Sometimes It Just Takes A Step
An online friend of mine emailed me yesterday, and the opening line of the email was:
I’d like to transition to working for myself, but I’m not sure how to do it!
Now, this anonymous friend of mine has a lot of technical online knowhow, so I didn’t even bother pointing her to my series, How To Make A Living In Your Pajamas. If you need the technical steps, be sure to read those posts. But even though my friend said she didn’t know “how to do it”, she didn’t really mean the actual technical aspects of it. No, she needed the higher-level aspects.
She needed confirmation that she should start part time, while working at her day job. She needed reassurance that the ideas she had were solid ones. And most importantly, I believe, was she needed to get past the fear.
We all live in fear of the unknown. Can we do it? Are we good enough? Do we know enough? What if we do the wrong things? What if we make mistakes?
Let me answer those questions right now for each of you.
Can I do it? YES
Am I good enough? YES
Do I know enough? YES
What if I do the wrong thing? NO BIG DEAL
What if I make mistakes? YOU WILL. SO WHAT?
Yes, you can do it, and yes you will make mistakes. But the mistakes can be overcome. The only mistake that cannot be overcome is the mistake of never trying.
So, of the things I told my friend, the most important piece of advice that I gave her, in my opinion, was this:
Really, it’s more a matter of just putting one foot in front of the other and start doing.
You can and should learn the technical how-to’s, but don’t put off actually taking the first step until you know everything…because that day will never come.
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You'll never shine if you don't glow.
(from Smash Mouth. "AllStar" Astro Lounge
. Interscope Records, 1999.)
Posted on October 19th, 2007 by DazzlinDonna
Filed under: Business Development
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Your Pajama Living Guide is probably the most user-friendly introductory guide I’ve read. It makes getting started in the internet easy peasy. I’m going to be featuring it in a future post on Must-Read Free PDFs!
Great inspirational post here. I’ve seen a lot of “reality check” style posts around on money making blogs lately which can almost be translated to “nope you can’t achieve what you want” sometimes. I think positivity will always reign supreme and a never give up attitude.
Hope you don’t mind me spamming up your comments DD, but my site is about the same thing - the higher-level issues of working for yourself.
I’ve learned a lot of lessons the hardest way possible and there is no reason anyone else needs to go through all of that… or worse! The main things to focus on I’ve found are leadership, accounting and then everything else.
I think leadership is the most important part of going on your own even if you don’t have a staff because you still need to be disciplined enough to lead yourself and control your fear when the hard times come.