Does the idea of quitting your current 9-5 job and starting your own business sound like a dream come true to you?
Although being the owner of your own business can provide you with personal and financial freedom, these benefits do not kick in until your business has become established. When you are first trying to get your business off the ground, you will probably spend more time working than you ever have before in your life. Additionally, it is not uncommon for new business owners to endure multiple hardships as they are working to create a successful business.

Because starting your own business requires a lot more than most “gurus” and infomercials would like you tobelieve, before you run out and decide that you are going to become your own boss, there are five questions you need to ask yourself. Although it may be tempting to lie to yourself, as you look at each of these five questions, it is important that you are brutally honest with yourself.

Are You Self Motivated?
While many people wish they didn’t have a boss, there is a reason that most people do have a boss: because theyneed one in order to get work done. When you decide to start your own business, you are not going to have anyone above you making sure you get things done, so in order to do well as a small business owner, you are going to need to be very good at motivating yourself to succeed.

Can You Work Well with Others?
In many jobs, you only have to interact with a small group of people. This makes it easy to work with them because you adapt to their specific personalities over time. However, as a small business owner, you are going to constantly be working with different groups of people (from banking staff to consultants), so you need to have a personality that allows you to successfully work with people that may see things differently than you.

Do You Have Strong Opinions?
Even though you are going to be the owner of your business, you will constantly be receiving advice and input from others. Although some of this advice will be valuable, you need to have your own strong opinions, and when someone tells you something that you disagree with, you need to be willing to confidently state your feelings on the matter.

Are You Organized?
This is a pretty basic question, but it is a very important one for small business owners. Although you will want to use the services of professionals like accountants, you are still going to be responsible for keeping everything organized and running, so if you can’t do this, you’re going to encounter a lot of issues along the way.

Are You in for the Marathon and Not Just the Sprint?
Although there are a wide variety of reasons why so many small businesses fail, one of the most common reasons is because the owner gets burned out. When you start a small business, it’s almost like you are living in a fantasy.

However, it never takes long for reality to kick in. Once the bills start piling up and you run into different problems, are you going to have what it takes to persevere and move forward, or are you going to give up and return back to your 9-5 life?