Feeling Stuck? Clear Your Windshield
It’s quickly becoming the new American Dream to be a sole proprietor, or solo-entrepreneur, calling your own shots and schedule as you build wealth your own way. Small businesses employ about 50 percent of all American workers, and more than half of all small businesses are based out of the owner’s home, according to the Small Business Administration.
It’s estimated that almost 70 percent of home-based businesses succeed for at least three years, compared to 29 percent for outside the home business ventures. The higher success rate is attributed to the old adage “don’t quit your day job” as many home-based businesses operate their enterprises part time while working full time in other endeavors.
Nevertheless, starting a home-based business can be a daunting challenge, even if you have worked as a leader in corporate America, because your success depends solely on what you put into your business. If you are coming from the background of working as an employee, it can be an even bigger jump to make the lifestyle adjustments you need to make for your business to succeed. Often this calls for massive change, and that’s not something that comes naturally to some or even most of us. Consider the New Year’s resolutions so many of us make each year. While 45 percent of Americans usually make New Year’s resolutions, only about 8 percent succeed in keeping them, according to commonly cited statistics.
Running any business, large or small, requires planning, goal setting, networking, marketing and knowing and understanding the needs of your customers. There are a thousand tasks and details to stay on top of. Unless you are on fire and motivated every day, starting and running your home business can seem overwhelming. To succeed you need to adopt a new mindset. The key is to learn to pivot – to be agile so that you can constantly adapt, creating new strategies to overcome obstacles. To do that you must connect with what ignites your passion every day.
A few years ago I walked away from the Manhattan law firm I had spent 17 years building to embark on a new career as a trainer and eventually CEO of a global human potential training firm. Despite the piles of money I was making and the prestige I enjoyed, I found myself working 70 to 80 hours a week and often sleeping in my office. I was happily married to the love of my life with four wonderful kids, but seeing them less and less. I felt the gnawing sense that I was not fulfilling my true purpose despite all the outward trappings of success. Once active and athletic, I felt my energy ebbing away. Finally a health scare – landing in the hospital hooked to monitors and wondering if I would ever see my kids again – pushed me to make a major change in my life.
For a long time I had dreamed of becoming a trainer, inspiring others to achieve their dreams. So I wound down my law practice and jumped in fully to my new life, despite no guarantees that I would succeed. For a year and a half I chased my dream on my own time and dime, flying from event to event, warming up audiences and being energized as I saw other people step out and pivot to reach their dreams.
When you start a business out of your home, you have your own set of dreams. These may include more flexibility in balancing life and work, meeting a need that you see, connecting with the world and building more wealth and opportunity for yourself and your family. To do this with passion requires clarity. The first step is to get clear on what you truly want. This can sometimes be harder than we think because our vision has become clouded and narrowed over the years, without us even being aware of it.
Over time, relationships, impressions from childhood, emotionally charged moments, daily habits and content we consume can cloud and narrow our vision. This can prevent us from seeing all the possibilities in front of us. That can be the kiss of death for any small business owner.
To help you regain the 360-degree vision you need to succeed, I’ve developed an exercise called “The Windshield: An Introduction to Clarity.” These six steps can help you to pivot and meet all kinds of challenges, whether in your business or personal life.
1. “Unbelieve” myths that are keeping you stuck. Maybe you think pivoting is too risky, or that you don’t have the time or discipline you need to run a business out of your home. It could be the myth that you have to quit your day job or take other big risks. Pivoting isn’t about sudden, radical change. It’s about envisioning and creating a realistic path to sustainable change.
2. Let Go of the need to know exactly how your pivot will unfold. Preoccupation with a plan can keep you as stuck as focusing on the past. Pivoting is a process, not a plan. Each step in the process creates the next step. Just because you can’t see all the steps doesn’t mean they aren’t there. Learn to take each step as it presents itself rather than sticking doggedly to a plan.
3. Face Your Fear – Fear is the single biggest barrier to change. It is a roadblock to deciding what you want and how to get it. Your fears might include “what if I fail?” or “what if I lose my money?” “If I try to start a business,” you may tell yourself, “I’ll have to spend my savings. Then I’ll go bankrupt, be unable to pay my bills, lose my home,” etc. Such fears represent an emotional threat. Understand that fear is almost always based on unlikely extremes. Learn to face your fear realistically. Determine what is your most reasonable worst-case scenario. Then you can pivot to either avoid it or roll with the punches that come.
4. Envision Your Future – Once you have a clear windshield you must decide where you are going and how to get there. The surest way to derail a pivot in its early stages is to start wondering how. So let go of the “how” for now. Shift your focus away from obstacles and toward what you want to achieve. Give yourself freedom to dream, then you can begin designing the steps to get there.
5. “Enter the Pivot Phone Booth” – Your success building your home-based business depends on your passion. Make sure your business aligns with who you really are deep down, your true identity. This is what inspires you and calls you to action. Most of us have been taught to believe you do certain things in life in order to have certain things in order to be someone others would respect as a result. Instead, focus first on who you want to become, and then begin acting based on that identity. Once you find what I call your “Inner Superhero,” you are ready to begin.
6. Big-D Decide – A “Big-D Decision” is the moment of truth when you have clarity about what you need to change and are ready to take action. The stakes are always high and emotionally charged, and they always involve action. You will feel driven to begin making change.
To pivot is to take action. No matter the pivot, we all have things we know we must do but put off out of fear. What are the first steps you need to take? Make a list of the things you know you need to do, but have been putting off. Once your vision is clear, you should be able to prioritize and act upon them.
You will know you are ready when the pain of not taking action becomes greater than the pain of acting. Suddenly staying in one place becomes intolerable and you feel driven to take the steps you know are before you. As soon as you act, you open up a world of possibilities.
What will it take to achieve the dreams you have around your home-based business? Commit to taking those steps that come into focus as your windshield is cleared of all that’s been holding you back. You will know when you have arrived at that point. The path ahead becomes so obvious, so inspiring and so empowering, that action is no longer an option, but a necessity.
