Becoming an entrepreneur can be an exciting prospect, but before you leap into any new business venture or quit that 9-5 ball and chain pause and do some soul searching.
If you are among the roughly one in 13 Americans who's serious about wanting to work for yourself, here are some questions to ask yourself and some books to get you thinking about the bigger picture and your life goals.
Having all the answers isn't what makes a person a good entrepreneur. Having a powerful inclination to ask questions is.
Explore "why-to" questions rather than "how-to" give serious thought to the why before plunging in. Why do I want my own business? Why do I want to own this particular business? It is best to sort through your motivations, aims, and priorities now than to discover you made the wrong choice later.
It’s not only in sorting through life-value issues that entrepreneurs can profit from an inquiring mind. It's in asking why or what if questions. Why do we do something that way? Why do we do it at all? What if we did it this way?
This is how most entrepreneurs get their ideas for the products, services, and system innovations they build new companies around. Asking how gives you someone else's answer asking why or what if enables you to seek out your own.
You have to begin by asking questions on a personal level in order to refine your plans, and increase the likelihood of your success.
1. What do I want out of life? What are my life goals? There is no more important question that you can ask than the one that will help you prioritize your own life plan. Do you want to earn a lot of money? Do you want to spend more time with your family? Do you want to retire by the time you reach 50? You shouldn't even begin to contemplate running your own business until you have a clear idea of how it will advance your life goals.
2. What do I like to do? Before you start figuring out the investment involved you have to figure out a much more important question: What makes you happy? What do you like to do? There's no point in buying a business and then finding out that you hate your daily responsibilities.
3. How do I educate myself? You could look at books that will pose questions that aspiring entrepreneurs should ask themselves before taking their first steps to starting a business. You could take work shops, personal development classes, or explore the area of life and business coaching. Learn something new everyday and be a resource to someone everyday. These two things will help you grow your business because you will become more involved in your world community and you will receive inspired ideas to make things better for that community.
BZ Riger-Hull is a nationally recognized certified Success Coach and “Four Agreements” Leader, she is the Author of “The Soul of Success.”
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