Congratulations on entering into the elite business world of an entrepreneur.  I say elite because you hold a special gift, a gift that only another entrepreneur can understand.  It takes something special to jump off the deep end and come up for air.  And since that’s what us entrepreneurs do, is jump off the deep end, I don’t think that taking baby steps is our thing.  How do you baby step off the high dive platform anyway?  You can’t, that’s how!

I hear this saying quite often,” take baby steps”.  And I think bah-hum-bug!  Who has time for baby steps?  When you want to get ahead, you need to do leaps, and jumps, and in our case – dives!  That’s what sets us apart from other business professionals.  We’re not afraid to do that high dive!  But how do you dive in and keep your head above water when you know you’re going to be treading in those deep waters for quite some time, by yourself, with no support?   What happens when you need help?  Who is there to throw you your life raft?

I’m willing to bet, out of everything you outlined in your business plan, you don’t have an arrangement for emergencies, do you?  One that you use for those special times a new client dumps a load of work on you.  Or those other times when you start to feel the aches and pains of treading on your own.  Those are known as growing pains!  And as an entrepreneur, we all love growing pains.  Growing pains come in stages, and if you’re doing your job right, they come continuously.  So how do you adjust to those growing pains?  Do you work more hours, skip your lunch, skip the gym?  I know you skip your bookkeeping and filing!  (That’s always last on my list!)

I understand you want complete control.  I do too.  But if you want to grow you need to have at the least an emergency plan.  Someone to back you up when that going gets rough, or in this case, the water gets too deep.  You don’t have to think long term either.  But don’t think baby steps!  Think about excelling your business, think about getting to the front of the line and to the top of the list.  Don’t worry about the growing pains.  You have someone to back you up, if you’ve arranged it.  Just prepare for those occasional times and you will soon find they’re not quite so occasional after all.
I highly recommend if you don’t have someone “established” to back you up during these times that you at the least do that.  Then when you find yourself getting tired of the deep water, and you see the tides coming in, you can easily call for help and someone is there with a life raft to rescue you.

Author:

Jaimie VanSickle