Starting a business/freelance career can be scary, making starting the right one all the more important. Below are some guidelines to make this process easier. 

The best place to begin researching business ideas is to delve into your own life. Why? Because more than anything else, the totality of your life will dictate what business suits you.

Starting a business/freelance career is one of the most difficult things you will ever do. If your business and your personality mix like oil and water, it will be that much easier for you to give up. So, take the time to choose wisely.

Following are four steps you can take to begin your search for the perfect business/freelance specialty.

1. Write down your personality traits: Some questions you might want to ask are: Do you like working alone, or with people? Do you prefer face-to-face contact, or phone and e-mail? Are you an early morning person? Are you self-motivated? Are you organized? Do you prefer to work hands-on, or delegate? Are you a natural optimist or pessimist? Are you confident by nature? Are you patient?

All of these will have a direct impact on they type of business/freelance specialty you are suited for. No matter how dedicated you are, if your personality clashes with the core needs of your proposed venture, chances are you will not succeed.

2. Write down your lifestyle traits: Do you have children? Are you married? Do you have other activities that take up a large amount of your time (eg, volunteerism, school, etc.)? Do you have health/physical problems that limit you in some way? Is your knowledge limited to one particular area?

3. Consider the financial: Will you work from home, or get an office? What form would you like your company to take (sole proprietorship, corporation, partnership, etc.)? Will you keep your job initially? How will you finance start-up expenses (personal savings, bank loan, retirement funds, etc.)?

4. Work for free: What I mean by this is, make a list of things you enjoy doing, even if you receive no compensation. Do you like to sew, write, edit, draw, knit, build? Whatever it is, write it down.

Make this list as long as you can. Now, go back and start cross-referencing lists. The goal of this exercise is to create harmony between your personality, lifestyle traits, financial means and likes.

For example, if you like to write (and are proficient at it), have limited funds, no children and prefer hands-on work, a copywriting service might be a business you would enjoy. It requires little capital to start, is hands-on work and can be done from the quiet of your home.

This is a simplistic example. The point of this entire exercise is to get you to think about more than money when it comes to starting a business.

No matter what type of business you start, there are going to be aspects of it that you don't like. This is normal. But, you must enjoy the overall concept of your business, or you'll be just as unhappy as if you were working for someone else? Maybe even more, because the responsibilities of running a business are much more intense than a job.

So, choose wisely. Once you have narrowed down your choices, do some intense research. Where possible, talk to someone who is doing what you want to do to see what a day in their life is like.

Give yourself three months to complete this exercise. You many discard 10 or 20 ideas before you come up with one. And that's fine. In this exercise, it's what you keep that matters.

Good luck!
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