10 Scary-but-Exciting Reasons to Work for Yourself – continued

This is the second half of “10 Scary by Exciting Reasons to Work For Yourself” with points #6 – #10. If you missed the first part, points #1 – #5, jump back and read it now!

Also, I wanted to let you know this: Tim Brownson and John P Strelecky have cut the price of How to be Rich and Happy to $47 (it was previously $97). If that puts it in your affordability range, go and check out my review and have another think about it…

Or alternatively, read on for the rest of the article!

6.     You Stop Worrying What People Think

You can handpick your partners and employees, but there’ll still be some people around who aren’t very supportive … but who you can’t or wouldn’t want to ditch. These might be:

• Family members and other people you have particular loyalties towards
• Classmates in an evening course or degree programme
• Friends of friends who you can’t easily avoid during social occasions
• Members of your church, community groups and other organisations
• Parents of your kids’ friends

When you start working for yourself, you’ll get more blasé about what other people think. You’ve taken a huge step outside the mainstream and outside most people’s comfort zones – and this is bound to provoke reactions.

In many cases, those reactions will be more positive than you expected. People will be encouraging and enthusiastic about your small business and will admire your drive and ability to make things happen.

Sometimes, though, family and friends may not understand you. They’ll be stuck in the mindset that a job should be something you have to do just to make money. They may be incredulous, critical or even angry that you’ve taken off the blinders and found your own course through life. They may well envy you.

When you work for yourself, you get over worrying about what other people think of you. Following a path that you want to take is a great way to break the chains of “what my parents wanted for me” or “what all my friends from college are doing.” Ultimately, the people who love you will support you, and the opinions of others don’t matter.

7.     You Can Prioritise Time Over Money

When you work as an employee, your contract states how much you’ll work, and how much you’ll get paid. There may be some flexibility – but you can’t change things around from month to month.

As a small business owner or freelancer, your workload is almost certain to change on a weekly basis. Pretty quickly, you’ll be making enough to get by – to pay the rent and bills, buy groceries, go out occasionally, and save for emergencies – and you’ll get offered a new gig or client.

You’ll be faced with a decision that’s present but oblique in full-time employment. Would you rather have more money – or would you rather have more free time?

Another way to look at this is that the more you spend, the more you’re going to have to work. Many people in full time employment have more money than they need but no option to work less: so their excess cash ends up spent on drinks, lunches out, new gismos and shiny things, even coffee on the way to work:

Several years ago, I made a daily stop at a coffee shop for breakfast. I’d sit in there each and every morning, drop $7 on a breakfast sandwich, a cup of coffee, and a paper, and read it without much real joy. It was my routine. It wasn’t joyful – it was just the way I started my day.

(Trent Hamm, Splurges, Habits and Projection, The Simple Dollar)

When you work for yourself, you can choose to have more free time – instead of working extra hours for money that just ends up spent on sandwiches you could make yourself, magazines you never have time to read, or DVDs and other entertainments to recover from the drudgery of work.

8.     You’re 100% Responsible

This one’s a powerful realisation. When you start a business, you are 100% responsible for whether it succeeds or fails. There’s no-one else to blame: the buck stops with you.

A better way to look at it is that all the credit is rightfully yours. When you succeed, it’s on your merits. As an employee, you might have been frustrated that however hard you worked, you had very little power to really change things (or no recognisation if you did) – when you’re running your own business, success or failure rests squarely on your shoulders.

This is scary and exciting in equal measures. It’s powerful. You are in control. You get to show what you’re capable of – which is almost certainly more than you realise. Not only that, you get to set your own definition of success. For many small business owners, “success” doesn’t equal “making more money”. It could mean “being able to spend three months each year travelling” or “never having to work for a boss again.”

Owning your own business, or starting up your own venture, forces you to grow up. You can’t blame incompetent colleagues, stupid bosses or even the economy. You’re handed the keys to your own life, and it’s up to you how you drive and where you go.

This can be hard to come to terms with. Don’t be afraid to face up to and work through some fear, and find someone who can help if you’re experiencing paralysing terror … or go and read IttyBiz, where Naomi doesn’t shy away from the moments which are more freaking-out than jumping-for-joy:

If you feel shitty, you’re not alone. If you feel like, now that you’ve got your itty bitty business off the ground, you’re furious with yourself for not skipping with glee every moment, it’s not just you. If you feel like nobody on the goddamn planet understands what you’re going through, at least I do.

(Naomi Dunford, When You’re Feel Like A Raging Failure, IttyBiz)

9.     You Set Your Pay Rises

You’ve got total control over your own earning potential now. If you want a promotion, give yourself one: that might mean charging more for your services or for your products. It could also mean hiring a virtual assistant (or local teenager) to free up your time to be used more productively.

Everyone starts out low. I was writing 500 word articles for $20 when I began freelance blogging – I now charge $60. Naomi launched IttyBiz with a $99, two hour consulting package. She now charges $500 for an hour.

You need to make decisions about where to invest money to improve your income. This could mean:

• Attending a seminar or training course
• Buying a self-study course – or an book or ebook on a specific topic. (I’ve reviewed some which I’ve found incredibly useful.)
• Hiring a life coach, marketing consultant, or project coach
• Purchasing equipment, tools and software packages to make your work easier and more efficient

When you don’t have much money to invest, look for ways to spend time instead. That could be:

• Doing some free work to build up your portfolio
• Networking and getting your name known
• Writing articles to promote your business’ website (either guest posts on other blogs or article marketing pieces for sites like ezine)
• Producing an ebook, audio program or other resource that your customers could buy

Your options are pretty much unlimited when you work for yourself. This can be hard to wrap your head around if you’re used to having a narrow job description and role. There’s nothing stopping you from developing new skills and offering new services – or refocusing your business on a different area.

As a freelancer, I believe that I will be able to reach the top of the career ladder, whereas in my position as a salaried employee, there were no career development opportunities available to me.

(Emma, in the comments on 10 Scary-but-Exciting Reasons to Work For Yourself #1-#5)

The first version of my website here at Aliventures advertised my services as an editor, proof-reading, website creator and blogger. I now focus only on the last of those, and my business has turned away from by-the-piece work for others to building assets of my own, including several websites.

You get to decide the size of your paycheck. You get to set out what your job includes. You get to decide when you want to delegate the boring bits.

10.You Are Your Most Valuable Resource

I’ve saved this point until the end because it’s a difficult but hugely important one. When you work for yourself, you are your most valuable resource. If your computer breaks, it’s a pain, but you can sort it out and get on with work (even if that means heading toa local internet cafe for a bit).

If you break, your business is going to come to a screeching halt.

Stress doesn’t go away just because you’re working for yourself. Having your own business can bring a whole world of new worries and anxieties. Little things – like a disgruntled email or blog comment – can knock you, because you care about your business. You’ve put yourself into it, and it’s hard to detach from that (and perhaps you wouldn’t even want to).

There’s no HR department or kindly manager keeping an eye on you. No-one is going to remind you to take a lunch break, or to stop work at a sane hour. You may well, at times, choose to work hours that no boss could legally ask of you. You may get insanely critical about yourself. You may dig yourself into a pit of perfectionist hell.

So, the most crucial aspect of being 100% responsible is taking care of you. That means taking care of the basics like:

• Getting enough sleep, exercise and decent food
• Taking a break when you need one
• Having someone you can talk to when things are tough or scary
• Blocking out time for rest and recharging – and treating this as sacrosanct
• Knowing that you have emergencies covered (health insurance if you’re in the US; some savings set aside) – it’s easier to sleep at night when you’re not worried about the next bill
• Learning how and when you work most productively
• Dealing with the insecurities, hang-ups and fears that hold you back

There will be times when things seem hard. There may even be points where you feel like you’re slogging onwards and not getting very far. But the reward of that is that you’ll look back after a month or six months or a year, and you’ll see that you’ve grown, changed and become a little more like that person who you want to be. You’ll be doing work you’re proud of, work that’s made other people’s lives that bit better.

If you work for yourself, or if you’re planning to do so, I’d love to hear your thoughts on some of this. And if you want to put forward a completely different point of view, please go ahead! (10 Scary-but-Exciting Reasons to Work For a Boss, anyone..?)