I launched my first business in January and the most important thing I have learned is that sometimes you have to say no to your dreams.

I never realized this before because I have never had a job that allowed me complete control over my workday. Before becoming an entrepreneur, I had a handful of salaried jobs that I excelled at, for the most part. (Who hasn’t been fired at least once?)

Most of my salaried jobs were as a reporter for daily newspapers. I was especially good at making deadlines, pursuing opportunities and leaving good impressions. My tasks were well defined and I was good at completing them.

But putting my future in my own hands seemed more promising than following directions in a tied-down corporate structure that moved like molasses. I craved the ability to try things, fail, learn, adjust, and try again. With my work ethic I knew I had a good shot at entrepreneurial success. Plus, you’ve heard newspapers aren’t doing so well, no?

What I quickly learned after launch is that more than working hard and putting in long hours, I had to prioritize my goals or BargainBabe.com would never work.

Everyday there were hundreds of things I needed to do but I could only accomplish about seven of them. I hesitated to prioritize because that meant putting a book, podcasts, regular videos, and a lot more on the back burner. Instead of prioritizing my goals, which meant saying no to a lot of dreams, I tried to work on all of them.

Guess what? I accomplished none of them!

I finally sat down with an advisor who specializes in marketing and business planning (read: my sister) and chose one goal – to make $50,000 off my blog – and put in writing the steps to reach the goal. Then we turned those steps into daily tasks that I created time for in my online planner.

Over a two hour lunch we came up with a six-month plan. The questions she asked me were simple. What is your top goal for your business? What are the main things you can do to accomplish that one goal? How many hours do you need to spend on each contributing task every day or every week to make progress?

Before I had a daily plan, I was working on a lot of goals and achieving none of them. Now I am focused on one goal – making $50,000 off my blog in six months – and making significant progress towards my one dream. When I get there, I’ll be ready to bite off one more dream.

About Julia Scott: Julia writes the savvy-spending blog BargainBabe.com, which helps folks save money on groceries, gasoline, and household bills.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, December 9th, 2009 at 4:43 pm and is filed under Entrepreneurial. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.