It seems like everyone you talk to these days is an entrepreneur of sorts and they aspire to work from home. To each their own, and for whatever their reasoning - that's great. However you want to roll, right? After talking to so many people who are trying or doing this, I can tell you from both experience and listening that you need to be sure that's the route you want to take.
Why?
Well, simply - if it's not for you, you will go nuts.
So let's put things into perspective by first figuring out why this is the route you want to take. Been out of work for a while? Tired of "dealing" with the stresses of working for someone else? Want more time with the family? You have a great money-making idea? Pretty popular thought processes, aren't they! Well, you are the folks who should probably stick to your day job.
Nothing can seem more tempting than jumping on the next big multilevel marketing thing that pops up; especially when you're down and out about having sent out hundreds of tailor-fitted resumes and either haven't gotten nibbled, or you've been through so many interviews and still haven't gotten that final call back. How about the men and women just trying to find that happy balance between work and home life? Daunting, and yet look at how many people make working from home work, right? Stop and think, though. There is not a career in the world that will pay you to do nothing. You will have to do something in order to make money. It's just that simple. Too many people are sold on this idea that they can buy into some marketing and networking business and it will just magically start accumulating money. It doesn't happen unless you make it happen.
"So what, Sabrina - I'm ambitious and I have a plan." Great! Don't let me squash it, but understand - your plan is nothing until implemented. Does that sound mean or as straight forward as I can put it? I will be the first to tell you how many "plans" I've got that will make life awesome and as glamorous as I imagined. You know what? Not a single one of them will be anything more than a note in my pages without the right resources. Money aside - resources include your time and effort. If you are unwilling to get out there, meet people, and invest in your plan it's just not going to move off that paper on its own.
In the meantime, you're probably beginning to realize how much you really don't want to spend so much time around your family or your home. Sure there's plenty that you could do in a day - like work in the yard, repair a leaky sink, change the oil on your car, play some board games, heck - even homeschool your kids and take them to the park more frequently. That's great for the person who enjoys those things, but if you're not motivated to make your at-home business work, then all that other stuff just becomes stuff you could be doing when you stopped doing everything and anything at all. See what happened there?
"Thanks for busting my bubble, Sabrina." You're welcome. But like any rant I go on, please let me help you with the solution. It's simple. Fill your day and schedule what you've filled your day with. Like a million people before me will tell you - put times to your plans. If you want to play with your kids - awesome - but put it on the schedule for a set time. If you want to create a business, sweet! But, put aside the appropriate time for accomplishing everything you need to in order to get it off the ground. Most importantly, make time for you. My "me-time" is a 30 minute run on my treadmill everyday, and whatever fitness I can fit in between doing everything else on my schedule - like this blog post (but you should totally see me knock out my squats while cooking dinner). Granted, I didn't know the topic until I sat down and wrote it, but I gave myself the time to write something on my blog. Glad am I to say it turned out to be something more than a "hey y'all."
Remember this simple guiding light, though: sacrifice. Your time is not yours alone. It belongs also to those you live with, those you service, and those you haven't even met yet. Now, that doesn't mean you can make everyone else happy, but you can pick and choose what battles you take. Maybe that means you have to wake up earlier, or go to bed later (or not at all). The point is - you have to create the balance. It's not going to happen just because you want it to. Make every minute of your day (and hopefully not all of it, but some part of the night) count for something. And because measuring your success (and hopefully not the lack thereof) is crucial, use a checklist. At the end of everyday look at your list and see what you've accomplished. That will help keep you motivated and satisfied to do just about anything.
That's all the time I have for this today. ^.~ Live productive and awesome lives, y'all and stop holding yourself back.
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