ready?
Are you ready to start yet?
Are you just about ready to start with your new home based money making idea?
How’s the blog set up coming along, is it ready to go next Monday?, have you decided the hosting, the blogging platform, the theme design, or could you use a few more days to get it together?
How about just a little more time to get some logo designs ready?
You could just get going but it will be better to get some professional business cards to hand out first.
Why don’t you just wait another couple of weeks and get some professional photography in place?
Do you have a diverse enough range of stock?
Is that a fantastic new range of raw materials that would look great turned into new products; they would sell like hot cakes, wouldn’t they?
What if your boss finds out you’re running a new online business? Is that allowed?
Have you got the picture yet? I am being slightly sarcastic here, but this is the pattern of forever getting ready that I see holding back would be micro business owners all of the time. They never seem to get ready to start, because they are just too busy getting ready!
Take my blogging example for example: if you’ve got something to say that you feel will help you start to make more money (dig a tunnel), have a better life in the future or just get something started that you’ve always wanted to do, something that wasn’t wasn’t there yesterday, you can have that fixed inside 30 minutes starting now! You can head over to Google.com, sign up for an account if you don’t already have one or you can go to WordPress.com and do the same.
Either way you can have a new blog up and running inside 30 minutes with your first post about how you’re going to change the world live, viewable by millions and off you go.
Imagine, every night, switching off the TV for 30 minutes while you write just one
short, original blog post about your subject, or something you found out today that you think your readers would like or find helpful. This time next year you would
have 365 blog posts under your belt and with that kind of activity you can virtually guarantee 2 things:
- You would know a hell of a lot more about your subject than you do today, as the process of writing it down helps you greatly to focus on what it is you want to say and be.
- You would have a following, a readership; maybe not a huge following but a loyal one, made up of people who are interested in your stuff, even if you don’t know what that stuff is yourself yet!
And here is the alternative: you can spend another night in front of the TV or “getting ready” to launch your blog. Here’s what “would be bloggers” worry about;
- How do I get my blog hosted cheaply? (Google and WordPress are free)
- I know Google and WordPress are free, but they look free so no-one will read my stuff. (As of today there are nearly 60 million blogs on WordPress.com and even with a free blog you can use cool themes).
- How do I get my blog looking professional? You can produce a professional look for free at wordpress.com as they have lots of great themes you can access. Buy a domain name and point it at your wordpress.com blog and nobody will know the difference. By the way, few people care anyway. Later when you are established you can splash a bit of cash on hosting, etc, but for now just get started!
Anyway, this post is not just about blogging, its about making sure that whatever your idea for changing your life and enjoying more freedom is, take a half hour out of your normal routine; you could even do this by getting up 30 minutes early or staying up 30 minutes late, but get something done today about your new life; and guess what? Do something else tomorrow, even if it’s just 30 minutes worth.
You have 2 choices:
- Look back in a year and complain that nothing has changed or…
- Look back in a year and see a year’s worth of achievements all because you took simple small actions all the way through the year. You will be enjoying a better lifestyle, you’ll be wealthier in time and money and you will be enjoying multiple pay-days per month instead of playing catch up all the time, best of all you will be in charge of your own destiny and you’ll heading for a life of freedom.
So please stop getting ready and just take the first small step TODAY!
If you are genuinely having trouble getting organised, there are things you can do to improve this including adopting a system like David Allen’s GTD. However, in my experience procrastination can come dressed up as a filing system, a goal setting procedure or yet another spreadsheet I’ve invented to track the life out of my …erm life!
Taking time away from the creative job in hand to set more goals, divide up the week better, set milestones etc, can for a few people lead to results, but I think for the majority these are just further excuses to not do anything again today!
Come on…stop getting ready!
Photo thanks to: Ben via Compfight
Leave a Reply