There was a reason that you decided to work for yourself at home. Perhaps you didn’t enjoy your ordinary job, maybe you needed extra money, or different hours from those imposed by regular employment opportunities. Working from home can be rewarding for many reasons, some of which are:
? You’re your own boss
? You get to keep all of the profits
? You can choose your own hours
? You can take time off when you need it
But one of the painful truths about working from home is that it can consume your life. Usually, it’s only you working, often into the small hours for less than the national minimum wage in order to make your business the success you need it to be. This can lead to a lonely lifestyle and because you’re working for yourself, often there are no other employees or people you can turn to for advice.
Can you imagine a job where you got to work from home, you were your own boss, you chose your own hours and organised your own time but you were part of a committed team, with the high level of back up and support, training and assistance? Sounds impossible right? It doesn’t have to be.
ONE: You’re Part of a Team
If you worked home, owned your own business, were your own boss but were still part of a team committed to working together to generate income, wouldn’t that solve so many problems? You’d no longer be as isolated, lonely and stuck for advice. Since you were all in it together, it would mean that you’d share skills, discuss ideas, tackle problems together and overcome obstacles in order to make money and grow your businesses together. Being a one-person home business doesn’t mean being alone. The opportunity exists; it’s already out there.
TWO: Mentorship
In most businesses, you could really use the help and support of a business mentor. Some of the most successful businesses and business entrepreneurs had a strong mentor within their start-up and development processes.
Your family and friends can give you their opinions but they’re often guesses and common sense. The web provides a good source of information and you can receive some free training from business support organisations. However, only a business mentor can share the benefits of their own experience on a regular ongoing basis. Without a business mentor, the journey to success can see a lonely one.
An experienced mentor, who actively seeks to challenge you and help you to develop your business from an idea into a successfully thriving operation, is a rare thing. How often do we have someone we can go to with questions we might feel we should already know the answer to? They’ve been there and they’ve done it, which will often prevent you from making the same mistakes!
THREE: Sharing Skills
The opportunity to share skills is rare enough in the traditional business environment but often non-existent in the home business sector. Everyone tends to be fighting their own little corner of the market and forget everyone else. In a team, you can share skills and rely on the others expertise with confidence. In this type of business environment, you can learn from your colleagues without feeling that you are giving away your advantage. Instead you’re all in this together. Without this type of encouraging skill-sharing opportunity, you end up having to be a jack-of-all-trades, and you know where that leads.
FOUR: Sharing Motivation
Working for yourself at home can be lonely because there’s no one to challenge you and push you towards your goals. In order to get the most out of yourself on a daily basis, you need to constantly be disciplined and that isn’t easy.
If you were to work from home as part of a team or a community of people working together to meet shared targets and then take a share of the profits, you may find yourself motivated to the task in a new and refreshed way.
FIVE: Working Hours
When you work for yourself, you tend to work more hours and not less. However, this can mean you are up half the night alone, working in isolation. Many people try working with the television on, but this often makes for a distraction. Other people try working with the radio on, which is nice for a bit of company but it’s not the same as having someone to regularly chat with – like you might in any other kind of job.
Some home workers even encounter depression due to the isolating nature of the working hours, but it doesn’t have to be like that. When you work as part of a business community online, you’re always going to have someone to keep you company – no matter what time you are working.
SIX: Meet Up
One of the simple things that you miss when working at home is chance social encounter, coffee machine, water fountain or cafeteria banter or chat with colleagues. What’s more you miss the motivating power of successful business meetings.
Your home may well be your place of work, but it doesn’t stop you from meeting up with your team of colleagues for coffee or lunch. What’s more, a team could work towards the goal of earning enough extra cash to hire a room in a hotel and have a business meeting. Just because you work from home doesn’t stop you from using your new community to meet up and work together in person throughout the year. But first, you need to be part of such a community.
SEVEN: Fighting Boredom
Working for yourself from home can lead to boredom, it’s somewhat inevitable. You simply don’t have the kind of stimulation you might find in other working environments. But if you work as part of a team, you can always be in touch. Perhaps you’ll use instant messaging to stay in contact and keep yourself entertained whilst you work together to bring home the bacon.
Working from home is inevitably a lonely type of working experience. Despite the love and attention of friends and family, you will find yourself getting lonely because of the lack of external stimulation. Join a community of home business workers, all working towards the same goal and you’ll find stimulation, encouragement, friendship and joint profit!
To become be part of a community of home businesses, working together towards a common goal, visit www.occupythecity.com/102
