Ten Steps to Work-at-Home Success

Published on this site: December 4th, 2006 - See more articles from this month

Many people have told me they have given up their goal of working at home because it just doesn't exist. When I tell them I work at home and over 50 million others in the United States also work at home, I'm told that working at home doesn't work for them.

Perhaps you are thinking the same thing. I'm here to tell you that working-at-home is possible for everyone.

But you have to have the following characteristics:

• You have to want it bad enough.
  
  
• You have to look in the right places.
  
  
• You have to do the work.
  

If you have the above characteristics, then you just need to follow the 10 steps to work-at-home success!

1. Take 100% responsibility for your life. You are where you are now because of choices you have made. I understand that life may be tough. Perhaps you have been laid off. Or may be you or someone you love is ill. Life presents challenges. But some of the most successful people in history have overcome tremendous odds to achieve success.
   
   Take Kyle Maynard. He was born without any arms below the elbow or legs below the knee. Despite his physical challenges, Kyle was one of the top wrestlers in Georgia in his senior year of high school. Kyle is now wrestling at the University of Georgia and has begun training in Jiu-Jitsu and competing in the sport of submission wrestling. He is also the author of the book No Excuses, which is what this step is about. You need to give up excuses that prevent you from taking action on your goals. You need to refuse to let obstacles including frustration and discouragement get in your way. When bad things happen, you need to choose to continue on.
   
   While you can't control the external things in your life, you can choose how you respond to them. By choosing to act instead of be acted upon, you will be taking 100% responsibility for your life.
   
   
2. Decide what you want. That sounds pretty easy. More money. Better house. More time. But, these are vague and don't inspire action. Be clear about what you want. Be specific including what color, what size, what shape, what brand...etc. How much money exactly do you want? What size and style house exactly do you want? Where is it located? On how much land? The more specific you are with your goals, the easier it is to focus on them and be inspired by them.
   
   
3. Believe it is possible. This is similar to what I discussed about the people who tell me, that working at home doesn't work for them. Richard Bach who wrote Jonathan Livingston Seagull said, "Sooner or later, those who win are those who think they can." Working at home is possible. Millions of others have proven it to be true. They are no smarter or more talented or luckier than you. They just knew it could be done and figured out how to do it. You can do the same.
   
   
4. Believe in you. Arthur Williams once said, "The number one reason that keeps people from winning in the United States today is a lack of belief in themselves." You are the one person you should root for the most, and yet mostly likely you sell yourself short. Society trains us to be like this. We are raised to be mediocre people. But you don't have to accept mediocrity. You can do great things.
   
   History is littered with people who had less than you and rose to great heights. Helen Keller was blind, deaf and dumb living in a world in which women were second-class citizens, yet she rose to become an amazing woman. Abraham Lincoln was poor, suffered from depression, was not handsome, and lost several elections before becoming president. Babe Ruth struck out more times than he hit the ball. But he knew the ball was coming and kept on swinging. If you put your mind to it, you can work at home. I know it. But you need to know it too!
   
   
5. Set goals. Goals help define where you want to go so you can develop a map to getting there. "Without goals, and plans to reach them, you are like a ship that has set sail with no destination." Said Fitzhugh Dodson. To be most effective, goals should be written, specific, realistic without being too easy, and they must have a deadline. Once your goals are set, read them three times a day. An easy way to do this is to have a copy taped to your bathroom mirror, one on the refrigerator and one at your desk or any other places that you will see it them regularly.
   
   
6. Take action. Having goals without action is like having a road map, but not getting in the car to go anywhere. Mark Twain once said, "The secret to getting ahead is getting started." Unfortunately, it's the start that stops most people. Don't be one of them. Do something everyday that moves you towards your goal. In fact, set out to do 5 things everyday that will move you towards your goal.
   
   
7. Stop stopping yourself. How many times have you wanted to do something but didn't because the timing wasn't right or things weren't perfect? In order to be successful, you need to stop limiting yourself. Stop waiting for the right time or the right situation. Success does not come when the time is right, the stars align, and life isn't busy. It comes because of consistent effort even though life isn't perfect.
   
   You also need to stop limiting yourself because of fear. Successful people step outside what is comfortable to make their dreams come true because, "There is no money in the comfort zone." Stepping out of the comfort zone can be scary. There isn't always a lot of support from friends and family for doing something different. But if you were to study all the successful people in world, you would find that in order to reach success, they all had to stop limiting themselves and step out of the comfort zone.Success is not the attainment of the goal, it's the challenges you overcome to attain the goal.
   
   
8. Visualize your dream. At least once a day, think about what your life will be like when you reach your goal. The more you think about what you want, the more your brain gets active in trying to help you achieve it. Have you ever thought about buying a car and all of a sudden you see the car you are thinking of buying all over town? Are there really more of these cars out on the road? No. It's just by thinking about it you notice them more. The same thing happens when you picture your life as you'd like it. Your brain will begin to pay attention to things that can help you reach it.
   
   
9. Face your fear head on.Fear is best described as:
   

   Fantasized
   Experiences
   Appearing
   Real
   

Fear is what keeps us in our comfort zones. What is there to fear anyway? What people will think? Who cares? Odds are they don't have what you want and can't help you get it. So why listen to them? To overcome fear, you need to make your dream bigger than your fear. Your desire to work at home needs to be bigger than the fear of what others are going to say about you (and truth be known, people don't think about you nearly as much as you think they do if at all). Also, make your goals urgent and just as important as other things in your life. When you must live your dream, you will.

10. Be willing to pay the price. We aren't talking about money although sometimes that is a part of reaching your goals. In paying the price, you will need to sacrifice and work harder than you have ever done before. Leisure activities like reading and watching television may have to go on the wayside as you spend time working on your goal.
    
    You may need to give up some extras like manicures, lattes, or dining out so you can have the extra money to live on or to use to build your business. A price must be paid but the payment is temporary, while the payoff is forever.

Finding a way to work-at-home is a reasonable goal, but it won't happen without purposeful effort on your part. Nothing worth having comes easily. You need to plan. You need to work. You need stop fear and a lack of confidence from stealing your dreams. In the coming year, millions more people will finally do what it takes to work-at-home. Will you be one of them?

Leslie Truex - is a work-at-home mom who has been helping people work at home through her website Work-At-Home Success http://www.workathomesuccess.com since 1998. Make 2007 the year you work at home! Mark your calendar for the Work-At-Home Success Expo in January 2007 http://www.wahs-expo.com.