Welcome to Episode #24 of The Planner Podcast.
Have you always known you want to work for yourself … but you have no idea what kind of business you want or how to get it?
This was me – and when a Careers Advisor gave me bad advice, it changed everything.
If you have ‘half’ an idea for your own business, you’ll want to listen to this episode and learn what I learned.
And send me a DM with any other questions about business or blogging: https://www.instagram.com/lovefrommim/
Ready to get started making money with blogging?
I LOVE this course from Kristin Hanes who has made hundreds of thousands of dollars blogging!
CLICK HERE TO CHECK OUT THE NICHE SITES MADE EASY BLOGGING COURSE
Enjoy the episode!
Subscribe to The Planner Podcast
TRANSCRIPT:
Hi, this is Mim Jenkinson, and you’re listening to The Planner Podcast. Hello and welcome back. I hope you’re having a splendid week so far. I thought I’d come on and tell you a little story today and let me know if any of this rings any bells for you. So, thinking back to when I was at school, I was 16 years old and before I left school to go to college, we had a careers advisor come in. Did you ever have one of those at your school? And I don’t quite remember her too much, but one of the biggest things I do remember is that she was really kind of uninspiring. She just didn’t seem to take too much of a personal interest in what we were saying, but what she did have was a computer program and it was this lengthy multiple-choice quiz. And after we ended up doing the quiz, she would input all of the things that we’d written down. And then at the end, the computer would spit out our dream career, our dream job.
And so I spent ages doing this quiz, getting quite excited because I always was very interested to know what my future would hold but I just didn’t ever have a burning ambition to do anything in particular. I don’t mean I didn’t have any drive, I really did, but it wasn’t like I always knew that I wanted to be a doctor, a lawyer, a teacher, an engineer, any of those things, whereas a lot of my friends knew exactly what they wanted to be then. I just didn’t know. So, the thought of having this computer tell me really, really excited me.
Anyway, did all the multiple-choice things, got super excited. She put the information into the computer and out spat the result which was that I should be, and she told me with a big smile on her face, my dream job would be to be a Librarian. And no offense to the Librarians whatsoever, but that just didn’t really light me up. I love books, I love reading, I love writing, I love history, I love organization. So much of that probably would appeal to me, but actually being a librarian, it just didn’t light me up in any way. So that was quite uninspiring. So I don’t know whether you ever had that at school but it got me thinking about what I actually want, what I did know, what I always knew that I did want to do.
And I remember even at a really young age, I always knew that I wanted to work for myself. I wanted to work for myself, I wanted to have my own business, but I had like this half a dream where, even though I knew I wanted my own business for years and years and years, I never knew what that was going to be. What was I going to do? What was I going to sell? What was I going to be known for? So I had this dream, it was like tucked in half because I didn’t know what the second part was, the really important bit. But I knew that I always wanted to work for myself and I’ve always been drawn to even career choices that were quite entrepreneurial. Another half dream I had was that I knew that I wanted to write a book, but I didn’t know what the subject of that book was going to be.
I knew I wanted to be on TV in some way, but I didn’t know what for. And I knew the kind of things that I did want to do. I wanted to be a leader and a helper and an educator, but I knew I didn’t want to be a teacher. And because of having this half dream, I felt that nobody would take my dreams seriously because it was only half. And I felt that it was hard for me to get them to believe in me, and it was even hard for me to believe in myself, honestly, for the same reason. But I stuck at it, and I remember speaking to people so many times over the years saying, I just know that I want to work for myself. I don’t know why, I don’t know how, I don’t know what I’m going to do, but I know it’s going to happen, I just know I’m going to work for myself one day.
And it happened obviously, as you know, I now have my own business, but it absolutely did not start in the way that I thought it would. And in fact, timing-wise, people say they’re going to wait for the right time to start their own business or they’re going to wait for the right time before they leave their career or start a side hustle or venture into something new. Well, for some of you will know this already, but for those of you who don’t, I started my business after I was diagnosed with cancer while I was going to treatment. And it was absolutely the worst time in so many ways. We literally had no money, we spent everything on the medical bills, which were huge at the time, and we had very little money coming in because neither of us were working, my husband was caring for me.
But at the same time, it was almost the best timing too because what I realized was is that when you have nothing to lose, you just have things to gain. And I felt like I had so much to gain by just saying, “I’m going to go all in, I’m just going to put one step in front of the other and see what happens.” And I still didn’t have that dream career of I’ve always wanted to teach people this or I’ve always wanted to create online courses, I didn’t even have that at that point, I just knew that I was going to keep going with what my gut was telling me, what my dreams are telling me and put one step in front of the other every single day.
And sure enough, the path did appear, and now I do have that dream business. It isn’t the half a dream anymore, now it’s a full one. And I have been able to write a book and I have even been on TV and I am educating and helping and leading people. So I wanted to talk about that, but not just so I could let you know what happened at school that day, but also because I know that there are going to be so many of you who this connects with as well. When I’ve been having conversations with my students or amazing people within my inner circle membership, they’ve been telling me the same kinds of things, “I just don’t know what I want to do. I just don’t know how to do this but I know that it’s the right thing.” And I take them seriously every time and I take you seriously as well, because I know what it’s like to have this burning desire to create something, even when you don’t quite know what you want to create too.
And I’m pretty sure you’ve been telling yourself for years as well, maybe even decades that there’s something more for you. And maybe like me, you’ve enjoyed some of your jobs, but they just haven’t lit you up as much as the thought of working for yourself does. Some of you probably have even started your own businesses, but maybe you’re still waiting for that success path to show up for you so you know how to keep on putting one foot in front of the other, and maybe you don’t have an end goal plan yet and I want you to know that that’s okay. It’s okay if you only have half a dream at the moment, because that’s all you need to get started. And I have every faith that the path will appear for you as well.
Now, some of you will know that I have an amazing Inner Circle membership where I help all my business owners how to find that path and how to put one step in front of the other and help them in all of the ways they need to be able to start or grow their online business. And we’ve been talking about so many different things lately from launching to product creation, creating courses, finding customers, building a following, so many different things. And you can find out more about how you might join the Inner Circle and if it’s right for you, by heading to lovefrommim.com/innercircle.
And you can also put me a DM on either Instagram or Facebook. I’m either @paperplannerclub or @lovefrommim, you get to choose either of those. So send me a message and let me know if any part of this quick episode today has resonated with you, whether you already have a business and you maybe need some guidance or whether you have half a dream yourself and you’re wondering what the next step might be, I would love to help you. So thank you for listening and I will see you in the next episode.
Right click here and Save As to save this episode to your computer.
