From Working For Someone to Working For Yourself

As some­one that is in tran­si­tion between work­ing online part time with a full time job to work­ing full time online, I thought it would be inter­est­ing to see the dif­fer­ences between the two. And what it’s taken so far to get more towards the lat­ter. I just have to say it’s def­i­nitely not always an easy thing, espe­cially when you spend most of you life work­ing for some­one else. It can be a daunt­ing task to change, but some­thing that is extremely rewarding.

Money
This is a big moti­va­tor for most peo­ple that take up an inter­est in work­ing for them­selves. There are plenty of promises that say you can make a ton online. And for the most part that is true as long as you work for it and learn. It is true that the sky is the limit. When you work for your­self you can make a mas­sive income. Peo­ple do it all the time.

On the other hand, with a reg­u­lar job, there is always a glass ceil­ing. Don’t get me wrong, there are some high pay­ing jobs out there, but that limit is still there. Some peo­ple are con­tent with that. Oth­ers are not. And in order to make to, or even get past that glass ceil­ing, you have to either change jobs or work on improv­ing your career.

But by work­ing for your­self, you are in charge mak­ing the money and how much. You basi­cally are paid for your own effort. This in itself is some­thing to get used too. Han­dling money and mak­ing a steady income. It takes some work. At least until you get good at things and cre­ate your own cash flow. Once you learn how, you have the power to make how­ever much or lit­tle money as you want.

Self Devel­op­ment
This is a pretty big one. It’s some­thing I’ve dis­cov­ered and worked on myself for the past year or more. I have found that your online busi­ness is directly con­nected with you and how much you improve your­self. Learn­ing new skills and chang­ing your­self to the entre­pre­neur mind­set take some work. But you come out as a bet­ter per­son for it. And your busi­ness improves as well.

In a job, you need to work on the skills per­tain­ing to your job and that’s about it. You could learn new skills to enhance and move up in the work­ing world but it’s much more spe­cial­ized and less per­sonal than run­ning your own business.

Sched­ul­ing and Rou­tines
In a reg­u­lar job, you go to work every day at about the same time (usu­ally). Clock in and clock out. Basi­cally they tell you when to work and when not too. You don’t have to worry about it. And every­one always looks for­ward to the day off.

When you work for your­self, you have to sched­ule every­thing your­self. You have to find a bal­ance between work­ing and not work­ing. You tell your­self when to do cer­tain tasks and when to take a break. It’s com­pletely up to you.

This is both a good thing and a bad thing, depend­ing on how things are han­dled. It’s a big load to take on and it takes learn­ing new sys­tems and rou­tines. This is a big change from work­ing for some­one else. And even to this day I still see peo­ple that strug­gle with this kind of thing online. Includ­ing myself at times. It’s a big adjust­ment but well worth the effort.

Think of your rou­tines and tasks as the gears in your busi­ness. Keep them clean and kept up and they will all work together to run the busi­ness. If you don’t strike a bal­ance with your rou­tines and sched­ul­ing, then it can bring the whole thing a halt. There is a lot to keep track of and do when work­ing for yourself.

But that also means you have con­trol of every­thing. It’s your busi­ness and you can put what­ever gears, bits, and bolts you want into it. This, in the end, is why it pays off. It’s your cre­ation, your busi­ness.

Fam­ily and Per­sonal Time
This is along the same lines as above. Run­ning your own busi­ness also gives you the free­dom to spend time with your fam­ily and friends. That is the big goal for want to start­ing your own busi­ness; to be free. To be able to do what you want, when you want and be able to afford it too.

When you work for some­one else, your fam­ily and per­sonal time revolves around the job hours. Although this does make things con­sis­tent, it’s also restrict­ing. Not to men­tion the things you might miss too. There are times when I wish I didn’t need to go to work so I could stay home and spend time with my kids.

But on the flip side it’s also easy to get caught up in run­ning your own busi­ness. That’s one thing I always make sure to keep in check. I love build­ing my own con­tent and busi­ness. But I make sure that my fam­ily gets some time too. No mat­ter what.

You Are Run­ning a Busi­ness
Another appeal to the idea of work­ing from home is doing some­thing you enjoy. Every­one wants a job that they love to do. The major­ity of peo­ple don’t get that. But run­ning a busi­ness gives you the flex­i­bil­ity to do some­thing you enjoy.

This is great but also some­thing to not get too hooked on. I absolutely love blog­ging and writ­ing. And build­ing my own lit­tle busi­ness is very sat­is­fy­ing. It too much enjoy­ment to be work. And that’s what I want to point out. It’s all too easy to for­get that although I’m enjoy­ing what I’m doing, I’m still run­ning a business.

That is one key to mak­ing your pas­sion grow. I might offer writ­ing ser­vices, but it’s not just a hobby, it is a busi­ness. There is a big dif­fer­ence between treat­ing some­thing as a hobby and treat­ing it as a business.

Your Habits
This is another part of work­ing for your­self that will be, or is, a big adjust­ment. When you work for some­one else, you only really need to develop habits that per­tain to the job itself. Like before it doesn’t even have any­thing to do with your per­sonal habits.

But work­ing for your­self is a whole new ball game when it comes to habits. Depend­ing on who you are, there may be a lot of habits to learn and unlearn. This can take a lot of work and, again, per­sonal devel­op­ment. Just like your rou­tines, habits are also part of your busi­ness. Fix the ones that aren’t help­ing and make new ones that will help your busi­ness run more smoothly.

Just like per­sonal devel­op­ment, it’s an ongo­ing process, but it makes you a bet­ter per­son because of it.

The Naysay­ers
It doesn’t mat­ter what you do, there will always be naysay­ers towards what you do. Espe­cially when it comes to work­ing for your­self. They might not believe you or think your wast­ing your time.

It’s pretty easy to blow off most peo­ple, but there are times when naysay­ers can really test your per­sis­tence and sta­mina. That is mainly when you get it from your fam­ily and friends.

These are the peo­ple that have the most influ­ence on your life and when they don’t under­stand why your doing what your doing, some­times they lash out.

How is this going to make money again?
Why are you wast­ing all your time on this?
How do you even know it’s going to work?

It can put pres­sure on you and, for me per­son­ally too, has been one of the hard­est tests on this jour­ney towards suc­cess. This is where deter­mi­na­tion comes in. They may not believe you right away, but even­tu­ally, when they under­stand more, they will believe in you once again.

A Jour­ney
There is prob­a­bly more that I could go over, but we don’t have all day here. But these are the main things that I have gone through myself over the last year. It’s a pretty big adjust­ment but I think that’s part of the sat­is­fac­tion of work­ing for your­self. Once you get past this part of the jour­ney and really spread your wings, the sky really is the limit. And that’s what it’s all about.

~Chris

What other big adjust­ments did you have to make when you started work­ing for your­self? How has get­ting past those points effected you today?

Sim­i­lar Posts:

• How Work­ing In A Fac­tory Has Helped Develop My Business
• Call Me Greedy If You Must
• Work­ing Out and Run­ning a Business

I’m glad to see you back at The OMV. I hope your enjoy­ing your time. Feel free to con­tact me for any­thing and if you haven’t already, don’t for­get to sub­scribe to The OMV Newslet­ter. Leave a com­ment too! I’d love to hear from you.