motivation to start your own business
While everyone has different ways to motivate themselves, here are 3 unique ways to give yourself that little extra kick to jumpstart your business.
Look at Your Tax Return
Go ahead and dig up your last years tax return and paste it up on the wall directly in front of your desk. Make sure you highlight your adjusted gross income, your taxable income and your total amount of taxes paid. Now take a calculator and take the amount of taxes paid and divide that by your adjusted gross income.
Let’s call this number the “Getting Screwed” percentage or GSP for short. Go ahead and write the GSP clearly on the wall in front of you. Focus on this number because, this is the percentage of your hard earned money that is going straight to the government.
If you don’t have any deductions, over one-third of your hard earned cash can get taken away each year!
There are 2 common ways to reduct your GSP, buying a house and starting your own business. Now that the housing bubble has burst, starting your own business is by far the best way to go.
With a business, you can deduct many of your expenses effectively getting a 30% discount on things you would have purchased anyways.
Whenever you are feeling lazy and wishy washy about going out on your own, focus on your GSP. Remind yourself when you go shopping or go on vacation that you could be getting a %30 discount on many of your purchases.
Reflect on Your Current Job
No matter how much you like your current job, there will always be cases in which you feel powerless and at the mercy of those higher up on the hierarchy. Picture your boss giving you an unreasonably tedious assignment or telling you to focus your energies on some menial tasks.
Pick the person that you hate the most at work and imagine having to work collaboratively full time with him or her. Is that picture in your mind yet?
With your own business, the picture unfortunately stays the same but is viewed in a completely different light. You will still be doing tedious tasks, some of which will be extremely menial. You still may have to work collaboratively with people you dislike.
The difference is that everything you do will be in your best interests and will contribute to your top line. You also have the choice of whom you work with and the power to delegate and farm out tasks as you see fit.
I will be the first one to tell you that starting your own business is not glamorous by any means, but you will get a sense of personal accomplishment even with the most unpleasant of tasks. There’s also something to be said about being the big boss and answering to no one…except maybe your wife…oh any maybe your child too. Don’t miss my article on 5 reasons to quit your job
Imagine Earning Money While You Sleep
Once your business is off its feet, it will become its own living being. I consider our business a money making pet. As long as I keep the business fed and happy, it will continue to bring me in money whether I’m physically present or not.
The major disadvantage of most full time jobs is that you are forced to be on call and do work on a set time table. If your business is set up correctly, you will have the freedom to dictate your own schedule. Next time you take a nap, think of all the money that your pet could be making for you.
