Quote:
Originally Posted by Dwane J.  I know the first years are slow with a new business. |
Why? Who says?
You're right that your business, if you're going to have a business, needs to be viable. It needs to pay you enough to support you and your kids. So, yes, something needs to happen to bring up the income. Whether that is better marketing, or you raise your prices, or you do some automation so it isn't so time consuming for you, or you reduce your costs in some way --
something has to happen. But that solution doesn't need to take "years".
If you have kids, you will probably have less time to devote to your business. This probably means that it will grow slower. So what? "Less time" for the business doesn't mean "no time". There's enough time in the week to work full time, sleep, take care of your kids, do your chores, and to also have time for yourself, whether that is for a hobby, entertainment, or following your dream.
You may need to cut something out. Do you, for example, watch television? You may need to drop television.
Your questions seem to me to be primarily fear based: you fear you will be locked into a job you don't like, you fear you are running out of time to have kids, you believe it will take years to grow your business, you fear you won't be able to grow your business, work full time, and be a good parent at the same time. It's real tough to see opportunities from a fear based perspective.
So something needs to knock loose here, to get you beyond fear, to seeing opportunities. You say your business is "more rewarding than your day job". Does that mean it's OK but not terrific? Maybe you need sometime terrific. Something that you
really enjoy. Perhaps the solution is to find a different job, to take the clues provided by what you enjoy about your current business and do work that you really like. You say you have found a job six times. Well, gosh, you don't need to wait until the next layoff
, you can go find a better job now
If I were in your shoes, and I wanted to have kids, I'd have kids. I think what needs to happen here is that over, say, the next month or two, you address your fear that having kids is going to lock you into your job that you dislike. Without knowing more details, it's hard to say what that looks like. But you need confidence that something will happen: either you can grow you business while being a good parent, or you find a different business, or you find a job that you're excited about! That solution doesn't need to be in place
before you have kids, but it sure would be great if you can see that it exists. Then over this time period (a month? two months?) you explore lots of options, and your fear begins to recede, and at that point you say, "OK! Let's have kids!"
I hope this was helpful,
Cat