The Essential Abilities You Need to Escape the Rat Race

So you dream of escaping your cubicle prison and being your own boss?

Many people want to leave the rat race and become an entrepreneur because there are many advantages to being self-employed or starting your own business. You have the freedom to make your own hours, work towards your own goals, do things your own way and hopefully become much more successful than you could be while working for someone else. You feel constrained and so contemplate taking the plunge.

rat race
Photo credit: Roger Price

However, the reality is that only a small percentage of people who aspire to be their own boss will ever be successful at it. Many people only look at the easy or fun side of being an entrepreneur and don’t realise how much work is needed to get to that point. There are many who will not even attempt to start their own business out of fear or lack of initiative, or others who will give it a half-hearted attempt and fail. Among the new software you will have to learn about, you may need some sort of bookkeeping software such as Intuit business accounting, and a series of useful productivity and payroll tools.

There are a small percentage of people who will succeed and who will create lives for themselves which match up with their dreams and vision. These successful escapees from the rat race will usually have some attributes in common. There are certain attitudes and abilities which will help you succeed in the challenge of becoming your own boss and carving out a niche for yourself. If you want to be successful, make sure that you have these abilities nailed down or hire someone who can do them for you.

The Ability to Sell

No matter what sort of business you are in, the ability to confidently sell something to someone else will always come in handy. You might be selling your ideas, your company vision, your services, your brand or your products and you might be selling them to investors, co-workers, clients, employees or customers. You need to be able to explain what your vision is and how it will benefit them, in order for you to get people on board and signed up.

The Ability to Be Patient

Starting your own business is not a “get rich quick scheme” as success will take quite a long time to build. In fact, most businesses take over a year until they start seeing some decent results. Before you even get started, get rid of all misconceptions you might have that you will be rolling in money and living the easy life right away. In the beginning, you will need to work hard to prove yourself and to build your business from the ground up. Be patient, keep your eyes on the future and don’t give up.

The Ability to Commit to an Idea

If you are the type to want to be an entrepreneur, it is likely that you are the type of person whose mind is constantly buzzing with exciting ideas for the future. This is absolutely brilliant and it will give you the edge in business, but you need to learn to balance it with enough discipline to commit to an idea and finish it. Otherwise, every time you get something half-finished, you will instinctively jump to another idea. Therefore you will never develop anything to its full potential.

The Ability to Admit to Your Own Flaws

Unfortunately one of the road blocks that gets in the way of many entrepreneurs is that they waste their time doing something wrong and then deny their mistakes to themselves to protect their own self-pride. Their ego is stopping them from admitting that their approach is flawed and because of that they are never able to solve the problem or move forward.

If you find yourself stuck, stop beating your head against the wall and be honest with yourself: what are you doing wrong? It is not a nice feeling to realise that you messed up, but it is essential to your success that you are able to swallow your pride, learn from your mistakes and take on self-criticism in order to improve and succeed in your future exploits.

These are just a few of the essential skills and abilities which will make the difference between success and failure in your escape from the rat race.