Dog is to recognise it. When you notice a message you’ve given yourself that sounds damning and makes you feel worse, just catch it and label it, “Ah, that sounds like Top Dog!” Once you start to identify it and realise it’s not the truth but just a thought, you are on your way to loosening its grip on your life.
4. “I can’t quit my job to start a business because I need money to live on!”
I don’t recommend quitting your current source of income before you’ve got something else started – particularly in the current economy. It usually takes longer to get going than you expect and the last thing you need is to be panicking about paying the mortgage.
Instead, get started right away in your spare time, exploring this idea for a new line of work. Find a way to begin it in a scaled down form. Don’t just sit around reading about it. Play out your passion for it – start a blog about it, get out and meet people who do it, go interview experts in the field, go to conferences, talks or networking meetings. If you can, find someone who can give you an experience of doing this new line of work or try doing this thing for your friends. If you’ve chosen something you have a talent for, it won’t be too long before people start offering to pay you for it.
When that happens, you’ve reached an important milestone: you’ve earned your first playcheque. Go celebrate it! Then do more of it, get really good at it, work out what people most need from you and start to scale up until you can make that jump and get paid to play full-time.
John Williams is author of Amazon bestseller and Sunday Times ‘Buzz Book’, “Screw Work Let’s Play: How to do what you love & get paid for it” – out now published by Pearson.
Download a free chapter and other free tools at http://www.screwworkletsplay.com/freestuff
Tags: Business Advice, career change, confidence, Female Authors, Launching in a recession, Starting a Business
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