Today I want to follow up on my post from last week, ‘Why You Should Start Your Own Business Now - And 6 Simple Steps to Do So’, it seems to be a hot issue.
Over the years I have seen many of my friends stay in jobs they hated just because they thought that one day it might pay off (They would receive stocks, shares, a promotion, a salary increase, etc.). This has been my experience: It never does. On the contrary, in most cases it gets worse. (BTW, the same is true for most relationships but that’s for another post.)
Things will only get better if you make them better.
How? In the following I will offer several steps that you can take right now to start getting out of a job you don’t like without leaving it today. (If you like a more drastic approach I offer you email me and we talk about it. There’s more than one way you can do this.)
- First, be honest with yourself. What’s the real reason that you are stuck in this job? Is it because you are afraid you won’t be able to find a better one, are you tied to the location, or are you afraid you will not be able to pay your bills, lose your house, you car, etc.? There can be many reasons, which is yours?Once you know what you are afraid of, relax! The world is not coming down, you will keep your job a while longer, the economy will eventually get better and your life is meant to work out! I promise.
- Now that that’s out of the way, what is it that you really want? What is it that you’ve always wanted to do but haven’t? Take the time on hand and start dreaming up your ideal life, your perfect job, your own ventures, adventures, etc. Put it on paper. Write down what you come up with and make it as real as possible. Where do you live, what do you do, how do you spend your time and who do you spend your time with? If you really want to get into it, start a dream book with pictures, descriptions, outlines, etc. Or make a collage, a so-called vision board that puts your vision into reality.
- Next, find out what your gifts are. What do you love doing? This is the tricky part because what you love doing may come so naturally that you are not aware of it. Doesn’t everybody love cooking, search the internet or take pictures? Doesn’t everybody want to be a famous writer? No, not everybody does. This is your dream! Ask others for help. If it’s hard for you to see yourself for who you are, ask the people who love and appreciate you to tell you what they see. Again, write this down. It may also help to think back to a time where you were really happy. What made that time so much fun and fulfilling? What were you doing? Add this to your list.
By now you should have a lot of material to work with. Look at all the different pieces and ask yourself, what is it that wants to emerge? What steps can I take today that will get me closer to where I want to be?
One of my clients did this exercise and realized that what she wanted most was to find a husband and to make chocolate. Wow! At the time she was working a corporate job in marketing. She decided to go for it. Her first project was ‘the man hunt’. She really went for it and searched for men online and elsewhere. As you can guess, she succeeded and with her husband she moved to the place she had found to be her perfect environment. She also left her job and started her chocolate business, which she grew fast and furious using her marketing talents to promote it. The point I want to make here is that whatever it is you want to do, you can be successful at it. Just take it one step at a time.
Like me, you probably grew up in an all or nothing world, where getting what you want is hard and living the life of your dreams is a fairy tale. Well, I believe that that reality is outdated. In today’s world there is enough for everybody to go around and you too, can live your life with zest and happiness! Go for it 
These are some good books and websites on the topic:
Pam Slim’s blog and soon to be book “Escape From Cubicle Nation”
Bad economy, just got fired? Time to fly! Jonathan Fields Fire Fly Manifesto will provide you with great tips on how to get started doing what you love.
A great book to get you started on a business or project is Brian Tracey’s “Flight Plan”. Get it on tape and listen to it in your car. Beats any music!
David Meerman Scott’s book “The New Rules of Marketing & PR” as well as his blog “webinknow”
If you would like to start a blog without setting up your own, yahoo offers a free service on it’s yahoo shine website. On shine you can easily set up a blog and start writing to an already existing audience. It’s a good way to get your feet wet in the blogging world. Check it out at www.shine.yahoo.com
If you are interested in making finding a man your project, a great book to read is “Find a Husband After 35. Using what I Learned At Harvard Business School.”
Set up an account on twitter at twitter.com. Build a community, learn from other entrepreneurs and start to publish yourself. Make sure to follow me at twitter.com/karinmanske. See you there!
Photo Source: Deb Roy via Flickr under a Creative Commons License
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Start Your Own Business - Part 1
Our world is changing dramatically. Jobs are disappearing, whole industries are struggling or going under and people everywhere are wondering what to do next. How about you? How are you holding up in today’s tough market?
While times of crisis can be unsettling, they also hold opportunities for transformation and change. Take the economy for example. Never before has it been easier to start a small business than today. If you have a product or service that you are passionate about, you can start building your own enterprise. It’s a great way of making yourself independent from the job market by doing something you love and getting paid doing it. The best thing yet, with today’s technology it is very, very easy. Here are the basic steps:
- Find a service or product that you are passionate about and develop a plan of action.
- Look for a mentor in the industry you are interested in. This can be through a blog, a seminar or a personal connection.
- Set up your business on the internet by creating a website and, most importantly, a blog.
- Start marketing your business by building a community and interacting with people on twitter, facebook and other relevant social websites and blogs. Create your fan base.
- Sell and deliver your product or service. If you did a good job at marketing, this step comes natural because people will want to buy from you.
- Serve, serve and serve your clients. Service is key to any good business and good service comes from treating your customers with kindness and respect. But most and foremost good service comes from you loving what you do and having a grand time doing it!
While these steps are simplified, they are basically how you start any project. As I said before, going into business has never as easy. If you have a job, keep it. Start your project on the side, experiment, make your mistakes (hey, they happen), get your feet wet and find out what works. The internet, your personal network and the community online will provide you with the support you need. Once your business generates profit, you can still decide whether you really need that job.
These are some great books on starting and marketing your business:
Career Renegade: How to Make a Living Doing What You Love by Jonathan Fields
Escape from Cubicle Nation: From Corporate Prisoner to Thriving Entrepreneur by Pam Slim
The New Rules of Marketing & PR by David Merman Scott
Flight Plan by Brian Tracey
Related Posts:
Start Your Own Business Now, Part 2
Start Your Own Business Now, Part 3
Photo Source: Jennifer Su via Flickr
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| November 22, 2008 |
| 2:00 pm | to | 3:00 pm |
“Life Design - Discover Your Passion “
Do you have questions about your life? Would you like to find out what to do next, how to start a business of your own or how to have more fun?
Join me for this free coaching conference call and get your questions answered. On the call I will conduct life coaching interviews, give you a reading of your aliveness and help you discover what light’s your fire!
Please click here to sign up for this event and to receive your conference call details. I am looking forward to meeting you!
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My friend’s 10 year old daughter loves posing in front of the mirror
(for some odd reason their whole house is covered with them), moving
her hips, doing little dance moves, tossing her hair and arms while
smiling at herself in admiration. Her whole body emanates joy and
pleasure and I am sitting in awe, watching her.
I catch myself wondering how long she will keep her lighthearted
innocence alive. How long until she wishes her body was different, not
as curvy, feminine and round?
I don’t remember how I fell out of love with myself but I certainly
did. Maybe it was the comments my mother made, that I was big for my
age, that I had a waist while most kids did not? Or the snickering,
adolescent boys in school climbing the stairs behind me, whispering
something about my ‘big butt’? Some things seemed to be wrong with me
and I did not like it. I wanted to be like the other girls, skinny,
boyish, and cool!
Later I found out that I was not the only one. Today I find it heart
breaking to see how many women are hard on themselves, not liking who
they are very much at all. How is that possible? Just like my friend’s
daughter we are all so beautiful, vibrant and made to have fun!
For me, loving myself again started with loving and accepting my
body first. Funny enough I did this by becoming a fashion consultant.
While helping others to see their own beauty, I discovered mine. It was
a somewhat shocking and surprising experience (there was actually
nothing wrong with me!), and my first step in finding out who I really
was.
How about you? How can you fall in love with yourself again and
alter the way you perceive yourself? Here are a few things that have
helped me on the way and maybe they can make a difference for you, too:
- You probably are our own worst critic. To change the picture you
have of yourself, ask a few of your truly best friends for feedback:
What do they love about you? What are your strengths? How do you
contribute to their lives? Make sure these friends have your best
interest at heart. Really listen and take it in.
- Pay attention to positive feedback in your life. Accept
acknowledgment, soak it in, dwell in it. Stay away from negative
people, their feedback and criticism. Personally, I tune it out.
- Next time you go shopping, take a friend that has a great sense of
style and loves shopping with you. Be courageous. Try out new looks,
colors, even things you don’t think look good on you. Just explore and
see what happens.
- Listen to your body. Women are made for pleasure. Unfortunately most
of us are out of touch with what we need. We push and go the extra mile
and often lose our aliveness doing it. When you are pressured, you lose
your natural wisdom. You forget what is good for you and what isn’t. So
listen to your body. Take breaks when you are exhausted, take a hot
bath to relax, dance, move, sleep. Everything else can wait. Don’t
worry, your life will still be there when you return.
I wish you a wonderful time exploring your beauty, fun and wisdom! Let me know what you find out.
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How is life without excuses? I thought it was an interesting question so I tried it out for one week. This is what I experienced:
From the get go I realized that I used excuses for two main things in my life. For all the stuff I thought I should do but actually did not want to do and for the things that were unfamiliar, hard or scary to me. In both cases using excuses helped me to put them off indefinitely. The first category I took off my list. The second one I tackled.
This is what I did.
I very thoroughly sorted through my life’s priorities and goals. What was important to me and lit my fire and what was not, what was outdated and what was merely a good idea that I did not have the passion to act on, etc.
Once I had my priorities straight, I made a plan of action. I looked at the flow of my week, the vibration of the days (I know it sounds goofy, but I love this kind of stuff … Monday is influenced by the moon, which makes it a bit mellow, sensitive, etc. so I chose Monday for my personal holiday where I relax, ponder new ideas, connect with family and friends, etc.) and came up with a clearly defined weekly and daily schedule with specific tasks.
When making a schedule be aware of the flow and the rhythm of your life. Don’t try to force things a certain way. In my life the best time for getting things done is in the morning while my daughter is at school. Afternoons are more flexible, with some appointments, exercise and time for family.
After noticing that unfamiliar things got pushed to the back of my list, I put them first. Second came the tasks that were easy and took almost no focus or discipline to get done.
Another, very important observation I made this week was that there were thousands of distraction every day that kept me off track (and using excuses). Brian Tracey talks about this in detail on his new CD “Flight Plan”. He says that on a flight from Los Angeles to New York a plane is off course more than 95% of the time! The job of the pilot is to make constant course corrections. This is true for life, too. Once you know your destination, you will have to make adjustments. Factor this in and don’t get upset when it happens. Get to know your major distractions and deal with them. I noticed that I tend to make time for family over my own projects which in the end gets me frustrated. Be aware, make things work for you (and others) and course correct.
Here are the steps again.
First, be very, very clear about what you want. Get rid of the stuff that does not light your fire. Next, make a clear plan of action. Put your priorities in order of most important, second most important, etc. Put unfamiliar things first. Make a weekly and daily schedule to keep you on track.
And last, make sure to schedule in play time! One of the reasons I was using excuses in the first place was that I was tiring myself out by a lot of ‘doing’ and very little playing. Be kind to yourself. Put your aliveness first. Make having a good time a priority.
Have a wonderful week!
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