Home-Based Businesses and Careers: An Exercise in Self-Discipline
Nowadays, more and more people want to work at home. Many feel, for instance, that their lives are not fulfilling. The daily grind of waking up, going to work, going home, waking up, and going to work yet again takes a gruesome toll on countless people.
As an answer to their ambivalence towards their work, many people are now turning to the possibility of a home-based business or career, hoping that the changed working environment will effect positive changes into their life situation. However, there is an inherent danger in thinking that starting a home-based business will somehow solve all of your problems. If worst comes to worst, your troubles might actually multiply, not lessen.
Working at home is not the simple task that many imagine it to be. In fact, it can be quite difficult. Working from home will actually test the limits of your self discipline and control. There will be innumerable distractions that will present themselves to you, from washing your laundry to watching TV. At home, there is always something to do. One can choose to do chores, cook food, watch TV, listen to music, talk to a family member, and so one. Now these things are important, but they can also take away from what you are trying to accomplish as a businessperson or as a professional. Imagine how difficult it is for a mother of four to keep up a satisfactory career! She might want to build up her client base, take additional training, and write her own book. But she never gets around to it because she has to take care of the children. She has to wake them in the morning, prepare meals, take them to school, fetch them from school, clean up the house, get groceries, and so on. As long as she is in the house, and not in the office, there will always be demands on her time, demands that are probably not compatible to her goals of advancement.
So before you take the leap into starting a home-based business or career, stop for awhile and think. What do you really want to accomplish here? What are your goals? What do you intend to do and give to accomplish those goals? If you are determined on making your home-based venture work, then you will need to exercise plenty of self-discipline. It is hard enough to really work when you are in the office; it will be twice at hard at home! No one will be supervising you and monitoring you; you must pace yourself. It will be difficult at first, but as you go on you will soon find that it is getting easier and easier to do your work. Decide today that you will make the most effective use of your time in order to grow your venture.
