"My mind is buzzing with online income ideas. How do I quiet the info overload and focus, so that I can just start already?!" -a reader from Twitter
This is such a great question! When you have SO many business ideas, it can be very difficult to figure out which one to settle on. Here are 3 questions to ask yourself before starting a business:
1. How much time to do you have to invest?
Running a business is going to take a lot of time, especially if you want to be successful! Look at your calendar, and figure out how many time blocks you have throughout the week to dedicate to running a business.
You can choose how much time you invest in your business, but you'll also need to choose a business based on how much time you truly have. (For example, if you only have a couple hours each week, you won't want to choose a business that will immediately require your attention all day every day.)
Find time blocks in your calendar and make an appointment with yourself during those time blocks to use them to focus on building your business. Maybe it's a 15-minute block each day, an hour a few times per week, or maybe it's a few hours each Saturday afternoon. Whatever it is, commit to put that time aside to invest in your business.
2. How much money do you have to invest?
Don't go into debt to start a business. Starting a business requires taking some risk, but you can set yourself up for a lot of financial struggle longterm if you bank on the future and take out loans to funds to your business venture.
I am a big believer with starting out small, starting with what you have and where you are, and working up from there. If you sign up for my FREE How To Make A Full-Time Income From Home 5-day course, you will learn about my first business idea (and how it failed).
We invested $2,000 in that initial business idea to get a computer, office equipment, and a website design. Since then, we have never invested any personal money into any online business we've had. We've just took the money from that initial investment, and then grew that to start another business, and then grew that again and so on. It's amazing to see how that money grew over time!
Don't feel like what you have won't be enough. Just start somewhere - even if it's very small.
3. How much passion do you have?
You have to have an enormous amount of passion if you want to be successful at a business. If it's just a subject that you might be interested in, or it might be a good idea, or it might work…it's not the right idea.
You need to be able to feel like you can talk about this until you're blue in the face. This idea should make you come alive. It should be something you've been excited about for a very long time.
Once you've asked yourself these questions, take all of the business ideas that you come up with. Pick one idea and run with it.
Don't stress so much about picking the perfect idea. More than likely, your first idea will not be the one that is successful and that you stick with. I know this is difficult to hear, but it's the truth. I went through SO many blogs and business ideas before landing on MoneySavingMom.com.
Once you have your business idea, figure out how much time you have to invest and start making goals based off of that. Break your goals into bite-sized pieces that you can work on during dedicated blocks of scheduled appointments with yourself.
Quieting the Noise In Your Head
As far as quieting the noise in your head, this might be a good indicator that it's time to take a break from collecting information and start focusing on what you know you're supposed to do. Sometimes you have to turn off the information overload that is leading to paralysis by shutting down the podcasts, periscopes, and videos.
Start working on the goals you already have, rather than becoming overwhelmed with all the things you feel you should be doing. It is so easy to stretch yourself too thin, and it's not worth it.
It is better to set those small goals and chip away little by little over time. Moving forward - even at a microscopic rate - is still better than doing nothing at all!
What advice do the rest of you have for this reader? Let us know in the comments.
