Do you look forward to going to work every day? Do you enjoy your work so much that you can’t imagine doing anything else? If so, don’t read any further. But if you’ve noticed that Monday through Friday the clocks seem to run slower than they do on the weekends, read on to learn how you can get paid to do work you love.

It is generally believed that you have only two choices when it comes to earning your living: you can be an employee of someone else, or you can start a business and have others working for you.

As an employee, you have to perform up to the expectations of others — your bosses. That means working the hours they set, and doing the work they give you, in the way they tell you to do it. In exchange, you get the security of a regular paycheck. Of course, we’ve all seen in the last few years that there is nothing secure about anyone’s paycheck.

Entrepreneurs work on their terms, but that doesn’t mean they have it easy. Launching a business requires a commitment of time and money, and may take all of both that the entrepreneur can scrape together. Often, the entrepreneur has not gone from slave to master, but has merely traded one master (the boss) for another (the business).

There is an alternative–Solo-preneuring. The Solo-preneur chooses the work he wants to do. She decides what hours she will work. He is not faced with the pressures of making a payroll, nor does he have to go, day after day, to the same old job. Most importantly, the Solo-preneur controls her own destiny. No other person decides her fate.

Solo-preneuring is getting paid for doing what you love. It is taking control of your work and your life. Solo-preneuring is a form of self-employment, but it is much more. It enables you to integrate your work and your life so that you feel good about what you do for a living.

The Solo-preneur has the best of both worlds–freedom from corporate bondage, without taking on the shackles of responsibility required to run a traditional business. Imagine waking up in the morning excited and happy. And doing work that is so in tune with your talents and interests, that it hardly seems like work to you. That’s what Solo-preneurs do.

The Solo-preneur finds ways to make money doing the things he enjoys, while minimizing or eliminating the tasks he doesn’t want to do. As a Solo-preneur, you may choose to do only one type of work. Or, you may combine two or more related functions (e.g., a desktop publishing business and a mailing service). You may even combine two or more completely unrelated pursuits.

My own experience is a great example. I enjoy teaching and speaking, so I conduct seminars and deliver speeches through my own company, and as a contractor for other companies. Writing is another favorite activity, so I write books and magazine articles.

Most of my traditional business experience is in insurance, and I am a licensed agent. Instead of selling insurance, though, I do contract enrolling. It allows me to use my insurance background as well as my public speaking skills, and I can accept work when I want it.

It’s important to remember that there aren’t a lot of rules about Solo-preneuring. The key is flexibility. Your enterprise can be as big or as small as you wish. You may start out small and grow to a large enterprise employing many others, or you may keep it small enough that you remain the only “employee”. You can pursue it full-time or part-time, or even in your spare time for extra income while you work at a traditional job.

The secret to success is starting small (without a lot of up front expense) and adding new profit centers to build your income.

In every other area of your life it seems that people will advise you not to “put all of your eggs in one basket”. No financial advisor would recommend putting all of your savings in only one investment. But when it comes to the key to providing financial security for you and your family, everyone from friends to a guidance counselor to your mom will tell you to go find a good job and stay with it. If that’s not putting all your eggs in one basket, then what is? We’ve all learned that the days of getting a job right out of school, staying there for 40 years, then collecting a gold watch at retirement are over. The work force is changing rapidly. And many people have found themselves pushed out of a company just when they need the job most.

The answer does not lie in the advice given to entrepreneurs, either. The entrepreneur is told to take all his time and money and put it into one concern. Think of nothing else, work on nothing else, and focus completely on making that one venture a success. The reality is that, even with that dedication, a large percentage of entrepreneurial companies do not succeed. So the entrepreneur is left with nothing after working night and day.

And whether you are an employee, an entrepreneur or a Solo-preneur, you will find that business cycles impact you. Various types of businesses are impacted differently by these business cycles. If you operate more than one venture, each will react differently to change. One may slow down while another picks up. In this way you are not going to lose all of your income because of changes in the economy.

Don’t tie your success to one job, one customer, or even one line of work. Be flexible and follow your wishes and dreams. Start one venture, get it rolling, then start another. The time and energy to manage multiple ventures will be there for you, because the work itself will energize you.

Do you remember The Ed Sullivan Show? Ed often had performers who balanced spinning plates atop high sticks. These performers could keep ten or more plates spinning at a time by following a couple of simple principles: Start them one and a time, and tend each one as necessary. Think of Solo-preneuring that way. Start small, then build on your successes. Keep the whole thing in motion by tending whatever requires your attention today.

If your goal is to make $30,000, you may think that there is nothing you can do that would generate $30,000. That’s probably not true, but instead of looking for one thing you can do to earn $30,000, why not look for three ways to make $10,000? These enterprises may be related or not, you may do all of them part-time throughout the year, or you may do each one for only a short time each year. Whether you want to make $30,000 a year or $300,000 a year, the principles are the same.

Virtually anyone can be a Solo-preneur. The key to your success is having an interest in something and a way to make money with it. Most of us can easily identify our interests, so the next step is to determine how to make money with them. Once you start, the problem will not be coming up with ideas to generate income, it will be finding the time to put them all into action!

What Can You Do?

You have skills and abilities that others do not. We often undervalue the things we know and what we can do, thinking, “If I can do it, anyone can.” Well, “anyone” can’t. Maybe you are an excellent cook, or a Civil War buff, or you know all about computers. Whatever your knowledge or skills, they are of value to others. All you have to do is figure out how to package and market them.

Ask yourself:

• What do I know that others don’t?
• What can I do that others can’t?
• What will I do that others won’t?
• What can I do for others less expensively than they can do it for themselves?
• Be open-minded and creative. You may not immediately see how to turn your interest into a profit center, but try looking at it from a different perspective. If you know how to make the world’s best cheesecakes, one option would be to bake and sell your cheesecakes. But how else could you use that skill to generate income? You could write and self-publish a cookbook of cheesecake recipes. Or you could teach a class on making the perfect cheesecake. There are probably many other ways that you could think of once you open your mind to the possibilities.

Get Started Now!

The best time to start is always now. Stop saying that “someday” you will take charge of your life and do what you have always wanted to do. Get out your calendar and look at every page. Do you see anything labeled “someday”? I didn’t think so. “Someday” is a code word for “never.” Don’t wait for the kids to go to school, or finish school, or move out. Don’t wait for the day when you have more money, or more time, or more whatever. And don’t think that you are too young or too old, not smart enough, or creative enough, or somehow not good enough to do this. There will always be more to learn and do, so don’t think that everything has to be perfect when you start.

How can you get started? An ancient Chinese proverb says, “The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.” Take that single step today. It might be as simple as making a phone call to get more information about something that interests you, or you might sign up for a class, register a business name, create a flyer to promote your services, etc. Just pick a step, do it, then go on to the next step.

Want to know more about Solo-preneuring? This article is excerpted from the manual, Solo-preneuring: The Art of Earning a Living Without a Job, the self-help guide for those who want to escape corporate bondage and find success doing work they love. For more information, go to http://www.idealady.com/solobook.htm

Memes. funny word, big concept. Memes are essentially the building blocks for how we move through life. From “Where’s the beef” to “Nice guys finish last”, they are made up of ideas, behaviors, styles or usages that spread from person to person within a culture. They form the boundaries and limits we use to operate in the world. When we were infants, we soaked them up like a sponge and learned how to survive. As we grew older, we began to question them as well as gather evidence to support those that had already taken root, often subconsciously. Sometimes these memes helped us reach our dreams, sometimes not. Through awareness and conscious choice, our memes can support and energize us to reach our goals and create a new reality–one of our own choosing. So roll up your sleeves and let’s do some spring cleaning on those memes…

1)Name the Memes Around You
In your lifetime, you have been surrounded by countless memes. Your family history, culture, friends, television, music, the part of the world you live in, the time period in which you grew up all play a part in the way you view the world. As you become more in tune to these messages, you will be able to identify the ones that support you and eliminate those that don’t.

Exercise: Consider the following areas and the cultural beliefs that relate to them:

1. Money 2. Success 3. Relationships 4. World politics 5. Aging

2) Clarify What’s Influencing You
Were there certain beliefs in your family that you picked up? Did work have to be hard? Was it selfish to ask for what you want rather than go along to get along? Were there certain things that were just not done? The key shift is taking control and using your own thoughts, beliefs, and ideas to invent a new way of being that becomes a bi-product of your thinking propelling you forward to grow and evolve reducing the struggle.

Exercise: Ask yourself the question “Is this belief, idea, concept, or thought working for my life purpose?”

This sounds simple, but it can actually be quite challenging. We all have ideas, beliefs, and thoughts (all memes) which work for our lives and those which don’t. This question should also be asked as you are interacting with your memetic environment. Are the books, websites, journals, movies, and conversations you are having pulling you forward or causing a block in your energy or zapping you of your reserves?

3) Dust Off Your Dreams and Evaluate Your Strengths
What are your strengths? What comes easy or naturally to you? Find out what your strengths are, and apply these each and every day to your life. By getting clear on your life purpose and by examining your thoughts several times each day, it is possible to begin choosing memes which pull you forward.

Exercise: Make a list of things you were “driven to do” but you didn’t because of a belief.

Did you want to “major in interior design,” “invest in a certain stock,” or “date or marry a particular person?” Make a list of everything you have wanted to do in the past but didn’t, and then ask yourself “What were the reasons that you did not act on what you really wanted to do in life?”

4)Map Out Your “Superhighways”
Each of us takes in information in a variety of ways, however some ways are our preferred paths. For example, some people enjoy getting ideas from friends and family, some are moved by visual images, music or lyrics, and still others have to experience life to form their own conclusions. By identifying and using your “superhighways” you can enhance and speed up the process of creating a supportive belief system.

Exercise: Discover your learning style and work with it.

Do some investigation into your learning style and take note of the trends you discover about yourself. Do you prefer to listen to books on tape rather than read? You may be an auditory learner. You learn by listening. If you like to learn by graphs, charts, or from presentations, you may be a visual learner who learns by watching. If however, you learn by hands on experience, you might be kinesthetic and learn best by doing.

5) Eliminate Clutter Holding You Back
Waste and clutter crowd your thinking, and the visual image can create negative thinking, such as “I am overwhelmed” or “Things are broken” or “My house is messy.” The subconscious will take this thought and will translate it into “I am broken, overwhelmed, and messy.”

Exercise: Spend about 10 minutes writing down everything that is on your mind.

This could be a “to do list”, set of random thoughts, energies, or emotions. The goal is to get what is in your mind out and on paper. A “brain dump” is a great way to clear the mind of clutter and crowded thinking. The clearing process can shift your thinking in a heartbeat.

6) Get Creative and Broaden Your Horizons

• Study an evolutionary trend, a culture different than your own, or a new territory worth entering.
• Investigate a new topic or idea that interests you—read magazines, interview people in the field, find a group to join
• Focus on the 15 frameworks. They can open a dialogue to new options, and new ways of thinking. (http://www.coachville.com/15frame.html)
• Exaggerate or Minimize - If you take a problem, and you blow it up…really exaggerate the problem and make it bigger than it really is, what happens to your thinking? It normally becomes wildly creative. On the same note, when you make something much smaller, the creativity soars as well, because you are shifting your thinking into a mode which is either larger or smaller than is normal for you.

Exercise: Put yourself in a new physical environment.

We can be creatures of habit, doing the same things over and over again. If you always sit in the back of the room, try sitting in the front, left, or right. You can even sit in a different chair around your table at mealtimes or in your living room. You can walk instead of drive, try a new restaurant or route to work, etc. The new perspective will sharpen your ability to be open to new concepts.

7) Design Failsafe Structures
A failsafe structure is a structure or system which makes all environments stronger than you are. Failsafe means that the system or structure is not subject to changes in your mood or in what is going on in your life. Examples of failsafe structures include are

• strong, stable Coach
• stimulating artwork, pictures, and photographs access to solid resources (online, library, magazines)
• structures for self care (weekly massages)
• mastermind groups
• music you enjoy waking up to
• ongoing skills training
• pets who greet you with happiness, excitement, and lots of kisses

Exercise: Identify 5-10 people you know and ask them to be on your team.

No one does it alone. Next to each person’s name write down their strengths. When you ask them to be on your team, mention their strength, “Bob, I have noticed you are a fantastic speaker, would you be willing to be on my team and help me improve my speaking skills.” Most people will be flattered that you asked, but if Bob turns you down, thank him for his time and ask someone else. In time, you will have assembled a team of people who can provide you with quick solutions to your challenges and stretch your thinking.

Be in Your Purpose
Find your purpose and put yourself squarely in the middle of it. Get to know people who are outstanding in your field, what are their beliefs, what drives them, what ideas do they have about success? Try those on, how do they fit for you? Study your topic or find a group. Instead of saying, “I can’t”, ask yourself, “How can I?”. Surround yourself with real success and unlimited possibility, then your meme’s will begin to shift and line up with your goals.

Exercise: Interview 25 people in your area of interest.

However you define success chose people who have attained it and ask curious questions. Some questions you might ask are:

• “How/why did you get started?”
• “What is the most exciting/challenging part of your day?”
• “If you knew now what you didn’t know then, what would you do differently?”
• “What are you most proud of?”
• “What is success to you?”

Look for trends and differences in the answers to these questions. Then ask yourself “Which answers work for my life?” You may be surprised at what you find. And, you might even add some members to you team (See tip Number 7 above).

9) Pay Attention to Inklings and Other Guidance Tools
An inkling is a subtle sense of something, even with no evidence to back it up. As you begin to trust your inklings more often, you will find that your thinking shifts and you will become more trusting of your own abilities to make smart choices. Creativity and momentum are also increased. While we don’t recommend that you act impulsively on something that is going to cost you financially or in a way which harms you, we do recommend that you go with your impulses in areas such as creative writing, drawing, playing music, or in talking to a stranger “just because you want to.”

Exercise: Spend time each day in the alpha state. Research has found that the ideal state for learning is when the brain is in a relaxed, but aware state. Techniques for moving into the alpha state are varied. Some examples are meditation, yoga, swimming, deep breathing exercises, and guided visualization.

10) Realize That “Soakage” is Inevitable
Even though we carefully try to choose our memes, renegade beliefs will occasionally get in or resurface, we will always be a work in progress. Don’t beat yourself up but do the necessary things to maximize success. Below are a few suggestions:

• Stop watching television (or at least…be very, very selective about what you watch.)
• Immerse yourself in thoughts and literature which relate to your goal.
• State your intention for what you see is possible for your day and make a verbal commitment to achieving just that. You hit the ground running, and you are in charge of your entire day…not waiting for others to call forth your best.
• Observe nature - your thinking can become MUCH bigger and can reach far beyond where you are today.
• Teach or lead others in a new way of thinking
• Hold an “integrity day” to help people complete mundane tasks, such as cleaning their office.

Exercise: Create a “Vision Board” and reinvent this one time each month.

One time each month, take the time to post pictures of what you want your life to look like, be like, and feel like on a poster board or bulletin board. Once these pictures are in place, do one thing in order to move you closer to the direction of your vision. A personal vision can orient you in the direction of the future. The more you focus on pictures and goals of what you want and where you are going in life, the more your vision will be pulled in your direction.

This article was co-authored by Kris Knopp and Bea Fields. Kris Knopp is an idea advocate who believes in the power of ideas and empowers others to take their own ideas seriously and get moving on them.  She inspires people to see bigger possibilities and think beyond the ordinary answers in life. Visit Kris at www.InspiredLifeSolutions.com or email Kris@InspiredLifeSolutions.com.  Bea Fields is an Executive Coach, the Visionary Leader for the Personal Environments Community with CoachVille and the Owner of Five Star Leader Coaching and training.