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The Secret Sauce to Building your Business While You Work 9 to 5 (and having more free time)

Sounds ambitious, right?

The only people who get to have both, successful businesses and free time, are those who worked hard for many years and now they have employees that do things for them.

Or maybe they don’t have a family, they live with their parents, and don’t need to go to a full-time job every day.

They’re not like you.

You have to pay the bills. You do have a business idea. Maybe even an ongoing business that’s giving you a little extra income on the side.

But that’s it. You can’t move forward.

You have a crappy job, where you’ll work at least for the next few years and even get a promotion before you get to save a few bucks.

You’d need to win the lottery or inherit a house to have enough money to start or grow your business.

You can’t start a business having a full-time job and a family to feed. You know that because you’ve tried. You’ve already been through that.

You had an idea, worked at it, motivated, but after the first excitement everything fell apart, and now you don’t have the time to figure it out and work at it consistently.

Your time has passed, and now it’s time to wait a few years until you have more money or free time. You can’t do it right now.

Right?

Actually, you can. And it’s simpler than you think.

You can develop a business while you work, and get even more free time.
But most people get it the wrong way.

They think they need to have lots of money or have deep knowledge about finances when actually it all starts with this very first important step.

In this article, I’m going to show you what that step is and go through why it’s the secret sauce to building a successful business while you work at your full-time job.

But first, let’s start with the myths when it comes to creating a business.

Myths About Creating a Business While You Work

When people talk about entrepreneurship we get scared. They make it sound like an extremely complex thing.

I’m not going to say it’s easy (spoiler alert: it’s not). But there are some myths you’ve probably heard about (or worse, BELIEVE IN) around entrepreneurship, like:

• You need to spend all your free time on your business: sacrifice sleep, spending time with your loved ones, and enjoying a good movie.

• You need lots of money to start.

But what you need to be an entrepreneur is much more simple: You need to get started.

Everything else comes with time.

Let me tell you a story. I’ve been in the same place. I worked hard every day in my job and when I returned home I had no energy to start working on my project. Suddenly it was 9 pm and I just wanted to eat and go to bed.

The next morning, it all started again.

I thought that I wouldn’t be able to start my own business until I had all day to work at it or more money.

So I quit my job.

And you know what? Nothing happened. I lived on savings watching my stress level go higher every day. Didn’t get any clients, didn’t get to strategize and build my business.

So I got a job again. And the pain appeared again.

What I learned is that it’s not about having more money or time. It’s about what motivates and inspires us.

It’s about having things clear on our minds.

Keep reading and find out about the secret sauce to creating a business while you work 9 to 5 without sacrificing all your free time.

How Can You Get There if You Don’t Know Where You’re Going?

Did something like this ever happen to you? It’s annoying.

You’re sitting on the couch, in your living room. You stand up and start walking to the kitchen to get something, and suddenly you stop.

You’re there, standing in the middle of the hallway, frozen.

What was that you were going to get?

You can’t remember.

You can’t move forward, because you don’t know where to go or what to search for, much less where to look for it.

You go back to the couch, frustrated. Only then, you remember. You wanted a drink to accompany the movie you’re about to watch.

The truth is, you can only find what you search for.

This is why the first fundamental (crucial, essential) step to start and build a business is knowing your mission.

What does starting a business have to do with developing a mission?

An entrepreneur is a person who not only earns money with a business but who also has a positive impact by providing solutions to other people’s problems.

Evidence shows that when people love what they do, they can sustain it in time. Because building a business entails hard work that you’ll only be able to perform if you like what you’re doing.

How are you going to wake up every day to work on a business that doesn’t generate any income yet, if you’re only in it for the money?

If you want to hate your job, keep your 9 to 5.

On the contrary, by finding which of the many problems around you challenges you the most, you will find something you feel attracted to do. And you’ll be able to work on it every day even when it isn’t bringing any income for you yet. While you’re still at your day job.

How to Build Your Business While Working 9 to 5 (Secret Sauce)

So the lesson in all this is you CAN develop a business while you work.

All you have to do is take this very first important step that most people underestimate and skip: develop and write your personal mission statement.

Why?

According to Stephen Covey in his great book The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, the second habit is Begin with the End in mind®.

“The most fundamental application of Begin with the end in mind® is to begin today with the image, picture, or paradigm of the end of your life as your frame of reference or the criterion by which everything else is examined (…).

By keeping that end clearly in mind, you can make certain that whatever you do on any particular day does not violate the criteria you have defined as supremely important, and that each day of your life contributes in a meaningful way to the vision you have of your life as a whole.

To start with a clear understanding of your destination. It means to know where you’re going so that you better understand where you are now and so that the steps you take are always in the right direction”.

Stephen Covey, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People

So, following Covey, to start with the end in mind, you need to take the lead in your life.

¿Are you willing to take the lead in your life?

The truth is most people skip this step because it reminds them of high school, when one usually learns all about mission and vision.

But we never got how important this is.

Here are some ways in which having a clear personal mission statement is not only necessary but CRUCIAL when starting a business.

How does Having a Mission Statement Help Me be Successful in My Business?

It Connects You With Who You Are

Your mission statement is something you elaborate on when you’re connected to the best version of yourself.

It gives you clarity of mind, which allows you to think better and know what you want.

That way, you’ll have the freedom to analyze business ideas that you’re really attracted to, without any pressure or thinking you need this or that.

Better Chances for Your Business to Succeed

If your focus when building a business is on what you like and how you can use it to help people instead of being centered on money:

• You’ll enjoy your everyday work

• It’ll be easier to be there when things get hard, and you’ll create a big impact on people.

• You’ll achieve that by being connected with your mission, that statement that your very best version created for your life.

When a business is fulfilling for its owners and has a high impact on the target customers, there’s a greater chance that it will last because it’s built on strong foundations.

More Free Time

This is by far the aspect that’s most difficult to believe of building a business while you work 9 to 5.

How can it be possible that you have more free time than you have right now when you’re not seriously working on your enterprise?

It’s simpler than we tend to think.

When you have a clear mission and it’s always fresh on your mind, it’s easier to identify elements of your daily life that don’t contribute to your mission.

This goes from certain people to unnecessary, time-consuming, tasks, objects, plans, activities, etc.

Actually, Covey’s 3rd habit is to Put First Things First®. This means learning to prioritize.

When you’re deeply connected with your mission this flows more naturally. It’s less probable that you might say yes to something that won’t lead you to have an impact the way you’re supposed to, by doing what you actually need to be doing.

Let’s do a simple exercise right now. Try to think of 3 things that you regret saying yes to because it takes time away from what you actually want.

It usually goes from coffee with people you don’t actually want to hang out with to going to someone’s art exhibition when you’re not even that close or those driving classes that you signed up for because a salesman called you but you didn’t really want.

Why did you say yes to that?

There might be several reasons: you didn’t dare to say no, you thought you might need those driving skills in case of an emergency (even when it may not be the right time for that now).

Having a clear mission statement and visualizing it every day helps you prioritize things and that frees up a lot of your time.

Making The Right Decisions

You truly know what you want. You know what and how to prioritize. Then making decisions comes naturally as a consequence of having this clearance of mind.

Choosing whether or not to go to that old friend’s art exhibition or signing up to those driving classes will be easier and part of a natural process.

It also shows you a horizon to which you can look when you feel unsure when facing a choice.

It’s The Roadmap to a Happy and Fulfilling Life

This may sound cheesy but it’s true. The ultimate goal to create a successful business is to serve people. That’s the only way you can have a happy and fulfilling life, working out of what you love to do and creating a high impact on people at the same time.

Having a clear mission statement provides you with an incredible framework for your everyday life:

“How different our lives are when we really know what is deeply important to us, and keeping that picture in mind, we manage ourselves each day to be and to do what really matters most.”

Stephen Covey. The 7 habits of highly effective people.

To Sum up

Developing your mission will unlock those things that you want and you don’t even know.

Or maybe you did know but thought were fantasies.

The first (and best) step when starting a business is developing your personal mission statement. That acts as a blueprint of your life and soul and gives you the right tools and resources to accomplish it every day.

Like that moment when you’re watching a movie and you feel like getting a drink, building your mission is identifying what you want.

But be careful. If you don’t focus enough on remembering what you want, you may stop frozen in the middle of the path, not knowing where to walk because you forgot what you were looking for.