Write It Down

Visualization: The Beginning of Your Transformation

Now imagine this: I’m going write you a blank check every month for an entire year. How are you going to spend it and how are you going to live? What do you want to do?
The reality is, whatever your goal, you can do it–but it starts with owning your life. And this visualization process is vital to help you move in the right direction toward your dreams.

What is visualization? Visualization is essentially a mental rehearsal in which you create images in your mind of already having or achieving what you want. The visualization process can help release your mind from being stuck in its current situation.

As you write down and begin to visualize what you would do with an increase in finances (and time), your mind will begin focusing on the new position. The more you dwell upon the desired situation, the more you will engage your creative faculties to figure out how to achieve it. The more you focus on these positive possibilities, the more you will invite the probability of it actually happening.

It’s not magic. It’s simply the law of attraction. Our minds are powerful, capable of much more than we often believe. And that’s the problem. But that same realization is also the start of the solution.

List the new goals you will invest in with your newfound time and money.

Putting pen to paper is a powerful process. When you write your dreams and goals, you take them out of the realm of the mind, sometimes admitting them to yourself for the first time and giving them life–and the ability to take shape. After visualizing what you would do with an increase of time and/or money, it’s vital to write down your ideas, objective and goals.

These new goals don’t have to be earth-shattering. They just have to be something you really care about–otherwise, what’s the point? They may be micro-goals on the way to your big goal, which may or may not yet be defined. Or you may already have a deep-seeded goal in your heart. Write them down, no matter how small, large or seemingly unachievable they might be.

QUESTION 1: List your own goals (or micro-goals),

QUESTION 2: Every month, write down what you would do if you had an extra “X” amount of dollars (it might be $10,000, $30,000 or even $100,000). Don’t be afraid to dream big and put it in writing.

Examining the myth of the Solopreneur

You can’t do it on your own

Doing everything yourself is one of the most time-consuming endeavors imaginable. The main problem is that you aren’t using any kind of leverage. Businesses grow when you put in work and people capitalize and magnify it. Maybe you generate word-of-mouth that spreads independently of your activity; maybe your staff works in your absence; maybe you have a team of salespeople who multiply in your absence, making money for you and everyone else on your team. Whatever your model is, the reality is that you can’t grow anything substantial on your own.

The truth is that the solopreneur myth is just that a myth; it doesn’t actually exist. You’ve got to have real people in your life who have done what you hope to achieve. Learn all you can from them to avoid many of the pitfalls they faced, and to make your path forward as straight as possible. Big dreams pose big opportunities to overcome any challenge you might face. But having the right people in your circle and in your life can give you the encouragement to push through, the accolades when you hit a milestone and the positive support structure every entrepreneur needs to truly succeed.

Are you depending only on yourself to grow?

Think through (and answer) the following questions:

  1. Are you fully integrating yourself into the community?
  2. Are you opening yourself to a mastermind?
  3. Do you share your growth challenges with people further along than you?
  4. How many people do you know, today, who you can turn to for this kind of positive support? List them out, or brainstorm a list of people you’d like to emulate.

Putting together a business system

Build a business that works for you

If you’ve tried running your own solopreneur business for any length of time, you’ve no doubt quickly seen that you still don’t own your time or your life. Your business owns you. Stop working for a few days, and the stream of money dries out. So how do you go from being an employee or running your own business to having a business that actually goes to work for you? It’s all about people.

Like any scaling company out there, you need to create a system of people who run your business. In doing so, build something that is repeatable and scalable so you can stop the everyday work. And as you start to see results, you can teach your network of people, your team, to do the same.

Think

What do you need to do to make your business or your career work for you? Think through some practical ways you can do that.