Should You Take A Big Leap?

Back in 2009 when I decided I wanted to transition my hair back to its natural state, I looked at my relaxed hair in the mirror and I was scared. I did not want to have short hair. This meant doing the "Big Chop", in natural hair parlance, was out of the question. Instead, slowly over time, I snipped out the relaxed bits of my hair. I hid the whole process by sticking to a regiment of braids and weaves. Eventually, I got to a point where I felt my natural hair was long enough and I cut off the remaining chemically-processed hair in one trim.


How does my natural hair transition relate to owning a business in Nigeria? Well, it was a big change for me and I chose to ease into it. For people who are currently in paid employment, changing to a owning a business without guaranteed income at the end of the month is a big change. No matter how hellish workplace environments can be in Nigeria, having that comfort blanket of a salary at the end of the month is a big deal. It is a bigger deal to walk away from such comfort and luxury in this times of high unemployment and shaky economic conditions. ( I promise that sentence was not meant to scare you)

When there are big changes to be done in life, some people are able to jump right in and make a change. There are people that are able to quit their jobs without having any idea what comes next. They inherently have a higher risk tolerance.

Then, there are people like me who can't make big changes. We like to take small steps into big changes. There is nothing wrong with that. It is possible to slowly transition into business ownership from paid employment. It just involves having to put up with the really stressful times of working two jobs for a while before you are convinced to make the big leap. I recently had a cousin who quit her highly lucrative bank job, after using this strategy. She only was able to make that change after she had slowly built her business part-time while she was still employed fulltime.

The thing about starting your business is that you have to do it in a way that makes sense to you. Many people have different advice about the best way to transition into being self-employed. However, the most important part of making a change is being able to commit to the next step.

The best advice I can give is that you should come up with a plan of action. Make sure your plan of action has measurable results and  definite timeline. By being able to make an informed decision on if the big leap is doable, it makes the future less scary in entrepreneurship land.

Are you ready to take that first small step?