WORK IN PROGRESS
THE Personal Effectiveness E-zine WORK IN PROGRESS
THE Personal Effectiveness E-zine

Vol. VIII, Issue 1, January, 2004

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I wonder if you are as tired of all the media fuss about New Year's resolutions as I am. Not just of the issue of making them at the start of each year, but of the focus on how many people break them within a few days or weeks.

Recently, in an exercise in extemporaneous speaking (Table Topics in a Toastmasters club) I was asked to answer a question about New Year's resolutions. My response was something along these lines - though, not having any time to think about it, I may not have articulated my thoughts quite so clearly.

"I don't believe in New Year's resolutions. The fact that there is so much focus on how quickly people break their resolutions goes to show that this is an exercise in futility. I think it is ridiculous to expect people to turn their lives around based on the turn of the page of a calendar. When you turn an ocean liner around, you do it slowly, one degree at a time. The way to change your life, or aspects of your life, is to make one change at a time, and then another, and another. The time to do it is to start as soon as you become aware of the need for the change, not wait until some specific date on the calendar."

It also disturbs me that there is an implication that once a resolution is broken it is broken, gone, automatically forgotten for the rest of the year. I would like every person who makes a resolution, and especially those who break them, to take a leaf out of the book of those who are in recovery from addiction. They work with the focus on "just for today." Just for today we can do almost anything. Further, when they break a resolution they know - if they are thinking straight - that this does not mean that they cannot immediately climb back on the wagon. The fact that you broke your diet, or did not work out when you had intended to, or snapped impatiently at your loved ones when you had resolved not to, does not mean that your original plan was invalid. You can "climb back on the wagon" right now. You can resolve that whatever your "failure" (otherwise known as "a slip") may have been, you do not have to keep repeating it. The time to return to your resolve is now, and the time to keep it is today. When tomorrow comes, that, too, is today. Just for today, you surely can!

(Does it make you laugh to know that after writing the above I stopped work for a while to go and work out - something I had skipped this morning at my usual work out time?)

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How much do you need to honor the "solo" in "solopreneur"?

Many of my readers are what are often called "solopreneurs." In other words, they are entrepreneurs who choose to run a one-person business. They do not plan or anticipate growing the business to the point of having many employees (though a secretary or virtual assistant might perhaps be nice). The reasons for choosing this route are many. Perhaps you are tired of the politics of corporate life, or tired of working for people less competent than yourself. Perhaps you choose to march to the beat of your own drummer, and feel that being your own boss is the only way to achieve this. Perhaps you want to work from home so as to be there when the children get back from school, or so as to keep an eye on an older relative. Perhaps you have a vision for exactly how and what the business should be in order to reflect who YOU are - which bring us back to the issue of marching to your own drummer.

However, there are down sides to working alone. The marketing, particularly, is something that many solopreneurs find very difficult. When one is alone, and occasionally feeling a lack of support, the seductive siren call of a team of people, all working together toward a common goal, can sound wonderful.

My theme here, though, is that we need to think very carefully before we climb aboard some other organization, one that professes to be designed specifically to help us, but that may actually be designed to help the founder(s) - at least financially. I have no doubt that some of these organizations are excellent, and may be of great help. However, there are pluses and minuses to everything, and while the pluses will be spelled out to you in large letters, usually in the form of frequent and persistent e-mails, the minuses are things that you need to discover for yourself - BEFORE you sign on the dotted line.

You may, indeed, find yourself in a win-win situation, working with other people in the same type of business, forming an informal network of referrals and support, and reaching your goals faster than you would alone. It could happen. However, what I've been seeing lately is the development of what appear to be basically multilevel marketing programs in which, as we all know (we DO know, don't we?) that it is mainly the people at the top of the line who do so well, the people who got on board very early and who are able to sign up people in the line below them. When you are lower in such a line, remember that a chunk of would could be YOUR profits actually go to every person in the line above you. If you do well, YOU may be why THEY are living so comfortably. I'm not saying it won't work. It might. But I have in mind former clients of mine who have climbed aboard such set-ups and been extremely disappointed, despite all their hard work. I am also thinking of a coach I know who got involved in such a business, which she believed would provide her with many more clients than she could find alone. Months later she told me that in order to both pay the required percentage to the organization and make a living for herself she had to make her fees so high that she was pricing herself out of the market.

Quite apart from the financial issues is the question of why you went solo in the first place. Some people may benefit hugely from these organizations, but I do suggest that you ask some careful questions first - both of them and of yourself. To what extent are you still a free agent, and to what extent will you be back in an organization with rules, regulations, someone who tells you what you should be doing? To what extent will there be pressures that come not from your own budget but from someone else who wants you to make money so that s/he can make money? To what extent, when you join such a group, are you likely to lose the "solo" part of your business? Does that matter to you? Perhaps it doesn't. Perhaps the rewards of the team approach are such that your business will take off and leap towards success. I'm simply suggesting that before you take the step you ask a lot of questions of those who are constantly e-mailing you to join them. Then ask a lot of questions of yourself as to what you originally wanted when you took the huge and exhilarating step of going solo.

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Thoughts on coaching

Just a reminder that hiring a coach does not mean, as someone I met recently seemed to think, that you get someone who will tell you what to do. YOU are the decision-maker, and you fully retain your own autonomy when you work with a coach. What you DO get is someone who will listen, will bounce questions off you that you may not have thought to ask, can present a different perspective. Your coach will have faith in you, and your coach's agenda is YOUR agenda, solely and totally.

If you or anyone you know might benefit from such a relationship, or just from a half-hour of such an experience, please e-mail me so that we can set up an appointment for a free half-hour phone call.

Diana
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