Back to the Future

I have been attending some business seminar classes this semester because I had the wild idea that I would like to own my own business. I am very very grateful for these classes, because they have opened my eyes to what I would like and what I wouldn't like about owning a business.
But the most interesting thing I have learned is the reason people want to start their own business is that they want to become someone new. They have imagined a different future for themselves, one in which they are different, and to fulfill the vision, they want to start a business.
Part of a business plan is writing down the specifics of the business so that everyone has the same vision you do of your business. The location, the clientele, the way you fit into it, how you will expand, etc.
I think it is useful once in a while to sit back and think about life in a very specific way. Not just, I want to go to Paris someday, but I would like to go to Paris for my 35th birthday and eat my birthday dinner near the Eiffel tower. That is what a business plan should say, I am going to open a store at the corner of Elm and Market, I will own the building and lease the top floor, I will advertise by having a really cool sign, and participate in the local news paper, I expect my clientele to be mostly foot traffic because it is in a restored downtown area..... and on and on with the specifics.
The main thing many of the instructors emphasized was, if all you want out of starting your own business is a new life, there are easier and cheaper ways of getting a new life! You can join a gym, you can get a different job, you can move, you can redecorate your house. All of which they say would be less stressful than starting your own business. This got me to thinking, because lately I have had the itch to have a new life. To be a better version of myself. To become the funny, charming, physically fit, knowledgeable person I know is somewhere in there. But all of those are general words. To change, we have to get down to the specifics. For example, one person I know at work says her motivation for getting up an exercising is she can vividly imagine herself at 65 playing with grandchildren on the beach, running into the water and helping them swim and build sandcastles. She believes that if she exercises now, she will be able at 65 to do that kind of activity. But it is a very specific vision that helps her get out of bed on dark, cold mornings.
The one specific thing I hold onto is the idea of an early retirement. But I think I need to work on what I imagine my life will be after I retire, because then I can be working towards those specific goals, and not just the generic big idea of "early retirement". So here's to imagining the future!