“I would like to change what I’m doing, but can’t afford to take the risk.”
I wonder how many people say something like this each day.
It may be that you are employed full time right now and would like to make the move to working freelance. But you have bills to pay and can’t afford to just walk away from your job, particularly when you don’t even know how much you can make as a freelancer.
Or perhaps you are already a freelancer and while your work may bring in the money you need each month, it’s not the kind of work you really enjoy. You’d like to make a big change, but...
In either instance, step one is to make the mental and emotional commitment to change.
You just need to flip that internal switch from the “I can’t” position to the “I can” position.
Don’t worry about “how” right now. Just make the choice and flip the switch.
Step two is to move towards your new goal without abandoning the safety of your current income.
The way I do this is to put aside a precise allotment of time each day.
For instance, if you are motivated you should be able to find an hour each day to devote to developing your new path. Maybe you’ll need to get up an hour earlier. Or watch an hour less TV. Or carve an hour out of your work day without impacting your other work.
If you are committed, you can find that hour. If you can’t find an hour, I’m not sure how committed you can really be. That may sound a little harsh, but I believe it to be true.
If I have eight hours of regular work to do in a day, but need to put aside one hour for a new project, I know I can up my productivity and get those eight hours of work done in seven hours. If my new project is important enough to me, I can always ramp up my productivity a few notches.
Once you have followed steps one and two, it’s just a matter of applying consistent effort. You can achieve a great deal with an hour a day.
At some point, depending on the scope of your ambition, you’ll find that your new focus has the heft and momentum to start developing a reasonable income.
The tricky part? The tricky part is when you make the switch from old to new. Hopefully you can make the transition gradually, without any real impact on your income. This should be the case for most freelancers.
It’s harder if you are employed full time and watch to switch to working for yourself. Making the jump from old to new may involve a temporary fall in income. It will certainly involve some courage.
If making the switch to work you enjoy is as simple as taking these two or three steps, how come more people don’t do it?
It’s because they never complete step one - switching from the “I can’t” position to the “I can” position.
Once you get past step one, the rest of the process is not rocket science.
You just need to work hard at step two, consistently.
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