Fear

I'm no stranger to fear these days.  Last February, I started a consulting business part time and after some hard work, a lot of luck, and a ton of help from other people, I went full time.  I knew it was what I wanted to do, but that didn't make it easy.

It's was easy to say "I want to go into full time consulting", it was not easy to leave behind people that I won, lost,  laughed, bled, cried, and sang karaoke with.  It was difficult to leave behind a well paying position and give up my stock in a high profile, high growth company in exchange for paying my own insurance, finding my own work, and having no guarantees.  It's exciting but the fear is more than I expected.  I assumed I would find a new surge of courage after I stepped out on my own and became "free" to do what I wanted.  I should have known better.

I think the easy part is over.  I seem to have a whole list of things that scare me now.  Recently, I put together a list of things I needed to do and instead of rating them by importance or urgency, I rated them by how scary they are.  Here it is:

• Contract with client A (very scary)
• Contact people about part time work (very scary)
• Invoice Client B (not scary)
• Remaining hours for Client B (not scary)
• Email guy I went to church with who now may be able to send work my way (very scary)
• Follow up with potential client who keeps blowing me off because they think I'm too small (very scary)
• Invoice Client C (not scary)
• Finish reading book (not scary)
• Write employee handbook (kinda scary)
• Client D system restores (not scary)
• Work on open source project I want to help with (kinda scary)
• Follow up with people now that I'm gone (very scary)
• Redesign website (very scary)
• A blog entry (EXTREMELY SCARY)
• Business budgeting/ book keeping for 2011 (very scary)

I want to acknowledge my fear and be real about it.  When my kids are afraid I tell them that courage is taking action when you're afraid.  I have to set the example.

So here I am with this domain I've owned for almost two years now, I don't like the design and it is definitely not how it needs to be.  But I know myself, if I wait until it is "just right", I'll never get started.  So here I am, diving in.  

I hope the kids are proud someday.