My boss makes me come in early and stay late. She only gives me 20 minutes to eat lunch and no breaks at all. She frowns heavily when I make personal calls during work, and heaven forbid she catches me on Facebook! She makes me run all of the company errands and sometimes I even have to do the janitor’s job! She gives me hard projects to do with iron-clad impossible-to-meet deadlines, and doesn’t accept excuses if I turn in work late. She wants me to go the extra mile for the company but doesn’t pay me anything for overtime. She expects me to give my heart and soul to the company, and sometimes ignore the needs of my family. Sometimes I just want to quit, but I really need this job. She’s got me right where she wants me.
Yes my boss is a bitch. And unfortunately my boss is me. 😉
That’s right. I’m my own boss. I run my own company, and I have no employees. The buck starts and stops right here with me. If money comes in, it’s because I generated it. And if my income goes down, it’s because of something I did or didn’t do. No one to praise or blame for my results, except myself.
Are you self-employed with no employees? Is your boss as tough on you as mine is on me? How did we get here? How did this happen? One word. Passion.
All of the people I’ve met who have succeeded in leaving their old jobs to go work for themselves have done it because they are uber-passionate about their work. You can’t work as hard as we do unless you’ve got passion. To be successful working for yourself you also need drive, ambition, discipline, motivation, concentration, and a willingness to learn, fail, and learn some more.
If you are currently sitting at a job you hate, working for a boss you don’t love, and thinking about working for yourself instead, consider carefully if you have the passion to see it through. The days are longer, the work more intense, the results never guaranteed. But none of that will matter to you if you have passion. You will wake up every morning eager to see what you can create or accomplish. You will go to bed at night with ideas swimming around in your head. You will find yourself writing ideas down on napkins and scraps of paper, typing frantically on notepad on your cell phone, or waking up in the middle of the night needing to get to your computer! You won’t need to take a one hour lunch because you’ll be too eager to get back to work. Food is just a distraction, a necessary stop like gassing up the car so you can make it to your destination.
Do you have passion? Does it drive you? Is it enough to get you out of your current job? If you have been thinking longingly about leaving your job, leave it for something you’re passionate about, or you’ll be begging for your job back before too long.
Yes, my boss is a bitch, but I love her. She helps others, changes lives, makes a difference, and is leaving the world a better place than when she found it. And she’s just getting started. I know this means longer hours, maybe even working on weekends, but I want to help her reach her goals. They are worthy, and she is driven.
Now that doesn’t mean I can’t negotiate with her. I want more vacation time, a personal assistant, and a raise. I think if I approach her with my demands she will be reasonable. After all, she wants me to succeed too.
If you’re self-employed and your boss is a bitch, congratulations! It probably means you’re going to succeed.
