Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Google Podcasts | Stitcher | RSS
Almost everybody wants to start their own business, like an online course.
Take Millennials in the USA, who now outnumber the Baby Boomers, for example. A 2015 Bentley University survey of this generation revealed that 66 percent of the respondents “have a desire to start their own business,” 37 percent “would like to work for themselves,” and 25 percent “would like to own their own company.” However, as of 2013, only 3.6 percent of all businesses in the country were owned by someone under 30, according to Forbes Contributor Jared Mayer in his July 20, 2015 article on this topic.
This comes as a surprise to us, considering entrepreneurs make more than employees. In fact, there are online course creators or coaches who are making tens of thousands of dollars per month, but more importantly they’ve impacted and helped their students! If you have not yet acted on your idea for an online course, now is as a good a time as any to take stock and ask yourself, “why haven’t I gotten started”?
If you don’t know how or where to start, you think you don’t have enough time to do it, or you’re worried about failing, stop worrying over being stuck anymore, because it just takes three easy steps that are all focused on visualization.
Visualization is mankind’s powerful way of creating a mental image of things we want to see or have that we are yet to reach or attain, like our goals. Indeed, visualization enabled the residents of the Marshall Islands learn to navigate the surrounding waters by canoe in the daytime 500 years ago—without looking to the stars as guides. By harnessing your visualization capabilities with our surprisingly simple 3-step exercise, we’re more than confident that you’ll be able to successfully kick off your online course.
The first step is determining want you want to achieve with your online course.
Are you trying to teach a certain number of students? Are you trying to build your very own platform? Do you want to make a certain amount of money each month? Knowing for sure what you want to get out of your online course makes focusing on it easier—significantly improving your chances of keeping at it even if the going gets rough. The most effective way of visualizing that goal is not coming up with just one but three: an easy goal; a slightly harder goal; and a big, hairy, audacious goal.
Breaking up your main goal—launching your very own online course—into three makes it easier to achieve by dividing the difficulty of succeeding into levels. Say your easy goal is getting 10 students; your slightly harder goal is getting 100 students; and your big, hairy, audacious goal is guesting on podcasts as a thought leader. By achieving your two easier goals, not only have you succeeded at launching your online course; you already have the experience, credibility and confidence to go after your big, hairy, audacious goal. Now that you have a clear idea of what your goals are for your online course…
The next step is coming up with a strategy for your online course.
You can create a detailed action plan to launch your online course, put dates of completion for each item (i.e., creating the course itself; choosing a web host; creating graphics, or hiring someone to create these; shooting the videos; etc.) and allot budgets for them.
Creating a detailed action plan ensures you are on the right path and you can get back to it if you veer off course by simply reviewing your plan. Setting a deadline for each item of your plan (e.g., 6 months or 1 year) ensures you accomplish them in a reasonable amount of time. You will need to spend some money for tools to create stunning graphics, tools to shoot engaging videos and coaching.
The last step is getting rid of the negative thoughts or behaviors that have you stuck.
If you do not have enough time to create your online course, you can begin clearing up your schedule by lessening the time you spend on your low-priority tasks and doing away with your tasks that are not important at all. If you do not know how to go about doing an important part of the process, like marketing or reaching out to potential partners and affiliates, start reading up on it, or get help from a professional.
Launching an online course is a very rewarding business to start. Yet many are discouraged from doing it, assuming it’s harder than they can handle. Actually, achieving success hinges largely on how well you can visualize the goal and how committed you are to it by removing the things that are preventing you from your life. By knowing for certain what your goal is, figuring out the best way to arrive at it and ridding yourself of the obstacles, you’ll succeed.