Hi, Sameer - thanks for the interesting post.

Sounds like you speak from experience:)

It is good to provide both some positives and some negatives about becoming an entrepreneur, as you have done.   I find that many people tend to concentrate on only one aspect or the other.

The results are predictable ...

Positive Only:   Crash head-on into reality of working for yourself and give up, because it is not as easy or simple as you imagined.

Negative Only:  Fear wins and you do not even try.

A balanced approach which incorporates both the heart and the mind is best and my personal experience is that you cannot accomplish this yourself.  At the very least, I believe you need to do these things:

1)  Talk with a number of people, both inside and outside your industry and market, about self-employment.   Some should be successful and some should be not:)

2)  Probe for the negatives with open-ended, but targeted questions.

3)  Accept the positives mentioned, but do not over-estimate them or focus exclusively on them.

4)  Create a business plan.  Take a class from a local resource (Small Business Institute, community college in the US, or other credible organization), if you do not have formal education in doing this.  Do nothing else until you have done this.

5)  Allow your business plan to be mercilessly analzyed, dissected, and examined by folks who failed and folks who succeeded with their own.   Do not restrict yourself to family and friends on this - seek out people who have walked the walk.

6)  Revise business plan as needed based on feedback from all.

7)  Take a few days or weeks to let what you plan to do sink in.  Do NOT work on revisions or tweaks - just let it settle in your mind.

8)  Reflect on what your heart is now telling you about this revised and hopefully more realistic plan.

9)  Take the appropriate action.

Sorry about being so wordy, but you sparked my thinking:)

John