Home based business: Make the opportunity work at home!
Can business and home life actually work? If you're dreaming of one day working from home, in either your own business or contracting to another, the freedoms that entice you may actually become your "Achilles' Heel."
Freedom is the main reason people strive to operate their own home based businesses or work from home. We think that if we don't have a boss to report to at 9am every Monday morning our lives were be more meaningful and free from stress and pressure. In some ways this is very true. However, the most important element of actually keeping you at home is performance. If that suffers then you won't be able to enjoy the freedoms you had hoped for initially.
Many home based businesses start because the Mum and Dad entrepreneurs of this world dream of being able to wake up unaided by an electronic rooster. They can get out of bed when they choose to, fit in a round of golf before lunch, 'be there' for the kids and generally take life a little more casually. There is nothing inherently wrong with these dreams but they can only be afforded by some cost on the entrepreneurs part.
What are these costs?
The main cost is results. Results are what keeps you at home! In order to achieve results deadlines need to be set and met. Goals need to be actioned and structures need to be put in place to give those goals legs. What I'm trying to say is that while you may be released from some pressures which you didn't like, ie. commuting an hour each way through congested traffic, sitting all day in a cubicle lost in a sea of seemingly thousands and having to run your life predominantly the way someone else dictates, other pressures will be placed upon you.
I tried studying externally for my BA 8 years ago when my eldest son was 2. My wife had gone back to teaching part-time to supplement the family income - to buy bread for dinner if the truth be told. Initially I was in heaven. I set my own work schedule which consisted of starting when I ran out of anything else I wanted to do. My son had his own view on reality as well and wanted Dad to very much be a part of that reality. In the end, it all got a little too hard as I failed 2 out of the 4 units I was studying. I ended up enrolling internally for the next semester.
Home based businesses are exactly the same. You no longer have a boss to tell you what to do and to enforce schedules and deadlines upon you. You're now the boss and self-discipline and time management are imperative for your success.
If you want to make it work from home read this article Is Life Getting In the Way of Your Home-Based Business? 5 Steps to Take Today to Keep You on Track and apply the 5 steps. It can only improve what you're already trying to achieve.
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