The biggest challenge most people encounter when they become self-employed is driving themselves to do what it takes to become successful. When there is no one looking over your shoulder, it’s easy to let things slide. When there is no one checking up on your daily progress, it’s easy to settle for talking to eight people instead of ten or making three sales instead of five.

The problem is that it doesn’t seem to matter. It doesn’t seem to matter if you fall a bit short of your daily goals. It doesn’t seem to matter if you talk to eight people instead of ten. It doesn’t seem to matter if you take an hour off during your work day. It doesn’t seem to matter if your schedule calls for you to start work at 9:00 a.m. and you don’t start until 10:30 a.m. After all, it doesn’t have any immediate impact on your income. Unfortunately, it will have an impact. In fact, in the months ahead, it will have a MAJOR impact on your income. The habits you bring with you to the table of your business are always going to affect your income.

To be successful in this business, and to develop the necessary habits and disciplines for a lifetime of wealth and happiness, you have to become both your employer and your employee. You have to be the person who establishes the job requirements and the person who performs the job requirements. You have to be the one who checks to see that the job is being done right and the one who has to answer for when it is not.

Employing yourself means accepting full responsibility – responsibility for doing what needs to be done, when it needs to be done, and how it needs to be done, to the best of your ability.

Think about your performance as an employee over the last 30 days. As your employer, how would you rate your attitude? Your consistency? Your effort? Your tactics? Your punctuality? Your commitment? Your intensity?

As your employer, what overall comments would you make to you, the employee, about your performance versus your intentions? About your excuses? About your justifications?

As an employee, how have you been letting down on the job? Based on your performance over the last 30 days, as an employer, would you continue to employ you? Why or why not? How would you rate yourself as an employer? Have you been demanding nothing less than your personal best from you, the employee? Have you been monitoring your progress carefully? Have you been vigilant about keeping yourself on track in terms of your stated goals and objectives?

Have you been getting tough with you, the employee, whenever you let down? If not, why not?

As an employer, do you take time to recognize and encourage effort, even when there aren’t any immediate results?

As an employer, are you making your performance expectations clear to you, the employee? Do you even have any specific performance expectations of you, the employee, to meet?

Remember, you can lie to other people if you want to, but you cannot afford to lie to yourself. The only way to develop the wealth building habits that success requires is to demand and expect nothing less than your personal best. If you were paying someone else to do your job, would you let them show up late for work or take time off whenever they felt like it? Would you let them get away with talking to three people instead of five? Would you accept feeble attempts to explain why they didn’t do what they promised you when they were going to do, when you first hired them? Of course not! And you must not accept that level of performance from yourself, either. Not if you are deadly serious about building your business. You are the only one who can make yourself do what it takes to be a success in this business and in the business of life. So take your responsibility – as an employee and as an employer – seriously.

One of the most important lessons for any human being to learn is how to make yourself responsible to yourself and for yourself. Master that skill, and you will be well on your way to a lifetime of untold wealth and happiness.

Remember, wealth is not an amount. It is a way of living. Wealth is not something you amass. Wealth is something you experience by developing your full capacity in all areas of life – your capacity for knowledge, for commitment, for laughter, for understanding, for love, for creativity, for intensity, for tenacity and for personal integrity. Wealth is not something you pursue. Wealth is something you attract by the person you become.

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