Your online course sales are skyrocketing, your newsletter subscriptions are up, and website hits are booming.
Is now the time to leave your job and go full force into your side hustle?
That depends.
You will find plenty of literature out there on the pros and cons of either. You have to outweigh the risks on your own. Only you know your level of devotion, commitment, and hard labor. I want to provide you with three questions that have helped me measure out the passion in my career, discovering if I’m up for the next adventure or If I’m wasting precious energy.
Do you believe in yourself?
Do you ever feel like an imposter? Have you ever been in a meeting where someone started speaking a foreign language by using terms you didn’t understand? Can you remember feeling lost and out of control. You probably wanted to run out of there before they looked at you and asked your opinion.
It happened to me I was starting in Learning & Development. My new director asked me how I handled attrition at the company. Attrition is an elementary business term, but I had never heard it before. I always referred to it as “turnover.”
The moment I heard his question, I should have said, “I’m sorry I am unfamiliar with that term.” But I didn’t. I pretended to know what it was and talked to him about nonsensical data. He looked at me funny, rephrased the question, and I understood but looked incompetent. The problem was that I didn’t believe in myself.
Going out on your own, you can guarantee that you will feel like an imposter. Many people are already selling similar services or courses. What do you have to offer?
The truth is that once you label yourself as a professional, people will treat you like a professional. The biggest challenge is whether or not you treat yourself as a professional.
To believe in yourself is being honest with your strengths and weaknesses. Maybe you are someone who received a promotion before you were ready or got into a position you were not qualified for. It happens all the time. Yet, it’s this false belief that we should know everything that gets us into trouble.
It’s impossible to know everything, but it’s not impossible to learn from others. People respect others who admit what they don’t know but then learn and apply that knowledge right away. Admit you don’t know the answer so you can then learn it and overcome your ignorance. Don’t run from questions your new clients dish out at you because you are afraid of losing their business. Show them you are a professional not because you know everything at the moment, but because you are someone who can learn what they need and deliver results.
Do you believe in your potential?
The tragedy of a human life is to see it fall short of the greatness it was made to become.
Starting your business will not be easy. You already know that, but do you believe that you have the potential to turn this idea into something great? If you can’t answer that with a resounding YES almost instantly, then give up and start doing something that excites you.
Ideas matter. Your ideas matter, even if they are echoes of what is out there. You need to hear those echoes to know what stirs the human heart.
It is potential.
We can’t help feeling cheated when the potential is stolen from us, which is why you probably want to leave your job in the first place. Your company is getting stagnant, paralyzed by clutter, and surrounded by leaders who cannot see what lies dormant in you.
Well, if you are going to get out there and shake things up on your own, you have to be the one who raises your potential from the imaginary to actuality.
Think about your business idea right now or your project? Can it become something bigger than yourself? Do you believe that it can?
Do you believe in your purpose?
Why should we listen to you? What value does it add to our lives? Why should my purpose be tethered to yours? What is your mission, and why should we go on it with you?
These are all questions you have heard before, but do you believe in your individual purpose?
“Most men lead lives of quiet desperation.” — Henry David Thoreau
We are desperate because we don’t know our purpose, yet we try to convince people to listen to another empty voice. Purpose often comes when you are not looking for it. You won’t find it on social media or by reading blogs. You will find it when you allow room for silence.
We have become a culture so afraid of silence that we pile on mountains of tasks in our to-do lists to feel we are busy. Our purpose is busyness.
You know that being busy does not fulfill you.
You have to ask for your purpose in silence. You have to wait for an answer without becoming desperate. You have to pay attention to the core rather than the fleeting feelings that bubble up at the moment.
Tether your story to that purpose. If you believe in it with your whole being, then you are ready to convince us to follow, listen, read, and buy into your ideas.
