Hustle In Your Home: 5 real things about working from home
Hustle in your home
I want to start out by saying that I wouldn’t change anything about my life or business. I love what I do and I feel amazingly blessed to be able to do this from home. I have conversations all the time with others about how lucky I am to be home with my kids and still make money. I agree with them!! But when the conversation changes to them thinking of quitting their day job or starting their own business I want to be honest about a few things.
You may daydream about staying in your sweatpants all day and walking over to your desk instead of putting that suit and fighting traffic. You think you would have more time to make dinner or fold the clothes if you just started up that business and quit your day job, you scroll through your feed and see all these amazing business doing what they love all day, or maybe you are a SAHM and would love to turn your passion into money. What you see online is not the whole story. What happens on instagram does not reveal the work and sacrifice it takes. These are the top five things I reveal about running a business out of my home, being my own boss and making it happen:
1. It is lonely.
For the most part, you can be totally alone in this. No co-workers to bounce ideas off of, or to help when you have too much to do. No boss to answer to or to tell you you’re doing a great job. You are the boss, and the co-worker. There are some facebook groups and things like that, but they are not a great replacement to the people you might be around at your current job in the office.
2. It is distracting.
There is so much more to do around the house than you think, and it is tempting to try and get them done during working hours. I might put a load in the washing machine while my coffee is reheating in between blogging and editing. Or I will want to get the work day started and see a full and clean dishwasher and the sink is full of dirty dishes. There is always something calling you to come take care of!
3. There is more pressure than you think.
When you work for someone else the pressure to succeed falls mostly on them. When you work for yourself ALL your success is on you! You become the CEO, CFO, the marketing department, the assistant, secretary, customer service, and (my least favorite) tech support. So many times I have needed to accomplish something that I didn’t know how to do and I had to take the time to learn, which takes time out of doing something else. There is ALWAYS something new to learn when you run your own business.
4. There is not as much time as you would think.
For most people who are dreaming about working at home because it would give them more time for other things around the house, I can say that this is not completely true. Or that it might not play out as you see it in your head. Yes, there is no commute or wasted time during lunch, but in reality you will need to hustle hard many times to where your home will overwhelm you with things that need to be done, but your work is calling you too. My home is still messy, and there is never enough time to clean it.
5. It takes a significant amount of space to run a business.
If you want to run that business out of your home be warned that it will get messy and take up a good amount of space. There are more papers and products you will need storage for than you may know, and it will only grow with time. My husband and I transformed a room the size of our living room into my office. We thought that was overdoing it, but I was wrong. We needed every square foot. And it is usually a mess. Once we accepted the mess, my stress level about it went away!
Turning your passion into a business is a very big decision especially if you have to change your life around in order to do it. It's more than a simple daydream.
Consider these things as you think about running your own hustle in your home. In those conversations I have with friends I reveal these things that are true in my life, and I can tell who is ready and who isn’t. If you can accept the mess, the work, the inconvenience and discipline it takes, then I believe you are headed in the right direction! I hope this helps you as you think and dream about your future!
Here is the truth: It is hard, but I love it. It is pressure, but it is worth it! It is my passion and I get to make it bigger and better every day! Are you ready? If you are thinking about a photography business I would love to talk to you! I offer mentoring sessions for new photographers or just someone thinking about turning their love into a job. You can sign up for your mentoring session here! Please feel free to ask me questions! You can find my email at the bottom of this website! I love talking about this and even if you're not sure what to ask and just need to talk about it I am here!
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