Do you currently hate you’re job?
Are you sick of hearing about people who love their jobs while you start dreading work, 2 days before you even have to go back? I’m just saying, start, do it for yourself!
Create a vision board and Dream big. So are you ready? Let’s go.
Step 1 – Dream big, start a vision board.
I like pictures so Canva suited me, my friend likes Trello, I also use OneNote to organise myself once I have my vision in pictures mapped out. I strongly recommend you get yourself onto canva.com – initially you can use the free one, but once you’re serious about earning money it’s worth the investment to subscribe to the pro version later, there’s a free version of Trello also.
Pro-Tip It’s really important to spend time on that vision, how does it feel showing up in your vision, it needs to feel good, or you need to keep at this stage of imagining until you find one that your heart agrees with, not just something you’re good at that you were pushed into.
Pro-tip Dream your dream, every day, see it, visualise what’s it’s like to be in it, how does it feel? What do you see, hear, spend 20 minutes a day minimum dreaming this dream – looking up to access the brain functions for creating a future. If you’re feeling down, go for a walk and look at the roof tops and birds in the trees, look up and keep looking up.
Pro-Tip – Ignore the nay sayers, what do they know? have they started their own business and loving life? loving what they do? If they truly love what they do and are successful as well, they will encourage you to dream big and only do what you love.
Pro-Tip – Anyone that makes you feel like shit about your dream, stop listening to them, walk away. Be protective of your dream! This is really important. Nurish the dream by dreaming about it often, imagine yourself already doing what you want to be doing. Don’t discuss with the nay sayers, and know that you can learn anything you need to get you to where you want to go.
Pro-Tip – Plant the seeds of learning to grow your dreams. There is training for just about everything online. For creative professionals there’s so many to choose from, I spent a lot of time perfecting some of photography skills on creativelive.com, I also watched quite a few Master Class Series along the way. If you are looking at learning a specific craft consider skillshare, creativelive, masterclass, good old Youtube is my go to for learning all the new stuff – especially AI tools, find some people you like to follow.
Warnings – there are too many video’s saying you can earn millions with no skills and little effort (bs) it will require you to develop skills if you don’t have them, which is very doable! and you will need to stick at it and do it, which is why I say you must love what you are about to do – or you won’t invest.
Pro-Tip – How do you know when you love doing something? You loose track of time when you do it, and want to do it again, and again.
Step 2 Turn your Vision into clear goals, beginning with the end in mind.
Start where you intend to end up.
What are the specific goals for your side-gig, Holiday in Greece? Financial independence (working for yourself)? Own a car / home?
Will you be doing it full time, what is the point when you will go full time (define it). Or is it simply earning $$$ for that cool holiday?
The most important thing is to define it. Be clear – what’s the end view, and work backwards.
You should be developing a clear set of goals at this stage all directly related to your big vision.
Step 3 With your Vision and a clear set of GOALS in hand, you’re now ready to break these down into actionable steps. It’s ok if you don’t know everything yet, you will discover along the way and learn what you need to along the way.
For a holiday (Great if you need to prove to yourself you can do this before taking on the big challenge) – be clear about where it is you are going, what costs are, contingency travel money (30% min), Flights, vehicle hire, holiday accomodation, insurance, 3 meals a day. Be as detailed as you can, like you work for a travel agent put a full itinerary and costings together. Then look at breaking down this amount into what you would need to earn each month from your side-gig to achieve this goal.
For becoming your own boss – Set goals for Year 3, Year 2, Year 1 identifying where the income will come from for each year (always starting from the end backwards). If you are unsure these are aspiraltional goals, when you get up and running you may learn different things work and you may pivot, that’s ok. For more on what to expect you might earn look at youtube sources of other business and their success journey’s, business is done one customer at a time. If you are getting into e-commerce I highly recommend eRank so that you can look up you’re competitors and understand where the market is at in your niche.
Pro-Tip – Planning, finding Niches, I would recommend using chat GPT (see my blog for how to set it up as you’re assistant), I have ChatGPT set up on my browser bookmark favourites top left of my screen, so I can go to it any any time for putting together structured thoughts, plans, how to frameworks as foundation to edit.
Step 4 Get your first customer, doesn’t matter if its someone you know or a relative, but get used to pitching it and positioning your service/product, so that you can learn about what customers are looking for. The key to any successful business is to understand your customer, listen to them and iterate your business model as you learn what works.
Step 5 Keep pitching, tell everyone, and learn from their feedback (avoiding they negative ney sayers), but critical feedback can be useful, when useful take the feedback and learn from it if you can.
Step 6 Once you have 10+ customers, are there things you can do to automate or streamline your customer engagement? Improve your customer engagement, make sure to stay in contact with them, say thank you, invite them to look at other offerings etc. You need to foster a positive relationship with every customer as they are the easiest ones to sell to a second time.
Step 7 Keep going! don’t let anything stop you. Mind over matter, do what it takes to stay motivated, I used to watch Anthony Robbins to get me fired up, even if he can be very annoying, he get’s you fired up and focused. Remind yourself I CAN, I WILL, I DO! – as you will become what you do and think on a daily basis. So Start today! your dreams are about to show up!
Step 8 – Enjoy that Holiday or being your own boss! You’ve earned it! Help someone else break free. and remember I CAN, I WILL, I DO!
Jo Dawne is an Creative Professional, breaking out of the day to day grind of working for someone else, and seeking to do what she loves on a daily bases. Check out here new Art website here www.jodawne.com
(Note websites are .com if not stated)
