Have you ever bought a Lottery ticket?

Like many people, you might have drifted into a fantasy about what you’d do if you won the millions.

You start to imagine…

What you’d buy first…

What car you’d get, what you’d invest in, what kind of house you’d choose…

Which friends of family might get a share…

What charities you’d support…

Where you’d travel to…

What clothes you’d buy…

What you’d say to the TV interviewer…

You can spend hours with those thoughts. They’re so addictive.

But they’re daydreams.

They don’t really exist.

A similar phenomenon happens with people who want to set up their own business.

They get hooked on the daydreams… the possibilities… the visions of themselves telling the boss to stuff it, buying a villa in Spain, taking Mondays off, getting admiration from friends and family who never thought they’d succeed.

But they remain dreams – unless you take action.

See, the difference between the Lottery and a home business is that one is pretty much never going to happen, and the other is a very real possibility.
If you WANT it, you can HAVE it.

Self-employment is booming. In fact, it’s at the highest it’s been for 40 years, and it’s women who are increasingly driving this trend.

Women make up about 17% of business owners, and there’s still a long way to go.

According to the Government Equalities Office, 10% of British women are thinking about starting a business.

So you’re absolutely not alone in your ambition, and you’re right to think this way.

However, you might be facing the same obstacle as so many others.

It’s not your desire to start a business that’s a problem…

It’s the ability to decide….

• What it is you really want to do…
• What you’re best at…
• What there’s a big enough demand for
• And what’s most likely to make you a long-term income

… and then take the right action.

There are so many options available to you that it can drive you crazy, like a fairground carousel of choices spinning in your head that you cannot stop.

For instance, you might have an idea for an online shop…

…or maybe an offline shop in the high street…

…A blog you reckon could be a hit…

…A manual on internet marketing you’ve been trying to finish…

…An idea for a book or podcast.

…then there’s your Instagram account, you had plans for that.

…or perhaps you should focus on Facebook? LinkedIn?

…what about a YouTube Channel?

…or perhaps a subscription website?

These all keep spinning around…

Weeks pass… months pass…

And nothing actually happens.

You’re still on square one. You’ve not passed GO and you’ve certainly not collected £200.

Your ideas haven’t actually done anything.

They’re like those Lottery ticket dreams…. Lovely, and useless.

When ideas bog you down

When we overwhelm our brains with too many ideas, we cease to pay proper attention to any single one of them.

As the owner of a publishing business I’m constantly bombarded with ideas…my own, my husband’s, my staff’s, even my subscribers, who all have suggestions, brainwaves and demands.

There is so much I want to do… ALL THE TIME…. that a lot of my brain space is taken up with ideas, tumbling around and vying for supremacy.

At any one time I have dozes of things lined up, bustling for first place.

In a way, it’s a good problem to have.

But sometimes I become paralysed by choice. I have to realise that I can’t do everything, so I must make a decision and focus on what’s important.

And this is what I recommend you do…

The power of focus

Of course, you must allow yourself to dream and speculate… that’s all part of the process of hitting upon a successful business. Ambition and imagination ae crucial.

But try and set a time limit for this, because you could spend the rest of your life dreaming.

At some point you need to act.

My suggestion is that you put aside a day or two for brainstorming. Go to the countryside, take time off work, or enjoy long walks with a Dictaphone or smartphone to note down ideas.

Once you’ve let your mind wander freely, then it’s time to focus on the ideas that are:

• Most achievable
• Most suited to you
• Most urgent
• Most likely to bring the results you want (money, pleasure, fulfilment)

Elie Venezky, author of Hack Your Brain says, “Focus is a muscle, and you can build it”.

This is so true…

You have to practice your focus by giving yourself structured time to do it. This means sitting down, either on your own, or with a business partner, and spending a day drilling down into your ideas.

Make sure there are no distractions. Unplug your phone, switch off the mobile, log out of social media, and give yourself time to concentrate.

Sit down and run through your ideas one by one, narrowing them down to a handful of possible projects.

Try and apply logic to it…

• What skills do you have already? What skills might you need?
• Do you have access to the advice and coaching? If not, where could you get it?
• How much investment will it take? How could you get hold of the money?
• Is this something you’d genuinely enjoy long term?
• What kind of time-frame are results possible? Will this be enough?
• What is your financial or lifestyle goal and can this help you achieve it?

Write all of this down. If necessary score each idea, so you can get a rough rating, which might help you pick one.

Once you have a winner, then you need to schedule in the first set of tasks required to get the wheels in motion.

Don’t leave it as an ‘idea’ – make it a planned project in the same way as you might approach building a house or organising a wedding.

Use Google Calendar or similar to lay out the next month or two’s jobs, with reminders if necessary.

By doing this, you lock yourself onto the target and commit yourself to the goal.

Any ‘brilliant’ ideas you get in the meantime can be added to your list for later analysis, should this current plan fail, or succeed in a way that gives you time to add something new to your business.

Just beware the allure of a ‘wonderful’ new idea when it comes along, tantalising you…

You’ve made your decision, so stay focussed.

Avoid those lottery dreams until you’ve achieved what you set out to do.