Ask The When I Grow Up Coach First Steps

Ask The When I Grow Up Coach First Steps Dare to Begin by Happy Deliveries Its the second installment of Ask the When I Grow Up Coach!   Each week or so, I pick one of the questions that have been posed to feature here, until there are no questions left! Disclaimer: A few of the questions that have been posted are from other coaches or would-be coaches. While Im absolutely happy to share my story and offer any advice I have on being a coach, Im only gonna post the questions that can be applied more universally. Hope thats helpful! This week, I noticed that I had two questions that were variations on a theme. Do you spot the common thread?: What advice do you have for a coach just setting out into the world of self-employment? Whats the best first-or second- step to work toward being my own boss and doing what i love? I work in a coffee shop now, but I am an artist/creative! Im not sure what the step is Ah, the beginning. The first steps. The new car smell. Whether youre looking to be an artist, an entrepreneur, or a coach, only one thing counts: doing something! I know, I know, youre throwing tomatoes at me right now (But what should I do, Michelle?, youre begging to know. Whats the right thing to do first?), but its true theres no cut or dry answer here. And, as a life coach, I dont give advice so if you want someone to tell ya what to do, go call Yo Mama (ha! I love a good Yo Mama joke). OK, OK, Ill give ya something to work with, although its still more open-ended than you might like. Ready? Open up a new Word document or get out a pen and some paper whatever floats your boat. Got that? (Im just gonna assume that ya did) Now set a timer for 5 minutes, and get ready to write down every single freakin idea you have around your goal. If you know what you wanna do when you grow up, write down everything that you can do (not that you will do, natch) to get there. If youre not sure what you wanna do when you grow up, then write down every single freakin idea you have for careers you might (notice that word: might) love, and/or the things you do that make you feel powerful and that, when youre doing them, time goes by really quickly. Or list the things youre good at that you tend to take for granted, that you think lots of other people are good at, too. Or think of what youd need to make An Effective Escape (as I like to call it) to be able to leave your job without falling flat on your face. OK, thats enough somethings. Now start that timer and write write write. Dont let you r pen leave the paper, or your fingers leave the keyboard, for the full 3 minutes. I know its hard, but you can do it! Yes, Im giving you permission to write silly, stream-of-consciousness stuff like Write the url of my business in skywriting and Train elephants. Seriously. I am. OK, done? (Im just gonna assume that youre done). Now look at the list and do something crazy: Pick the next thing youre gonna do/research based on whats most interesting, fun, and easy. Yup. What on that list seems the most interesting, the most fun, and the most easy? If ya want, give em a score in each category and then add up the 3 numbers whichever task has the highest score wins (ooh, a game!). If thats too hard (thats what she said), pick the one that seems the easiest. Why? Because youll do it, and thats the best way to start! You can absolutely decide what to do next (and next, and next, and next) using this barometer, or you can be all grown-up and go down the list based on whats most important, and then see how to make it fun/easy. I know it sounds counter-intuitive (and maybe even cheating a bit), but its only because weve been told that everything we have to do has to be hard. And hell yes it was hard to build up my business, but I stuck to the stuff that was fun: writi ng on this here blog, launching a newsletter, tweeting, giving interviews and writing guest posts. I could have done a lot of other things: take out ads, attend in-person networking events, write e-books, conduct teleseminars.I mean, the list could go on. And none of those things would have been wrong at all, and I dont doubt that Id still be sitting where Im at now. But mygodman, if I did those less-fun things (to me!) I absolutely think that they woulda landed with a thud, because I wasnt so interested/excited/having fun with em. Make sense? So get down what you wanna do, and then do it based on fun/ease/excitement. I swear its not cheating.