What do we mean by motivation? Well, most definitions of motivation include the idea that motivation is a process that starts, guides and maintains certain actions that lead to the realisation of goals. Motivation includes physical, emotional and social forces that influence your behaviour and is a requirement for achieving a goal. With this in mind, you need to ask yourself what motivates you to achieve the goal of starting your own business? Let’s dig a bit deeper and look at some common justifications that other people give for starting their own business, as well as some cautionary notes:
The very fact that you have come to SmallBusinessHelp means that you are an explorer of possibilities, and that, if you are persistent, you will make progress. If you are in the unfortunate position of having to do something to survive, consider trading. We discuss trading elsewhere on this website. Buying and selling things from home or at the streetside is a form of what many African academics call “survivalist trade”, but it remains a very hard way of making a meagre living. If you can, keep on reading about business and go for business training courses. Unfortunately, your chances of growing your business into a thriving one needs every bit of knowledge and experience that you can only pick up through experience and this experience often comes from the workplace. We are not saying that you shouldn’t venture into business if you haven’t worked before or can’t find work to get the necessary experience. We are simply recommending that, to give yourself the best chance of success, you should try and gain some work-related experiene that will help you in your own business. If you can’t find a job, you no doubt find yourself under pressure to make whatever money you can, but if the opportunity presents itself, consider working as a volunteer, even part-time. You can then observe and learn all you can about how organisations work, how business works, and how people work together. Convince the organisation that you offer your voluntary services to, to give you an opportunity to manage more work, more systems and other people. Failing that, you can gain management experience at home by applying business principles to the way you approach life.
If you feel that you have it in you to start your own business and want to prove it to yourself – good on you! That sort of self-confidence and positive thinking goes a long way towards business success. However bear in mind that if you do decide to start a business without work experience, never stop reading and learning, even while you are running your business. Get constant advice. Learn from your mistakes. It is the most difficult path to choose, and there will be times that you’ll be frustrated and feel like you want to give up, but there are people who have had success this way.
Working for someone else can be frustrating sometimes, but you still need to be disciplined and able to get on with others when you work for yourself.
Self-employment allows you to do the job in your own way, and it is very satisfying when your way is shown to work. You do, of course, also have to take responsibility when it does not work.
There can be some glory attached to running your own business, but make sure that you are not trying to prove that you are something you are not. The venture may even fail, despite your hard work. Will you be able to deal with this?
This is not usually enough of a goal by itself, as wealth is by no means guaranteed. This goal is slightly different from the survivalist goal given in the first point. Whereas the first point we mention has the goal surviving and using self-employment to achieve that, wanting money as a goal is not necessarily linked to survival but rather to what money can give you beyond survival. Your own business is no easy way to make money and requires you to be fully involved in making the business a success. You need to be sure that, even if you never get rich, you still want to pursue a business of your own.