Self Employed or Bust

Setting off on a journey of any kind requires setting goals. Would you hike into an unknown wilderness without a map, compass and clearly defined schedule and objectives? Failing to, you might see wonders, but you’ll be lucky to survive the experience. Your career objectives (self employed or not) require the same common sense approach.

The point is knowing what we want to get out of this experience before committing ourselves to the task. How much income will we require before we cut free from our day jobs? How long do we expect it to take before we cut free? How will we manage important considerations such as health insurance and retirement savings? Will we require up-front capital to get our venture off the ground? The very act of writing goals will help to define additional goals and considerations we’d not even thought of before.

It’s important to recognize that goals are fluid objectives, particularly when it comes to something you’ve never done before. Missing targets and timelines isn’t the end of the world. If I want to be independent of my day job and fully self employed in one year but it takes a year and six months, it isn’t going to kill me. As long as I’m realizing forward progress, I’m on the right track.

Furthermore, don’t be tied to your goals at all costs. Again, with a new experience, you may well find you’ve not considered every contingency. Having flexibility built into your objectives will allow you to accommodate such things as delays in acquiring permits, funding, securing a replacement for your former day job and a myriad of other easily unanticipated delays.

Again, what you care about is that you’re moving in the right direction. The delays and unexpected experiences gained along the way are nothing more than learning opportunities from which you will grow. Faced with the same in the future, you’ll be more prepared, adaptable and quick to respond. After all, your first self employment venture may only be one of many successful efforts.

With that said, here is the first draft of my own goals. Remember, yours may (and probably should) vary slightly to accommodate your own needs, desires and expectations. There will be little in the way of timelines on this first run through. For your own goals, just start writing. Don’t think about where, when and how, just start jotting down what you want to accomplish and what’s most important to you. We’ll be fleshing things out in future posts.

Work from home – I don’t want to commute to an office and I want to have the freedom to live wherever I wish without having to concern myself with distances to an office.

Diversity – I want my income efforts to be varied and not tied to one medium, style, format or model. I want the business to keep itself fresh in my eyes by virtue of the diverse things there are to do.

Replace 80% of my current day job income with income from my self employment venture within 2 years. At that point, I will resign from my day job.

Replace 100% of my former day job income within 2.5 years.

Double my former day job income within 3.5 to 4 years.

Beyond monetary concerns, within 5 years, my company should be fully enhancing my life rather than detracting from it by robbing me of time. 5 years is my limit for pouring all my free time into this venture. At that point I insist on having vacations, weekends and a reasonable work/life balance.

I would like my self employed job to encourage, benefit from and pay for travel to interesting places.

No employees. At worst I will only need the occasional freelance contractors to further my business growth in the form of advertisers, writers, web developers or graphic designers.

Sole Proprietor – I do not want to share profits or depend on another individual for the success of my business. My experience with friends in the past is that they are neither as motivated nor dedicated as I am and I would resent carrying a company while sharing profit. No strained friendships.

Independent from personal assets. I will in all likelihood incorporate as soon as possible to ensure a separation of my business assets from my personal assets. In the event of litigation or collapse of my company, I do not want my personal assets to be at risk.

100% legitimate. I do not want to engage in scams, shady dealings or any other activity that isn’t completely up front. Integrity with my clients and adherence to all local and federal laws is of paramount importance to me. I never want to feel guilty about a single penny earned nor do I want to ever jeopardize my long term livelihood for short term gains.

Increasing self-sustainability – In the long term, I want my company to be more and more self sufficient at earning money without constant intervention by me. This particularly pertains to web-based elements of the business in which solid, valuable content and information should draw customers and advertisers with occasional updates rather than daily updates required.

Charitable – I want my business to benefit others in some way. Whether that benefit comes from direct contributions made to charity out of my profits or by providing information which is helpful to others at a price far less than its value or free of charge, my work should benefit others as much as possible.

That will do for now. The above list will serve as a foundation from which to build. As I research and prepare over the coming months I will revisit this list and modify it accordingly (updating this blog with the changes). When all is said and done, I expect to have a longer more detailed list but I also expect to have a shorter mission plan which encompasses the root of what I hope to accomplish.

Hopefully you’ve created list of goals right along with me. Print it out and hang it up someplace where you’ll have to look at it every day. Don’t just glance at it or forget about it. You want these goals to become real to you and seeing them daily will help remind you what you are trying to accomplish.