Thinking About Working from Home: Transitioning from Work to Home

Two years ago I began my journey of transitioning from working out of the home to beginning a home-based business. I had been working in the dental field for almost five years. Through the encouragement of my family I began to look into working from home. I am still learning a great deal from my mistakes but am blessed to be walking in the vision of my heart. Here are some thoughts I can share from my journey so far.

1. Have the support of your family.
Are you married? Then it would be wisdom to sit down with your husband and talk through the effects working from home would have on your family and marriage. If your husband is not in agreement and in support of your desire to work from home, I would not begin now. Instead I would stop and be prayerful about the matter. If you are single and live at home you will also want the whole hearted support of your family. You will need their help and patience. 

2. Be prepared to work hard.
If you plan on having a job or business that succeeds I can say you will be working hard to get there. You will be your own boss! That may sound great, but it means the money you need and success of your business will depend entirety upon you. If you are disorganized or lazy, have a difficult time motivating yourself to tackle the task at hand, you are going to struggle. It is much easier to have a boss or manager telling you what to do. You work a set amount of hours, then leave. Your work is done. They continue with the tasks and headaches of running the business. Now all the responsibility is yours. You are it. 

3. Research before you start your business.
Your business can’t run itself. I wish it could. I can get carried away with dreams about product expansion, or marketing ideas. The reality is you need more than ideas, you need facts! I would spend time researching your business ideas. Read books on accounting, business management, marketing, and bookkeeping. A good book to start with is “Business for Beginners” by Frances McGuckin. If you are looking into any web based business start looking into the things you should be learning. Do you need basic html? Will you need to learn web design?