Succeeding in Business                  You Can Make It On Your Own                    

This is dedicated to and aimed at helping those new to the business world who may see it as a huge, intimidating ocean already full of people who seem more qualified than you.  I'll tell you right now: that is not the reality of. You have loads of talent and skills.  You just have to pinpoint and develop them.  I’ll tell you how I did it with the hope that it will make it easier for you.

I know how difficult it can be to figure out your own sense of self-worth.  Having been a victim of domestic abuse for many years I felt overwhelmed by what I saw as my lack of marketable skills.  It had been drummed into me with constant criticism that I was less than a second-class citizen in order to allow my husband to feel bigger and more powerful.  The very first step I had to take after the huge decision to leave was to decide that I would revive my self-confidence.  It wasn’t easy because, after all, I had sublimated it 22 years earlier in order to be the “good wife”.

I was working as a secretary at the time so I knew that I had typing, listening, and organizational skills.  Also, I had previously been a floral designer and knew that I was creative and worked well with my hands.  I remembered the many creative projects done with my kids over the years.  But it still all seemed so insignificant when compared with figuring out how to actually support myself on my own.  A kindly friend from work helped me get an interview with a company doing telephone software support.  Wow!  That was a huge leap but, by talking about it, I realized I had the intelligence to learn how to use a computer and my customer service skills were good so I went down that road into corporate America.  I will always be grateful for that friend’s help.  It opened a real door to my freedom.

The hardest thing for me was to write my own resume.  I’ve never been very good at blowing my own horn.  If this is a problem for you, ask someone to help.  Sit down and write a list of everything you are good at.  It doesn’t matter if those things are related or not.  Just get them down on paper and you can look for links later.  You’ll be surprised at how shiny you really are!  I compare it to cleaning out a child’s room.  You face a disorganized mess and wonder how you’ll ever get through it.  But you start by sorting stuff into large general piles and discarding the obvious trash.  Then it gets easier as you keep refining the piles into manageable categories and pretty soon you are seeing order rise out of the chaos and finding a place for everything and putting everything into it’s own place.  See how you can relate something you are good at like cleaning up a mess to organizing your own psyche?

Over the years I’ve concentrated on building my skills with self-education and training.  It’s become easier to see myself as a competent professional.  Plus, there are free tools to help hone your skills.

You can take free online typing tests like typingtest.com, learn2type.com, calculatorcat.com, and freetypinggame.net that are fun with a no-pressure environment.  I found those tests along with others just by doing a search for “free online typing tests”.

Are you artistically inclined and like to use computers?  I started out using MS Paint a long time ago.  Whew!  It taught me a lot but was very simplistic.  I wanted more but couldn’t afford Photoshop.  Then, almost a year ago I discovered and downloaded the free graphics program called ‘GIMP – The GNU Image Manipulation Program’ (www.gimp.org) and my world changed!  GIMP is like an easier version of Photoshop that does pretty much everything you need unless you’re a super graphics pro.  It downloads in just a couple of minutes and after a few weeks I had the confidence to start doing specialized flyers and now I’ve actually done a CD cover and have gotten paid for my work!  The graphics on this website were done with GIMP (and, yes, that’s me in the picture on this page).

Just recently I’ve discovered a couple more resources:

You can sign up free at odesk.com to post your skills and examples of your work to apply for work-from-home jobs.  This is an honest, legitimate business opportunity.  You set your own rates, get daily email alerts for jobs in the categories you specify, take tests, and submit examples of your work.  It’s not an overnight success thing but if you stick with it you will get hired: