You’re starting your internet business, or you’ve already started it, but you’re working full time to pay the bills while your business gets off the ground. This is the predicament that most of us find ourselves in. How do you build your business when you have 40 – 60 hours per week tied up in trading your time for money (a J.O.B.)? In prior posts you’ve read different techniques for getting more time freed up for your business, such as ditching the TV, turning off the phone, avoiding forums, etc. But then what?

How dedicated are you to really building your internet business? Is there anything more important than your freedom? James Brausch wrote once that by walking out on your J.O.B., you would have the time and the freedom to really build your business. Imagine if you reached this level of freedom!

The typical reaction of course is “huh? Just walk out? Yeah easy for a millionaire to say!” Ok, with a mortgage, bills, and in some people’s cases, monstrous credit card debt, one would have to be pretty gutsy to cut off their only stream of income. On the other hand, one has to be pretty gutsy to have only one stream of income – a J.O.B.!

Ok, how motivated are you right now to start your internet business? How motivated are you to take your existing ones to a full time income? With a mild comfort level that a J.O.B. creates (false security), the sense of urgency isn’t really there for most people to get that internet business really cranking.

So now I’d like you to try something. Did you ever mess around on one of those trading sites like ScottTrade and sign up to play their stock market software with pretend money so you could learn the ropes of stock investing?

Try doing the same thing with your internet business. Pretend, right now that you just told your boss to stick it sideways where the sun doesn’t shine. You just walked away from your J.O.B. Now you have no income what-so-ever except for what you might be making online. Now what? How hard would you work now to build your business? Would you work like your life depended on it?

Let’s play a mental mind game called “I just fired my boss!” Put yourself in this scenario for the next two weeks and work your business as if your J.O.B. doesn’t exist, and there’s no J.O.B.s available anywhere.

Tell yourself that you need to make “x” amount to cover your expenses this week. Can you do it? Set a goal at covering your virtual expenses and start creating that video product. Now think about how you’re going to promote it. Post a preview on YouTube, start an eBay auction, blog about it. If you don’t have a blog, then start one. Promote your blog via blog carnivals. You get the picture. Play this game seriously and really challenge yourself.

If you don’t do very well the first couple of weeks, play again and see if you can top your results. If you play this game seriously enough, you will reach the level where you can tell your boss to go pound salt for real!

Need some more tips on how to start from scratch? Check out this book and put yourself in his shoes.