Eliminate Risk

Self employment is risky.  We hear that said many times, it is usually the first thing that comes up for those who are thinking of starting their own business.  Let’s take a minute to see what risk is and how to eliminate it!

Risk by definition is the chance of suffering harm or loss and the uncertainty of all of this unknown.  Instead of worrying about how you can handle risk, worry about the best way to reduce risk.  The best way to reduce risk is to plan how you are going to eliminate the possibility of loss or harm occurring.  The more you know the less risk you have.  So how do you plan to eliminate risk?

1. Create a list of all possible risks for you in starting a business.  This can include income, time away from family, start-up costs, location, experience – you name it if it could be a problem for you put it down.
2. Study your personal situation, how long can your finances make it?  Do you have the traits to be self employed?
3. Your prospective businesses chances – try many what if scenarios, not just one best case scenario.  When doing a plan do a best, good, bad scenario and know what to do to handle the business during each scenario. 
4. Talk to others about your feelings about going into business for yourself.  Many times talking through issues and having a person as a sounding board is very beneficial!  At the least journal about them.

Planning eliminates lots of risk and makes you more comfortable with the steps you do take!  Don’t sit on the sidelines because of risk, make a game plan and start playing!

Reach your Goals with small steps, small times and consistency

Many times we find ourselves overwhelmed with the prospect of reaching our goals.  We become focused on the achievement of the goal and try to accomplish it by going for it all at once.   We focus on the loose 20 pounds by December instead of loose two pounds this week.  This makes us feel like we are constantly working on that goal and yet not getting anywhere.  This leads to feeling defeated and wanting to stop since we don’t seem to be reaching our goals even though we are working on them!  So how do we change that?  Three easy steps: focus on the basics, take life in small segments and be consistent! 

When looking at the basics of a goal you take the smallest task that will get you to your goal and then do that.  By breaking our goals down to small basic steps we can make our goals to become a reality.  So instead of loose 20 pounds we focus on walk 40 minutes a day and not eating junk food.

Take life in small segments; break your day down to 15 minute sections.  You can get that 40 minutes of exercise in if you focus on just getting a few minutes done at a time.  It is much easier to say I am going to avoid junk food for fifteen minutes than it is to say the whole day.  Plus, once you start something you tend to stick with it after about 10 minutes. 

The third ingredient is to do the small things consistently.  You need to walk at least five days a week and eat healthy multiple days to see any affect.  You cannot try and achieve your goals for one or two days and wonder why it did not work.  It is the repetition of the activity over time that will get us to our goals.

You can achieve your goals, it just takes the time to plan the small steps, the will to focus on the here and now and the discipline to do it every day!  In no time you will be on your way!

Are your goals yours?

Goals are not always YOUR goals!  I challenge you to think really think about what I just said.  Do you really want the goals you have set?  Consider this scenario: your goal is to become an attorney, but you don’t enjoy it and often times struggle with your classes.  Upon really looking at the goal of completing law school you realize it is your parent’s goal for you to be a lawyer, not yours!    This scenario is played out in more goals than you think.  When goals are not yours and you do not buy in and commit to them you will not achieve them or achieve them as quickly and effectively.  How can you really tell if this is a challenge that you have with your goals? 

Ask yourself these questions:

·         You are unhappy with no desire to achieve your goals

·         You are not achieving your goals.  No matter how hard you try. 

·         Do you have goals that work against each other?

·         Do I really want this? 

If you answer yes to any of these then re-write your goals!  Make them yours, achieving it will be much easier and you will be happier.  Make your goals your goals!

Do You Dream Big Enough?

Do you dream big enough?

This question came to me after a morning of reflection.  I was day dreaming about what I wanted my life to look like and something within me told me to dream bigger than I was,  I had not gone far enough yet with my visions.  So I pressed myself to expand my horizons and soon enough I was imaging more than I ever thought possible for me.  Then the big breakthrough came – a great idea for a new business.  As I continued to dreams about it and jot down the ideas I encouraged myself to dream even further about how this could get accomplished without me putting it on my idea list and having it sit there for six years.  I was shocked and amazed at how quickly this one idea began to transform my life vision.  All this because I allowed myself to go further into the process of dreaming than I ever had before.  This led me to asking “Do you dream big enough” and quickly followed by “Why not”?  What I came up with was fear and lack of imagination were the reasons our dreams do not grow as far as they should.    

Fear stopped me because what if I dreamed something and it did not come true?  What if someone made fun of my dreams for being too over the top?  What if my family was not on board with my vision?  The what if’s seemed to be endless.  Often when dreaming we become victims of the fear of failure and the fear of leaving our comfort zone, so we stop right before we truly reach our ideal vision. 

I had dreamed just to the point I knew I could achieve everything, it might be tough to get there but at least I knew I could do it.  I did not have to worry that I might not get there and thus be a failure.  But is failure really all that bad?  Failure teaches us what does not work, and provides valuable lessons to move forward with what can work.  Failure can be the universes way of pointing us in the right direction, leading us to our true path which can only be achieved by living through failures.  Would I be a coaching today if I had not taken my various career paths that seemed to continually end with no direction? Maybe, but the fact that they all seemed to be the wrong career for me enabled me to reach my dream job by expanding my horizons and helping me narrow down what worked and what did not!  How is that a failure when it leads to the best career for me?

I also dreamed just to the point where I did not have to leave my comfort zone or the comfort zone of my family.  If I stayed in the comfort zone then I did not have to fear the judgments of others so I was safe.  But was I really?  What good is living by the judgment of others?  Does it allow you to live your dreams?  If you are going to dream then why stop at the point others will be happy?  The point of dreaming is that YOU are happy beyond your wildest dreams.  To get to this point you must dream beyond your comfort zone, when others see how happy you are they will follow.   

How does lack of imagination stop you from dreaming about the best life possible for you?  Imagination is forming an idea or vision of something that does not exist for you.  So if you have never experienced your life vision then how can you imagine it?  It is almost a catch 22 scenario, how do you know what to dream if you can’t perceive it?  In steps imagination, this allows you to go beyond what you know to create new dreams. 

So how do you move beyond fear and lack of imagination? 

First you must leave your fear zone.  How do you do this?  You take your goal or vision and continue to push it one step further and feel the emotions as you continue to envision that goal.  Begin by taking on goals that you already have established and take it one step further from where you have it.  So if your goal is to be able to run 3 miles by the end of the year, imagine what running four miles by the end of the year would feel like.  As you step further into your dream feel the fear and embrace it, only then can you look it head on and move forward.  Go on it is just a dream you cannot get hurt in a dream; you may be amazed at how quickly the fear moves away!  Continue to practice doing this until it becomes second nature!

Second, begin to work on your imagination by letting your mind wander while gently prodding yourself to go further.  Begin by building your dream and then ask yourself “what next”, follow that with “then what” and keep asking yourself “then what” until your vision grows bigger than you ever thought possible. Eventually your mind will run wild and create more than you expected.  Remember to give it time and don’t let it stop, just keep asking “then what”.   Allow yourself the time and space to really get into your dream.  You will know when it is the right stopping point as it will feel right, I know that sounds odd, but when you hit it you will know it, just like you know home!

Soon you will be able to say YES I dream big enough and be able to move forward to achieving them!

To let go of a goal or not…

Most of us are taught that you should set a goal and go for it until you achieve it.  Is this really a beneficial way to succeed?  I personally do not believe so.  Many times half way through a goal I will realize that it is the wrong goal, or that it needs a small change to really make it my goal.  We change as we grow and learn, so how can the goal that was right for us 4 months, 6 months or 2 years ago be the right goal now?  Goals should be ours, which means they should change as we do.  This is not wimping out or being weak – it is strength to admit we were headed in the wrong direction and that we need to move forward.  Does this mean if we are not achieving something that we automatically change the goal?  NO, it does mean we need to evaluate why we are not meeting that goal and take steps to solve the problem.  That could mean a new goal or a new approach to reaching that goal.  Your goals are your goals: adjust them, rewrite them and achieve them in a way that works for you!