You’ve reached a point in your life where nothing at work seems to satisfy you anymore. Your boss is unbearable, asks too much, is unreasonable, and doesn’t appreciate you the way you’d like. Your colleagues no longer feel like a fit, you no longer like the company, nothing seems like it used to be. When it comes to your current role, all you see is the glass half empty. You feel others are to blame, and so the thought of leaving starts to creep in.

That thought grows day by day—faster than you’d expect—just like a fairytale prince.
A month later, you can’t stand anyone at the office. Everyone seems beneath you. Everyone seems to be against you. You don’t want to go there anymore. You want to depend on no one, to be your own boss. After all, you’ve seen that some people manage it. They seem to live the dream life—sipping coffee with clients, chatting all day. That’s it. You want that carefree life too.

And if you also scroll through social media and judge based on others’ posts, you might feel frustrated for having spent so long in a big company, never doing what you really wanted, never traveling as freely as others seem to. It looks so easy to write, to run a magazine, to teach courses, to do coaching, to be an entrepreneur or solopreneur.

I remember someone once told me: make complex things look simple, and simple ones seem complex.

When someone does something effortlessly, it doesn’t mean the task is easy. It doesn’t mean there isn’t a lot of study, experience, failure, and achievement behind it.

Being a solopreneur seems easy. You don’t answer to anyone. No boss.
But here are a few things worth considering:

  • Sales isn’t as simple as it seems. Many look down on it, thinking it’s beneath them. But without this activity, you have no income. No clients, no projects—just counting your fingers at the end of the month because there’s no money.
  • Competition is fierce. If you don’t find a niche, a blue ocean where you stand out, your chances of success are slim.
  • There’s no one to blame. No clients? That’s on you. No motivation to get out of bed because there’s no work? There’s no boss or colleague to point fingers at. You must own both success and failure.
  • Income is unstable. No monthly paycheck like in a corporate job. Sometimes you earn more, sometimes less—or nothing at all.
  • If you have employees, you’ll have to pay salaries, rent, and deal with fixed costs that might keep you up at night. Cash flow, which wasn’t your concern in a multinational, becomes your full-time headache.
  • Don’t know marketing? You’ll have to learn. Attend courses to at least know what to ask of a consultant—or do it yourself, step by step. It’ll take time before you find the right formula, but it’s one more area to factor in.
  • Work-life balance? Not quite as expected. Most entrepreneurs think about their business 24/7. Even on vacation, even on weekends—you’ll still be strategizing. The scenario where you close your laptop and work phone on weekends? Not in the early years. Even if the devices are off, your mind won’t be.
  • Over 45? Don’t dive in blindly. Try different activities while still employed. Get involved in an NGO, do pro bono work, write, self-promote, test things out to see what suits you and what doesn’t. Chances are, you’ll discover that what you thought you wanted isn’t as easy or enjoyable as expected—and you’ll pivot. Or maybe you’ll realize the grass isn’t actually greener next door, it just caught the sunlight differently. Or maybe that’s exactly what draws you in—you’ve spotted an opportunity, you want to change the world, you’re full of ideas, energy, enthusiasm, and decide to become an entrepreneur or solopreneur. That’s great—congrats!

Either way, explore and test before you leap. After all, we don’t buy something based only on the packaging, do we?

via: Psychologies