So, you've been thinking about getting out of the corporate rat race for years, and starting your own home-based business. But your old friend FEAR keeps reminding you about how good you have it - paid vacation, benefits, a good steady paycheck... Still it's hard to leave your kids every morning and let someone else shape their lives for 10-12 hours a day. It's hard to give up the dream of being in control of all of your time.

Are you ready to pay the price for the freedom of owning your own business? Are you ready to create a business that feeds your spirit - not just your bank account? If so, how do you get ready mentally and emotionally to take that leap of faith? Leaving the past behind and focusing on these 7 steps will help you kick into high gear and launch your new business.

1. As a new business owner, one of the first things I did was hire a business coach who could support me mentally and give me a kick in the pants when it was needed. Since I was new to the construction industry, my coach gave me ideas about how to market my business. I couldn't tell you how to frame a window or put in a faucet, but today I know how to market our business and get the telephone to ring.

2. The second thing I did was attend a class called Calaveras Entrepreneurs. This class took me through all the steps to write a business plan. I don't know about you, but before I became a business owner writing a business plan rated right up there with going to the dentist. But a funny thing happened as I was going through the process. I could see what we needed to do to make the business work, and how we could get out of the debt we were incurring as a new business start-up. That alone was worth the time and effort it took to go through the process - not to mention my peace of mind.

3. After I got my mental state on the right track, and I had a plan developed, I began working on my internal belief and motivation. Since I worked for AT&T for 24 years, I was deep into the corporate mindset and sorely missed that regular paycheck. It was critical that I develop the belief that I could survive outside my old mode of operation.

Building belief is a matter of getting your mind to accept that you can (1) survive, and (2) thrive in a new home-based business that you've created. In other words, it's an inside job.

I'm a spiritual person, so that's the first place I turned to work on building belief. I believe that we're all put here to lead a wonderful life, but sometimes we get in our own way. If you've been exposed to the movie The Secret you understand the principles I utilized. For you, building belief may come from studying how other successful people have reached their goals, or surrounding yourself with people who have already done what you're trying to do, and emulating their steps to success.

4. Action, action, action... We worked the hours and did what our coach told us to do to the best of our ability - no excuses. We sat many a night stuffing envelopes with our marketing information to reach potential customers - and it worked. The more effort we put into reaching out and finding customers and joint venture partners, the more rewards we reaped. The bottom line here is the Universe has to know you're serious. If you get all this information, then sit back and expect a yellow page ad to bring you all the business you want, you're fooling yourself, but not the Universe, which has the power to bring you all the business you want. So get busy and take action!

5. Since my husband and I were new to the community, we made sure we attended the local business and Chamber of Commerce functions. We networked with other business owners and with our suppliers. Visibility is another critical component of a new business start-up, whether it is a face-to-face or online presence. People need to know you exist and what you have to offer.

6. No matter how discouraged I got during this process, I kept doing what I had to do to keep our business "healthy". In those days to me healthy meant that we maintained our good credit rating and our good standing in the business community. I had many "dark nights of the soul" when I had to borrow money to pay our bills. I struggled with the feeling that we were going one step forward, and two steps back, but I did what I had to do anyway. I just kept taking the action steps that moved us forward.

7. Be grateful for all of your successes, and you will be paving the way for even more to appear. If I had moaned and groaned and complained about our business not looking like I thought it should, there would have been no room left in my mind for the wonderful ideas that came my way. I had to stay open to the possibility that even though I couldn't see the progress at the time, it was percolating beneath the surface of my awareness. With an open mind ideas came that helped us stay on track to creating the million dollar business we have today.

If you've chosen the right business, it will be more than a road to making money. It will express who you are and what you value. In reality you are not your career or your business. You're a unique and valuable person with much to offer the world. Ideally your business will be a way for you to express this value and uniqueness in the world. In my case, I was pursuing a business that expressed my husband's unique gifts, not necessarily my own. At that point in our lives, it was necessary for both of us to focus on this business to pay the bills. My dream business came later...

Most of all, remember when you're experiencing the growing pains of building your business, in the end people won't remember what you do for them as much as they'll remember how you were with them.