My biggest problem with self-employment was me. To be self-employed I had to start thinking like him. I found myself going back to that ninth to the fifth concept. If I didn’t work every hour, I probably wouldn’t be working. Sometimes a self-employed person has to make decisions about his or her business. Sometimes he just thinks of a solution to a problem. Sometimes he has to keep his mind quiet for new ideas to come up. Just because you don’t hit the typewriter every minute doesn’t mean it doesn’t work. I also learned that it is OK not to answer a phone call every time it rings. That’s what voicemail means, and the same goes for email. From my ninth to the fifth term, I would leave the email program open all day and respond to each as it arrived. It took me a while to realize that it’s okay to check email several times a day instead of always being distracted. It is actually more productive than stopping your thinking process every time you “have a post.” In one of my jobs, I was able to allow the phone to be voicemail, but it took me a while to be able to close the email again. You will have days when you feel you have not accomplished much. Then again, you will have days when you will feel that you can conquer the world and you will be amazed at how much you have done. Some days you may not complete many tasks, but you will decide which problem to solve. Or you may be learning something important about yourself. Also, I had to learn to stop splitting all my work into dollars and cents. I used to worry about how much I was earning or not getting paid every day. The fact is, some days you will do more than others. If I spend my day in marketing matters, even though I did not make money that day, I will benefit from it in the future. Rather than worry about what profits I was making or not, I realized that the profit I had from my business was that I was only answering myself. Everything I do will benefit me sooner or later. Instead of my income being dependent on someone else’s budget, I could go where I wanted to go. And because I now do what I truly love and not what someone else tells me, I am much happier and more satisfied. I have learned that if you start THINKING as an entrepreneur, you will actually be one.
