The Perils of Working From Home

Working from home is absolutely fantastic! I love every second of it. However, before you begin you must be aware of what you're getting yourself into. It's not always sunshine and roses and it's not for everyone.

If you are not a self-motivated individual steer clear of home based businesses. You must, and I do mean MUST, be able to motivate yourself to work (or be associated with individuals who can and will motivate you). It's far too easy to become lax about and put things off until tomorrow. Eventually, you have too many "tomorrow tasks" piled up, with little hope of completing them in the next month.

Disorganized or not willing to become organized? Forget it! You really do need to have a designated work area and filing system. Otherwise, that paper tiger may eat you alive!

If you are a social individual, be sure to schedule adult social interaction into your day. This can be a designated date night with your spouse, weekly get together with friends or spending time at the park with other parents while watching your children play. The possible downside is a feeling of isolation.

One of the benefits I love best about working from home is the dress code. However, the ability to wear jeans and a sweater (I'm in Canada) occasionally turns into wearing your pajamas all day. Personally, I'm okay with that and encourage anyone working from home to make themselves as comfortable as possible. Just don't feel surprised if you end up making dinner in your bunny slippers!

No alarm clock! This is by far, the best thing about working from home - for me! I am a night owl and work through quite often. However, you must make sure you don't get into that habit and mess up your internal clock. You run the risk of sleeping all day to make up for the night before. Doing so will most definitely assure your failure if your business requires you to speak with potential customers and clients during normal waking hours.

For those that don't deal well with rejection - run! Luckily, this is something you get over quite quickly, if you are willing to. When I enroll someone onto my team that would like to build a business, one of the first things I ask them to do is to get one hundred "No!" responses. I've yet to find someone who can accomplish that task. What that simple request does is take the pressure off from the beginning. There is enough internal pressure while working from home. The last thing you ever need is someone you don't know breathing down your neck to work harder or faster or more productive. To me, that's no different than having to deal with superiors at work outside of the home. You should be able to work at your own pace, whatever that may be. Sorry - got a little off track there!

If you think you're going to wake up next month, making $100,000 a month (legitimately), forget. There is no work at home fairy that will wave a magic money wand over your head. Get rich quick schemes are exactly that - schemes! They do not exist except for the con artists who start them and convince unwitting individuals that they can be a millionaire overnight if they only fork over $10,000 to start up. I'm not saying there shouldn't be start up costs involved. There are always start up costs. You can't start any business for nothing. Just be sure to check with the Better Business Bureau and the Chamber of Commerce before handing your money over to anyone!

You can become unbelievably successful working from home! However, be aware of the drawbacks ahead of time. Confirm any claims a company makes. Check references. Make sure there is ample training available. Be aware of any additional costs (training materials, required seminars, sales aids, etc)

I was very fortunate to enroll with the team that I did choose to work with from home with. That's one of the things I like best - it's a team of individuals working from home and supporting one another. Everything was spelled out from the beginning and although we work for ourselves, we don't work by ourselves. Yes, there are a lot of people making hundreds of thousands of dollars with this company. Some of them are doctors. Some of them hold prestigious degrees. Most of them are work at home mothers that have made enough money to bring their husbands home. A lot of them are single mothers that have assured their children's futures and don't have to go to bed each night, worrying how they're going to pay the bills. In all of their cases, it required hard work, dedication and a drive to succeed "no matter what". In my opinion, those are the qualities that will make your a success working from home. If you happen to have those qualities or you know someone else who shares those qualities, don't hesitate to visit Moms For Life.

I do wish each and every one of you tremendous personal and entrepreneurial success!