Posts tagged: consistency

More Doubts and Fears

I’ve started having some worries today about my trip. As I’ve been pondering and trying to figure out what my fears are about, I think I’ve come to a better understanding of why I’m nervous. I’m scared that I’m not going to accomplish what I’d like to accomplish with my trip. I’m scared that I’m going to get out on my trip, and start having second thoughts about what I’m doing. Like, with every job that I’ve had with graduation. I can see myself questioning my motives for doing what I’m doing, and not having sufficient motivation to carry through with it. I really don’t want that to happen. I mean, I’ve been having doubts with every decision I’ve made with graduation, and this is something that I’ve felt really good about and have been really excited to do.

I think one of the main reasons for this fear is the fact that I’m pretty sure there isn’t any job that will excite me. I want to be an entrepreneur, and I really don’t think I’ll feel satisfied until I’m successful in my own venture. So, is the purpose of this trip really to figure out what occupation I could enjoy? Hmmm, now that’s the question. Although I would like to be able to find an occupation that I could enjoy and learn from while I work on my own business, I know that any occupation I have will be seen as a short-term solution to help me accomplish my long-term goals. So, really, I don’t think the purpose of my trip is to find an occupation I would enjoy, although I do think that would be a nice byproduct.

I guess I just really want to be sure of what my purpose for this trip is, because I’d hate to build a blog around a certain idea, and then want to change it half-way through. So, I think my real objective and purpose of this trip is to gain a breadth of experience. I want to understand how things are in the real world. How do people do certain jobs and feel fulfilled doing them? What kind of places are out there that I haven’t experienced? What kind of people can I meet and learn from? What do the big and small companies of this country look like, and how do they operate? What kinds of problems exist in the lives of people all over the country that could be fixed by businesses?

I really think that no matter what I do on my trip, I’ll feel like I’ve accomplished my goal if I learn and grow from my experiences. So, really, I can do the same things I’ve been thinking about. I can try to go to work with different people. I can try to tour different businesses across the country. I can stay with a different person every night. Because, in the end, I just want to have a lot of experience and find out what my next step in life really is. I guess I shouldn’t end my trip until I have a specific plan for the future. I can see myself stopping in a city, seeing a good opportunity for a business, and staying there in order to bring it to fruition.

Now, that’s definitely a hard purpose to portray to other people. It’s been hard enough to tell people what I’m doing as it is. Just saying that I’m hitch hiking across the country really doesn’t do the trip justice. Whatever, I’m not doing this for other people anyway.

On another note, I’ve been trying to establish a schedule that I can maintain while I’m on the road. So, I’ve started doing exercises that I should be able to do, no matter where I stay. I’m doing calisthenics every night and running every morning. It feels great when I’m consistently exercising. How come I ever let myself not exercise regularly? I love running. Every time I go running, I feel so good and I wonder why I’m not 100% on doing it every day. I guess that’s just life. Constantly trying to do what you know you should do.

Well, that’s all the thoughts I got for today. There’s a funny video clip from the new twilight movie that I’ve been showing to lots of people that I’d like to share:

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categories Trip Preparation | Aaron Anderson | datetime November 24, 2009 5:50 am | comments Comments (0)

The Budgeted Nomad?

Well, I’m sick. I’m a little surprised by that, because I don’t remember the last time I was seriously sick. It was before my mission sometime. I think part of the reason I may be sick is because I haven’t been exercising as regularly as I usually do, and I’ve stopped being quite as diligent in my eating habits. I guess it could also be that I just got a virus. I guess I shouldn’t expect to never get sick no matter how healthy I keep myself.

I continue to mull around in my head the idea of this nomadic trip. I would really like to make a decision, but I just want to make sure I’m going to commit to whatever I decide to do. On Sunday I went to personal finance class that our Stake wants to be taught to every ward. I really enjoyed it, and I learned a lot. When I was listening to it, I realized that I really need to start saving and putting money away. I guess you could say, I need to start planning for my future and being financially prepared for it. That’s one of the bigger doubts that I’m having now. I mean, I’m almost 25, and I have nothing saved away. Nothing. A lot of people my age are in debt, but that’s not really an excuse.

So, if I go on this trip, it will probably only delay the amount of time until I start making money and putting it away for long-term plans and goals. See, there is one part of me that is starting to realize all the lessons that I’ve learned from my many different post-graduation jobs. The reason I kept getting new jobs is because I wanted to find something that I loved doing. I kept telling myself that the money isn’t important, and that if I find something I love, the money will follow. Well, I’m starting to realize that is true in a sense, but if doing what you love doesn’t pay enough to satisfy your daily wants and needs, then it taints the activity and you start not to enjoy it as much. I’ve been so concerned on finding exactly what I’d like to do, that I haven’t been consistent with anything. I think that a better plan is to find a job I enjoy that pays well, but that still gives me the time and freedom to explore other options at the same time. See, I could have had a part-time sales job during all of these different adventures I’ve had. Then, since I wouldn’t have financial necessity to worry about, I could more fully analyze how much I enjoy the different projects I get involved in.

I’m an entrepreneur by heart. I see opportunities, and I always get excited about trying something new. Although having money isn’t necessary to make businesses successful, it sure makes them a lot easier. There are some ideas that I’ve had that I just couldn’t pursue because I didn’t have the financial resources to pursue them.

For example, with RateMySummerSalesJob.com, I got sick of going through the website and trying to search for problems that needed to be fixed. If I could just hire someone to do the beta testing for me, I could be off and running on the project. So, although starting a business is a great and worthy goal, I need to have a job that pays well while I explore different business options. That way, I won’t even consider myself to be finicky. I’ll have a job that I do regularly, but I can just consider my different business adventures as hobbies. And that’s completely fine to me if I have lots of different hobbies.

Also, to me it’s not necessarily just the excitement of working on my own ideas that intrigues me about entrepreneurship. I think it’s the idea of taking nothing to something that sounds so fun, whether it be my idea or not. In the Utah Valley, there are a lot of startup companies, and I would love to get in on the ground floor of many of them. However, I need to have a specialty that I can bring to the table. Although I consider myself really good at fixing problems, being very organized, and having an eye for opportunity, those aren’t the kinds of skills you sell yourself on. I need to have a specialty that will make me a valuable asset to any company, especially startups. I think the best thing for me to become specialized in is sales. I like sales, and that’s the lifeblood of any company, especially startups.

So, I guess my concern is if I go on this trip, I’m just delaying making money and starting my life. However, I can still go on this trip, make money, and put it away like anything else. In fact, if I don’t have to pay for housing, my expenses will be lower, although my food expense will increase, and my travel expenses could increase as well. But, I could set up a very specific budget for my trip that I need to stay under, while still working and making money through my sales job. I’ve been feeling more and more how I need to set a very specific budget. I want to live for about $1000 a month as far as my living expenses are concerned. That seems like it would be rather easy to stay under while traveling on the road, and I could make a budget specific to my nomadic lifestyle. Once I want to return to a “normal life”, I can just readjust my budget to the different expenses that will be associated with how I live.

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categories Trip Preparation | Aaron Anderson | datetime October 27, 2009 5:43 pm | comments Comments (0)

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