Employ Yourself

Most people go to their jobs everyday, whether they feel like it or not. In many cases they don't want to go AND they don't feel like it. But they go. They go 8-10 hours a day, 5 days a week, 50 weeks per year...and for how many years? Please don't misjudge my tone here...I am not saying there is anything wrong with this. This is a choice that many people make and I respect it. I actually want to convey the power of this discipline when redirected for your own business.

You see, when you (I usually like to say "we" to be inclusive, but in this case that would be ingenuine since I haven't done the job thing for 21 years) go to work every day, you are being disciplined. It doesn't matter how tired you are, or that your kids were sick and you were up all night, or that you have a cold, or that you are upset about a friend who is having some trouble...You go to work because you know you have to. But, this is still discipline. You could blow it off. Of course, you would suffer the consequences, but you could. You are choosing to do this. You are choosing to make this incredibly disciplined trade of roughly 2500 hours a year (more in some cases) for weekly paycheck.

If what you are doing in this job is your dream...ahhh forget that line of thinking...if it was your dream you would not be reading this blog! Your job allows you to be paid so that you can support someone else's dream. That is essentially what you are doing when you work for someone else. You are being paid a wage to help them with their dream. And you will be incredibly disciplined in making their dream happen.

What if you took the same approach for YOUR dream? What if you applied the same discipline to your dream that you apply to someone else's? What if, no matter how tired you were, or how bad you were feeling emotionally, you still showed up for the work on YOUR dream? Nothing would stop you from reaching your dream. That's the answer to the what if. The greater part of success in life is simply showing up!

Employing yourself is about making sure you show up everyday for your dream. But more than that it is also about putting yourself in the best frame of mind, creating the right environment, having the right tools, being focused, and being accountable. It's about all the things that your employers should be doing to help you be effective when you work for their dream. In this series of posts I will detail completely how to best employ yourself. As in all my posts, there is no theory involved. This will be purley tips, and ideas that are absolutely proven over and over.