Have you thought about the risks?

The long hours?

The uncertainties?

The responsibilities that are all on your shoulders, and no one else’s?

The choice to forsake the safe and secure nine-to-five grind and go into business for yourself is not a decision for the faint of heart.

Are you up for the challenges? Are the reasons you want to become an entrepreneur strong enough to ensure you stay on this rough and unpredictable course?

Make sure your reasons for becoming an entrepreneur are solid. Here are a few reasons to go into business for yourself…

As a business owner, you can work around your family’s schedule.

It’s hard to manage a successful career while raising a family.

Often times, we are put in a situation where we must choose one over the other.

If you hold down a full-time job, it’s not always easy (or possible) to pick up your son or daughter after school and then hustle them off to baseball practice.

You can’t bail out of a team meeting because one of your kids got sick at recess.

You can’t attend every dance recital, every swim meet, or every awards function that happens during office hours.

So, what should you do?

Many entrepreneurs choose to run their own businesses because they don’t want to miss out on life’s milestones, especially ones that involve their kids and families.

Sure, they often have to make up for those lost hours in the evenings or weekends, but to the entrepreneur, the trade-off is worth it if their families get to see them more often.

As an entrepreneur, you get to do work that means something to you.

For the entrepreneur, it’s not enough to be a mere cog in a machine.

Business owners need to feel like they make a difference at work. That means they need to be steering this ship, not just idly enjoying the ride.

They want to build a business that reflects who they are and where they stand with their personal values. These personal values translate into brand values, and brand values shape the business from deep within its core.

If creating a business that aligns with what you stand for doesn’t resonate with you in a strong way, you might not have the drive required to be an entrepreneur.

However, if you find yourself wishing you could do something more meaningful and fulfilling with your career, starting a business may be right for you.

When you’re an entrepreneur, you get to dream big.

You have dreams.

BIG dreams.

And no one has ever made it BIG by building someone else’s dream.

To be a contender, you need to have the guts and the savvy to start your own enterprise.

Think about it for a minute – make a mental list of everyone you admire in the business world.

Elon Musk, Steve Jobs, Oprah Winfrey… none of these elite players made a mark on the world or rose to levels of epic success by following others.

They struck out on their own, led others, and built their futures on their own terms.

You can have a successful career working for someone else, but you will never reach epic heights by being a follower.

You need to be a trail-blazer – and that means becoming an entrepreneur.

You (finally) get to do things your way.

When you work for someone else’s company, do you find yourself thinking of ways things could be done differently?

Better? Faster? Cheaper?

Do you sometimes wish you could skip some of the red tape and formalities, and just take action?

Do you wonder what would happen if you had more creative freedom and flexibility to try new methods, and test new approaches?

Do you feel stifled? Boxed in? Restricted?

If you answered “yes” to any of the above, you might be better suited as an entrepreneur, rather than an employee.

Business owners find it necessary to challenge the status quo, and are often re-examining processes to find better, more efficient, and more effective ways of doing things.

Rocking the boat on a constant basis isn’t for everyone. Not everyone in a corporation is going to appreciate the ripples your spontaneous, out-of-the-box thinking is going to cause.

As an entrepreneur, however, that tendency to want to shake things up on a regular basis will prove to be an asset, not a hindrance.

You like how it makes you grow.

The enlightened entrepreneur understands that above all, it’s about the process.

It’s about how you evolve.

In other words, it’s not all about the goal, but the person you become when striving for that goal.

And that innate, unquenchable desire to see what it is you are truly made of will keep you on the entrepreneurial track.

The goal, after all, is an ever-moving target because, once you reach that goal, you have to level up and set a new goal.

If you don’t you will stagnate, and get bored.

A bored entrepreneur is a failed entrepreneur. A business owner who loses their passion for business will actually start showing symptoms of depression and burnout, because the thing that excites them is no more.

This is why “serial entrepreneurs” exist.

So, if you find yourself bored with your career path, you might want to become an entrepreneur, because it’s a constant roller coaster of a ride!

Becoming an entrepreneur is not for everybody. While it is a difficult journey, there are many good reasons to choose this career path. Being a business owner allows you to be more flexible with your schedule, so that you can spend more time with your family or other things that are important to you. Being an entrepreneur enables you to do work that aligns with your values in a meaningful way. You have a chance at epic success when you run your own company – a chance that won’t be available to you if you work for someone else your entire career. You will get to try new things and experiment if you are an entrepreneur – a freedom you won’t always have if you have to answer to company policies. And finally, the best part of being an entrepreneur is experiencing how it stretches you and makes you evolve as a person and as a professional.

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