What if you could work from anywhere?

More and more people are ditching the cubicle and desk for a life of freedom. They’re not retiring; they are taking their work with them. The rise in technology means you can earn anywhere by working through your laptop. So many are doing this but can you? How do you get started?

Here are a few tips to building your location independent business.

Start with learning

Question-led research is a great way to go. Start with the main reason you want to become location independent. For example, if you want to live on your boat, your first question is, “How can I sustain my lifestyle of living on my boat?” Sounds simple, right? Then start asking yourself what you can do, will do, will not do, etc. Once you’ve started to find out what you are really all about, you can do some research online to see how others have been starting and running location independent businesses.

Start, then keep moving forward

Just start. You can research the best way to do something until you are blue in the face, but it won’t get you started. Do something in line with your business goals. Get it out there. If your business “fails,” you have learned something. Do it a different way. Once you find something that works, just go for it and keep working on it.

Quiet that doubting mind

So, now you are going along at speed when the great self-doubt creeps in. How you deal with this is the biggest determiner of success. It’s important to tell yourself that only your mind is being doubtful. Your hands can still write, network with prospects, ship, connect on Facebook or Twitter, etc. If you start to think that you can’t do something, ask yourself a question. Is it going to hurt anyone? No? Then try it and push through.

Keep going

Once you’ve completed a task, whether it became a success or a failure, take the next step. That is what you’ve chosen to do, so don’t give up. The more you do, the more you get new ideas. If something doesn’t go well, you can try again with the next idea. Just keep going.

Stay local

A great way to reduce risk in starting a location independent business is to start at home. I know what you are thinking. Why would I start a location independent business at home? What’s the point? The point is that starting a business is hard. You could run your location independent business from your home town for the first six months. It will give you time to work out some problems you face. Then, once your business is off the ground, make the push to be truly location independent.

Get some systems in place

Once you are really getting into your work, there will be little frustrations that start to creep in. How can I keep better tabs on my expenses? How do I know when one of my clients or vendors is on vacation? It’s only when you start to come up against these things that you can start to put some systems into place. It is systems that will keep your business humming along as you are busy with making money.

Don’t forget to reap the benefits

Lest we forget that the main goal of starting a location independent business is freedom. You may be working crazy 12 hours a day shifts, especially in the beginning. That might be just fine with you, or it might not. The main thing is that you a) really love what you are doing and b) take time to smell the roses. If you are sitting in the cabin of your boat on your laptop all day long, but never going out for a sail, you’re not going to be happy. That was NOT how you pictured it. Tweak something and get back on track.

There are a number of things to think about when you start up a location independent business. Basically, this amounts to get going, keep going, and fine tune. Keep these points in mind to help you achieve what you truly want.