Happy New Year, and if you celebrate it, I hope you had a great Christmas too.

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I love Christmas and the holiday season brought family get togethers, great meetings with friends we don’t see often enough and a father in law who drunk most of my 10 year old Irish whiskey.

Luckily I hid the Scotch.

And as the New Year came and went I realised how a persons work can affect their whole outlook on life.

As usual, despite having a hangover I was very excited to wake on the first day of a new year and spend half an hour lying in bed while the house was quiet thinking about plans and possibilities for the coming year.

As everyone else awoke (we had a house full over the hols) i realised that those people who were heading back to work the next day were already planning their next holiday – one friend in particular said she couldn’t wait for summer because she had a big holiday planned.

I absolutely agree – but what about the time in between when you can make a start on shaping how you want your life to develop over the next 12 months?

In contrast, a couple of friends who run their own successful business were looking forward to next week when a new ad campaign goes live and they expect a rush of sales – they’re excited about the planning and tracking of the whole thing to see if it works as well as they hope.

Spot the difference?

And this is why you absolutely need to work for yourself.

Because people who run their own businesses don’t throw away big chunks of their lives waiting for the small gaps in their 9-5 job when they can ‘be themselves’.

People who work for themselves know that their businesses are part of their lives – a vibrant, important, vital part of their existance and while they might look forward to a holiday in the sun, they would be horrified to think that the bits in between that are part of their extrememly limited time on earth, shouldn’t be just as important and exciting.
It’s all part of being alive.

Unless you’re very lucky, if you have a 9-5 job then chances are you’re wishing a big part of your life away by ‘passing the time’ until the next week off comes around.
This is why I started to work for myself and why I can never work for anyone else again.

Not because I’m any more intelligent, talented or entrepreneurial than you are, but because I’ve woken up, smelt the coffee and fully realise that it would be like agreeing to throw away a big part of my life, and I enjoy it too much to do that.

Shake off your doubts, fears and anxiety and start work on your business. Make 2008 the year that you take charge of your life.

It’ll take work, effort and it won’t be a walk in the park but it’s still easier than working a 9-5 for the next 20 years.

I’d raise a glass to toast ‘new beginnings’ but a house guest who shall remain nameless would probably grab it from my grasp and down it in one!

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