Sometimes when you spend some personal time all alone, all by your self. In that silence, free of any external disturbance the small inner voice talks to you. It ask some soul searching questions to which your attention is suddenly drawn to. It consumes all of your attention. In that period of time you come to realize some valuable insights –
You come to the realization that : You are tired and bored of your job. You seem to see no happiness or joy in your current job. Your passion is somewhere else. You are here because of your circumstances not because of your passion. The people you work with create a very stressful environment. You achieve very less satisfaction in your job. Monday’s are dreadful. You wish to work in the area of your passion, achieve great things and live a life of your dreams. You believe you have a lot of untapped, unutilized potential and talent. You feel you could use it and make it big.
“This realization is an indication that, It’s time for you to explore and start something worthy of you.“
Everything begins small and grows big. The same applies to your plans for the business. The dreams got to be big and motivating. At the same time the steps got to be small and measurable. Nothing ever starts big. Start with small steps but keep your eye on the big dream. See long term
If you are still undecided or unsure about what to do. The best and easiest thing to do is introspect and identify a skill or hobby that you like. You will come to a realization that there’s something you liked a lot but due to some reason or the other you just ignored it or were forced to abandon it. On further exploration you come to know that you may actually be good at it or you feel confident that somehow you could easily upgrade your skills and make it work big time for you.
The hobby or skill could be sports, drawing, painting, music, teaching, talking to people, love for animals, dog training, physical fitness, helping others, social work etc.
It has to be something that you are deeply passionate about but could not pursue due to family pressure, financial pressure or just plain situational at the earlier time in your life. It just didn’t feel right to pursue that hobby. It did not make much sense to devote too much time and attention. But now the time seems right and it’s something that will really make you happy as well.
After you have identified the “Why” and thought about the “What”. The next step is to focus on the “HOW”. So now do some research to acquire information what other people are doing in that area of your interest. How did they start, grow and face the challenges. What strategies and ideas did they implement to overcome the challenges? How long did it take to reach where they currently are? How much of time, energy, money will you have to invest to get there?
Let’s assume your interest area is deep love for dogs. See what other people are doing in that area of love for dogs. People have pet shops, pet trainer, pet grooming, pet boarding, pet breeders, marine pets, flying pets, dog walkers, pet saloon, pet toys, pet foods, home cooked foods for pets, caring for sick pets etc.
Research about how they started and developed their business. Their starting stories, their struggles and challenges. Identify the steps involved in starting and developing the business. After you have gathered sufficient data. It’s time to sit and think of a plan that suits your capital and the time that’s available to you. That’s the financial and time resources at your disposal.
Now develop a phase wise plan for the entire project based on your research. Work on the Phase wise development plan for your business. Starting small and scaling up. Plans about reaching the targets by breaking the goals into sub-goals.
This plan should have an outline that clearly describes Major stages and the steps to be taken in each stage. A fine detailed plan consisting of every minor detail and the sub steps involved. Clearly defined Roles of the people involved, the available resources of time, property, money and human.
Every step should be written as clearly and explicitly as possible, leaving very little room for error. Hence the research is very important and should not to be taken lightly
Set deadlines for each step and sub step along with the desired results to be achieved and accomplished to ascertain the success of the plan.
Break the major goals into sub goals and mini goals.
Start as soon as possible. Keep up the pace and honor the deadlines. Start with a bang.
Keep up the momentum. Start with small goals, remember you are doing this along with your existing job. This is your side business at this moment.
Use a planner to look for the time available for you to contribute your time to the business. Mark it in your planner. Be extremely disciplined cause no one will direct you. Remember you are your own boss. Set the start dates and end dates for each goal and sub goals. Stay on target.
You will sometimes be bang on target and sometimes totally miss the mark. Here’s the catch. Focus on effort not results. If you focus on results, you will quickly get disappointed and pull the curtains on your dreams.
Focus on your efforts. Feel happy when you have given your best shot. If you hit target or miss it. Just tell yourself, “It’s not all that important”. Don’t get me wrong. It’s very critical to the success of the plan that you succeed at every step. But the trick is not to let that be your primary focus. The primary focus should be, that you are putting your level best and getting better at what you do, day after day. Focus on the small progress. This will keep your spirits high and help you to keep moving even when the going gets tough.
Slowly and gradually you will enjoy your time in the side business. It will grow and over time supercede your existing non interesting job.
At that point of time you could make an informed decision on your further course of action. Till then Hustle.
If you need any help, guidance and training to start your own business or to improve the working and productivity of your staff we could help you.
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Dr. Alfred D'Silva 
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