You find yourself dreaming of something and wondering how it can be done. Don’t worry, you’re not alone – anyone who walks down the street or even glances at mass media for long sees an incredible assortment of opportunities.
In Africa, the opportunities are even limitless. Becoming self-employed is the dream of many. For many, the demanding grind of a day-to-day job is manageable, but it becomes a psychological grind over time.
There are many benefits of being self-employed. Here are benefits of moving from thoughts to walking out the door and being your own boss, no matter what you are thinking about.
You Control The Schedule
Perhaps, this is the biggest advantage to self-employment – you control when and where you work. It might be in your living room or in your garage or a friend’s home or sharing an office with a friend. You might start at six in the morning, noon or at midnight. The only constraint is what your customer needs from you and the timelines, and that means much of the background busy work can be done around your other scheduled needs. This is particularly helpful if you’re a parent; if a child is home sick, you don’t have to call into work and beg for a day off to take care of the child – you just take care of things according to your own priorities.
You Decide What To Do
This is principally powerful for individuals who often find themselves doing things at work without understanding the need for the task or how it fits into the overall picture. For those who often question what is done and the way things are done at work, self-employment is an option for them. Self-employed people don’t have this problem – everything is clearly connected to the overall purpose of your self-employment. Sure, there are routine tasks, but you define them and connect them to the overall purpose, meaning that even the boring stuff has a reason –a useful purpose.
You Make Money
Reaping the profits of self-employment is very satisfying and fulfilling. Your effort and work quality are directly connected to the money you make, rather than the indirect connection that you have as an employee. If you make a big sale, the profit is all yours, not distributed to shareholders or spread around the organization. If you do good work that others like, you can make a lot of money for your efforts.
Becoming self-employed is what many employees would like to be. And you can become one too.
Parts of this article originally appeared in How To Become Self-Employed: A Detailed Guide by Trent Hamm