One Can Be the Loneliest Number…

You’ve become fatigued with doing a job for someone else. You’re grinding away while someone else reaps the hefty rewards. The thought of taking this show on the road has entered, crossed, and climbed the walls of your mind for quite some time now.  You’re sure you’ve mastered this hamster wheel and how to navigate it. The only possible logical step is self                                                                                                                                   employment, right?  Sounds heavenly.

Are you the kind of person who likes to park in the same parking lot as all of the others in your building? Do you like having lunch in the same restaurant with the same bald-headed CEO and grey-haired secretary that you’ve seen every day for years and then see them in the elevator going back to work? Do you thrive in familiarity?  Does that motivational quote hanging on the wall above the entrance still give you hope and inspiration every time you see it? If you answered yes to any of the above questions, then my friend, self-employment may not be for you.

Being your own boss has much more to do with rejection and perseverance than it does with raking in the big bucks. There are plenty more sales you don’t make and clients you don’t land than there are that you do. At least in the beginning. The seriously sobering thought that if you don’t make the transaction, you don’t get the business. If you don’t get the business, well, you know where this is going. Everything lies, rests, and depends on you. That could be a very grim realization.

Lets’ face it. Loneliness plays a large role in the self-starter world. You’re left to your own devices. To cipher things out for yourself and to make the decisions relevant to your day, mood, and future. Your singular misstep could result in you owing an astronomical sum in taxes, or something utterly outrageous like that,  but your blunder wouldn’t even phase the company you were working for prior. Sure, you could ditch it all and enjoy a liquid lunch with your golf buddies and no one would be the wiser. You’d just have to shut down that annoying little voice in your head A.K.A your conscience telling you to “GET BACK TO WORK” before you’re digging dinner out of a dumpster-you’re not making money if you’re not working.

The bottom line here is that if you can work hard, endure stress and risk, cope with conceivable calamity, and work well alone, you may have a future in self employment. If this all sounds completely unfathomable to you, but  you feel like you need a change, maybe try re-decorating your cubicle. Hang a picture or two.