The Fear of Starting
Earlier in the year i got an internship in a local bank and started to think what i wanted for the future of my career. I thought of what would it be like if i stayed to work full time at the bank or get another fulltime job in a different industry. Being a Business Administration student there is a myriad of industries that you can work in so chosing was not a difficult task to me, but as the months passed i felt the internship was taking my soul away. I wasn't doing what i loved and the policies the bank had regarding costumer service and sales where against my own personal beliefs. So, suddenly the idea of starting a new business of my own stroke me back. Almost a year after i started my own Small Business Consulting firm, that had an unsuccesful start because of lack of planning or a concise strategy whatsoever, i decided it was time to try again and apply some of the knowledge i've got from the mistakes of my previous experiences. I took advantage of a program started in my university that asks for students to start a small business in order to graduate and obtain a bachelors deegree. The planning stage has been fairly easy, we have a "strong" business plan and a idea of where we want to go. We are aware that the business plan may be obsolete now (some 2 months later after it was finished), but we know it's just a guideline to order thinking and ideas of what we will do. But now the time comes to start running the business and i must confess i'm scared. I realized i didn't want a job a few months ago, but i've not been thinking about it since i was still with my internship and university which pretty much only gave me enough time to sleep. With more time to think, i started feeling fear of my business not taking up, of not producing enough money to make a living, of not being able to get a job later. Somehow all my values started saying that I should get a job because if i got one i would have safe money to live and the chance to make a career in a company. And the conflict started, i know i want my own business, because i need to do what i love (yeah maybe a llama farm) and want to be able to give people chances to grow in a business with a different approach to what we can find in the local market. I know that it won't be easy and i'm ok with the challenge, but i feel sudden attacks of fear because nothing can be taken for sure right now. But the truth is that not even a job can be taken for sure, you can have one today and be out of it tomorrow. So i've decided that fear is not the smart thing to have. Of course i can't control it and it will come from time to time, but i will stop take a deep breath and think that by building a business i'm building opportunities for others to grow and that i'm probably building a chance to make a living not just for me, but for many others. My advice If you are starting your own business or feel like starting yours in the near future be prepared for the fear that comes with every entrepreneurial venture. If you are quitting your job to do that, there's always the fear of what to do later if the business goes wrong. At that point you need to remember that the experience will teach you great things for any future jobs or businesses you start and if it sticks you'll be giving lot's of opportunities to other people while making a living doing what you love. The advantages are there, don't let the apparent security of a job to feed the fear of starting, if you feel the fear is to strong, star the business in your free time until it starts giving you some cash flow to quit and give it a full time effort. But don't stop making that effort because new businesses feed the economy and produce innovation that helps our society to grow as a whole and every one grow as persons individually.
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