One of my goals for 2024 is to reach my freedom number of ₱80,000 ($1,400) in monthly income.
I spent the first four months of the year laying down the groundwork. I read "Million Dollar Weekend" and followed Noah Kagan’s advice to talk to potential customers. After having over 10 conversations in the past two months, I found a common problem that isn’t being solved by other businesses yet—there’s a misalignment between what people say they want and what they’re actually doing.
Noticing this gave me something to work with. Everything seemed to be going smoothly so far. That is, until the self-doubt started creeping in.
Two weeks ago, I found myself feeling frustrated. It’s been four months of putting in the work already, and I still made zero income. Realizing this made me step back and reassess if I’m doing things right. I don’t want to stress about finances anymore, so I started becoming impatient.
I started questioning if I’m even on the right path. What if my current idea isn’t the best one? There might be something better out there. And what if there’s a faster way to get results? My decision here will determine where I’ll end up in three months. And I know it’s going to be tough on myself to work hard for three more months just to get little to no results.
In this moment, I knew I had to make a decision—fast. I need to know what to focus on, and I need to make sure it’s the right path to take.
In the midst of my internal crisis, I had an idea: I thought of hiring a business coach.
Calling a friend
I reached out to my network to find a business coach willing to help a beginner wantrepreneur. This led me to reconnecting with a fellow writer I met at Write of Passage.
Amit Ghosh is an executive coach for founders and senior leaders. When I told him about my problem, he was kind enough to chat with me one-on-one. During our call, we explored what I was dealing with, how I felt about it, and what was holding me back from making progress. By the end, I realized I actually had everything I needed to move forward.
Surprisingly, I didn’t need a business coach—I just needed to understand my emotions.
Amit gave me a simple exercise to help me find clarity and get going. He advised me to reflect on the following:
How can I validate whether my current idea isn't the best one I have right now?
How can I bring myself to run a little, and how do I know when to stop and reassess my options?
I spent a whole week thinking about these questions. Here's how they helped me figure out what to focus on.
Phase I: Understanding my situation
The reason I struggled was because I was searching without knowing exactly what I was looking for. My self-doubts prompted me to look for a better idea, but I didn't define what a "better idea" meant.
Eventually, I realized all I needed was to figure out which of my current ideas was the best—at least according to my standards. So, I looked through the list I made when I started my million dollar weekend and found a few worth considering.
In total, I have three business ideas to choose from:
Life Design: Helping people build a life that they love
Hassle-Free Therapy: Helping people find the right therapist without spending too much money
Test Prep: Helping high school students prepare for college entrance exams
Phase II: Proving Myself Wrong
I knew life design could be really valuable to people, but my impatience and self-doubts kept suggesting it might not be the best idea. So, I tried to prove myself wrong.
I thought about what criteria matter most to me when choosing a business idea. I ended up choosing these three:
Profitability – How much money I can make short-term and long-term
Excitement – How much enjoyment I’ll feel when I commit to the idea
Sustainability – How likely I am to commit to the idea for more than a year
I then rated each business idea from 1 to 5 based on these three criteria.
Seeing the results laid out like this helped me compare the ideas.
The test prep idea used to make the most sense. With my background in Math and tutoring, it would have been easier to make money here than with the other two ideas. But lately, tutoring has stopped feeling exciting for me, and I don’t think it’s smart to work on something I can’t sustain in the long run.
Hassle-free therapy, on the other hand, still feels like an idea worth pursuing, but I can’t place it higher than life design. To me, excitement is a good compass. Anytime I’m energized to work on something, I get better results. My proudest achievements—like writing about my life vision and overcoming my guilt of spending money—are all downstream from choosing something that truly excites me. So while this is a good idea, I have to prioritize what feels most exciting to me now.
With that being said, I guess it’s already settled. The best business idea I could focus on right now is the one where I help people build a life that they love.
Phase III: Running a little
Knowing myself, I know I’ll eventually get distracted by some shiny new idea. But if I want to make things work, I need to commit to the Life Design idea long enough to get valuable insights.
The more I explore the business arena, the more I’ll be exposed to brilliant ideas. But this is often a trap. Building something requires extreme focus. Otherwise, I’ll keep starting from zero and won’t build anything extraordinary.
Jon Ives, the designer of the iPhone, had a story about how Steve Jobs taught him what focus means:
One of the things Steve would say [to me] because he was worried I wasn’t focused — he would say, 'How many things have you said no to?' I would tell him I said no to this. And I said no to that. But he knew I wasn’t interested in doing those things. There was no sacrifice in saying no [to those things]. What focus means is saying no to something that with every bone in your body you think is a phenomenal idea, you wake up thinking about it, but you say no to it because you are focusing on something else.
This is the kind of focus I need to cultivate. So in order to achieve this, I’m setting the following conditions for myself:
I’ll commit to the Life Design idea until the end of June 2024.
I won’t explore a new idea unless 75% of the people I talked to said they don’t think my services are worth paying for (minimum of 12 people).
Any new idea that excites me should be stored in my idea repository on OneNote.
And by the end of June, I’m also setting the following criteria to help me decide if I should continue working on the Life Design idea:
I should have at least 3 paying clients who are all willing to give referrals or positive reviews.
I should have made at least P1,500 in total by the end of June.
The three paying clients should not be a family member.
If any of the three criteria aren’t met, then it serves as a good sign to go explore something else.
Final Thoughts
I wrote this essay as a way to solve my own problems and do the exercise Amit shared with me. When I went over all the drafts I had written, I found that I wrote 6,000 words in total and spent over 10 hours contemplating which idea to commit to.
It all seems like a lot, and I'll admit, if I had found the right approach earlier, I could have saved a ton of time (which is why I'm only sharing what worked for me in this essay). But if this is the price to pay for gaining clarity and peace of mind, then I think it's all worth it.
Sam Altman once wrote, "Almost everyone I've ever met would do well by spending more time thinking about what to focus on."
For overthinkers like me, it might take more time than others. But it's definitely time well spent regardless.
I’m still afraid that this idea might not work out, but I'm more confident that this is the path I need to take. And if things don't work out, at least I can rest knowing I gave it a try.
I know I’ll face even more difficult decisions in the future. But by then, I'll know what to do.
When I start doubting myself and questioning my decisions again, I can simply try to prove myself wrong. And I bet that by doing that, I’ll only reassure myself that I'm on the right track all along.
🌟 Work With Me 1:1
If you're struggling to find direction in life, I'm offering a free discovery call until May 31, 2024. Together, we can explore your options, create new opportunities, and discover what truly matters to you.
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💭 Quote I’m Thinking About
Noah Kagan on how to pick a growing market:
"Your belief in yourself has to be higher than the belief you place in others."
❓ Question I’m Asking
What do I need to say no to, so that I have space for what I really want to say yes to?
See you next week! To binge-read in the meantime, check out these essays: