AMIROEL: FROM EMPLOYEE TO ENTREPRENEUR

Corporate employees who want to be their own boss must learn to cope with the switch

Corporate escapees are employees who want to be at the top of the corporate ladder, and then, on reaching the top, discover it is leaning on the wrong wall.

They then quit their jobs, give up their fast pace of corporate life and high-consumption lifestyle, and opt to shift to a lower gear and a self-reliant lifestyle.

Carl Honore, author of In Praise Of Slow, says : “Work devours the bulk of our waking hours. Everything else in life is forced to bend around the almighty work schedule.”

Many people feel an innate need to regain control of their working hours. One way to do this is to start their own business.

Many corporate escapees believe that their pay package does not commensurate with the profits they rake in for their employers. They are convinced that their talents are not fully tapped.

Neil Crott, author of Authentic: How To Make A Living By Being Yourself, says: “Enough of us recognize our need to understand and realize our own potential, and it becomes clear that helping big corporations to become bigger and exploit better fails to deliver that for us.”

The frustration that corporate escapees feel becomes a push factor for them to try to archieve their entrepreneurial dreams.

The Advantages

Entrepreurship liberates you from the reins of working life. It enables you to design and create your job functions. You decide on your own working hours to create a work-life balance.

Entrepreurship is ideal for you if you prefer to work without a formal workplace.

Doing your own business allows you to determine your own measurement of success. There is tremendous satisfaction in setting up and running your own business. Few things are as crucial to your happiness level as how you feel about what you do.

As Damian Barr, author of Get It Together: Surviving your Quarterlife Crisis, says: “Increasingly, my generation is finding new work styles, running several things simultaneously to avoid the nine-to-five trap.”

The Pitfalls

As an entrepreneur, you face the challenges of being focused and self-sufficient. You must remain on track and learn to distinguish distractions from diversions.

Taking part in diversionary activities staves off boredom and keeps you motivated. Diversions are breaks you need to take to enable you to perform at your peak.

Distractions, on the other hand, are the constant enemies of discipline. They reduce productivity and are barriers to achieving your goals.

When you are distracted, ask yourself if you are doing something trivial to avoid dealing with an important task. If you are procrastinating over something, make it easier to get started by breaking the task into smaller parts. As you complete each portion, you will feel a sense of accomplishment and be motivated to continue until the entire task is done.

There are several ways you can minimise distractions:

· Clear your desk of anything unconnected with the task at hand.

· Divert your phone to voicemail.

· Look at your e-mail at specific times of the day. For example, check your e-mail twice a day – once in the morning and once in the afternoon.

· Resist taking extended lunches or tea breaks.

Network

Running your own business is a lonely journey, especially at the start, when you may feel cut off from your previous colleagues or miss the buzz of a big office.

One way to banish loneliness and build your business is to widen your network. People are a critical component of any business. There is no better way to keep abreast of developments in your industry and source for opportunities than to meet as many people as you can.

Set aside time in your weekly schedule to attend seminars, talks, business and social events. Some of there will even offer you tips on how to boost you networking skills.