The entrepreneur’s life… Many imagine that working from home is like being a Hollywood superstar: working leisurely in your pajamas, eating chocolate bon-bons, and cashing paychecks you write to yourself. While managing your own business can be a life long dream, your business can also take over your life if you let it. Here are some tips for how to overcome the biggest challenges of working from home.

ARE YOU A WORKAHOLIC?

When you work from home it can be hard to STOP working. Temptations such as the ringing of your business phone, the constant flow of emails, and piles of paper work can easily draw you back into work mode if you let them.

TIPS TO CONQUER WORK-A-HOLISM

1. Set a regular schedule for work and home hours. Make a deliberate effort to stop working on time. When you are done with work, shut off the computer, and mentally shut off work.
2. Locate your office in a separate area of the house. Having your office out of sight may help you forget about work.
3. Enjoy your "off" time. Pamper yourself! Schedule yourself regular vacations! Take time to relax! Spend time doing the things you love most. If you started working from home to spend more time with your family, then make sure you are actually DOING that. Schedule daytrips with your kids. Take time to visit a friend you have lost touch with.

ARE YOU EASILY DISTRACTED?

Does the sound of Nickelodeon, the allure of the cookies in the pantry, and the beautiful sunny weather distract you?

TIPS TO HELP YOU STAY FOCUSED:

1. Don’t tolerate distractions in your life. Discover sources of the distraction and remove it from your work environment. If you can’t remove it entirely, try to come up with a creative "work-a- round" that will let you function.
2. Make a daily to do list and prioritize, by placing the most important 3-5 tasks at the top. Put all other "tasks" at bottom. Try to spend your time on items which on the things which will do the most to move your business forward.

DO YOU FEEL LONELY?

Do you miss birthday lunch celebrations, water cooler talk, and co-worker friendships? Are you becoming a bear in your "work at home cave"?

TIPS TO AVOID ISOLATION:

1. Volunteer. Sign up to help with a Girl Scout troop, at church, or at the local library.
2. Join a group. There are lots of local women’s business breakfast groups. You might also be able to find a local playgroup, or church group to join.
3. Take a class. This is the perfect opportunity to learn a new business skill or indulge in a personal interest such as pottery, art, or scrapbooking.
4. Spend time with friends and family. Have lunch, call an old friend, make a date with your spouse, or send a personal email to a family member. Make time to connect with the important people in your life.
5. Build a personal support network. Whether it is a business coach, or fellow entrepreneur you’ll need someone to encourage you, listen to you, and guide you. Find a mentor who is highly successful at what you want to do and ask what their secrets are for success!
6. Participate in an online community. There are many online communities for entrepreneurs and work at home parents. Here you can network, meet friends, and promote your business.

DO YOU NEED HEALTH INSURANCE?

Insurance is a regular perk of working in the corporate world. When you go "solo" you will find yourself without the crucial coverage you need.

TIPS FOR GETTING INSURED:

1. If your spouse has a corporate job, check to see if you can be covered under their insurance plan.
2. With the costs of family insurance coverage ranging from $7000 to $10,000 per year, it really pays to shop around.
3. Here’s a few web sites where you can get free health insurance quotes from several leading carriers and easily compare many policies to choose the one that’s best for you.  http://www.ehealthinsurance.com/ – http://www.InsureCom.com – http://www.USInsurance.com
4. If you recently quit your corporate job, the COBRA law will let you purchase health insurance from your old corporate employer for up to 18 months.
5. Ask your insurance agent about opening a Medical Savings Account (MSA). An MSA is a combo type account from which you can draw funds to pay for your medical expenses and the remaining funds grow like a tax deferred retirement fund.

DO YOU MISS REGULAR PAYCHECKS?

Do you have trouble making regular paychecks to yourself?

TIPS FOR REGULATING YOUR INCOME:

1. Build reserves. When you have a good month, stash it away for those slow business periods. Stock up by working more during winter, so that you can take time off in the summer.
2. Develop an "automatic" income source. Some options include writing and selling an ebook and acting as a reseller for services that complement your offerings.

DO FAMILY & FRIENDS VIOLATE YOUR BOUNDARIES?

Do your friends, family call you during your work time? Do your clients call during your family time?

TIPS FOR SETTING BOUNDARIES:

1. Communicate with your clients early on letting them know your policies, your work hours, and what they can expect.
2. Let family know what your work hours are. Ask them not to call you with personal chit chat until your "home" hours begin.
3. Caller ID can help you identify calls to see if they are from family, friends, or pesky sales people.
4. The bottom line is to determine your boundaries, set them in stone, communicate them, and guard and uphold them!

== SUMMARY ==

While working from home is the new American Dream, it can present some real challenges at times. Smart business owners work hard to maintaining balance, practice extreme self-care, and regulate their income. By overcoming these obstacles you’ll experience renewed energy, focus, and stability in both your personal and business life.

I just received an email newsletter that I signed up for a couple of years ago.

In the beginning, the person behind the newsletter was one of my greatest mentors. But now, I see that person as having sold out to the almighty dollar.

In the newsletter, they explain why everyone should be blogging. How great it is for traffic to your site and how easy it is to generate a profit.

It goes on a bit further to say that it’s real easy when you purchase one program for $47 or the other for $139.95.

These programs are nothing more than what people like Darren over at Problogger and myself – just to name a couple are giving away for FREE!

If you’ll look through Darren’s archives, you’ll see that he is being blessed far more from the Big Guy for helping people in such a way – and he is the one that inspired me to help other mother’s who may be struggling to make an extra buck to buy her kid some cool shoes or pay for that skating party that she always had to say no to before.

Programs like the two I mentioned above (I won’t tell which ones, but they are just about as spammy and ripoffish as they can get) make me angry, make me feel sorry for everyone who buys them and makes me want to scream just a little bit louder to keep others from buying them.

Do NOT EVER purchase a program or book unless you’ve dug around through some of the more credible sites and found whether they are worth it or not first. Save yourself some money and some wasted time.

Ok, I’ve ranted enough now. It’s just that email has sent me right over the edge a bit.

Google will hire you to work at home!

No. They. Won’t.

Face it people, unless you have a website and work as an affiliate, Google is not going to hire you to work at home, but there have been numerous work-from-home scams promising just that.

Google Cash, Google Profits, Google Works, the list goes on and on and on. I can’t seem to do a single, valid search on work at home options without turning up a gazillion of these offers. I actually get quite a bit of traffic across my “work at home” topics from people looking for information on these promises scams.

I’m thrilled to report that Google has filed suit against the perpetrators of these scams. You can read the suit here.

As always, if you’re looking for information on work-at-home opportunities, consult a professional – there are plenty of seasoned bloggers who write on the topic – Including myself, who would be glad to help you investigate offers for validity.

Names to be wary of when it comes to Google work: Google Adwork, Google ATM, Google Biz Kit, Google Cash, Earn Google Cash Kit, Google Fortune, Google Marketing Kit, Google Profits, The Home Business Kit for Google, Google StartUp Kit, and Google Works.

Any business owner will likely agree that while we may work from home, we still have bad days. Some days we lack motivation – others we get discouraged and wonder if what we are doing is right or if what we have to say is reaching anyone at all. And on those really bad days, we may even consider throwing in the towel.

There may be times when hanging it up might be the right decision, just like there are times when leaving your current job to move on to something better and more challenging might be in your best interest.

There have been plenty of times that I have wanted to hang it up and go back to being a timecard punching secretary with a low pressure job – but what I’ve realized is those really bad days have all ended up being nothing more than a day or phase of bad emotions or self-imposed limitations that need to be overcome in order for me to move on to greater success and productivity.

Are you asking yourself questions that reinforce limitations?

Allow me to give you some examples of limiting questions:

1. What am I doing wrong?
2. Why am I not seeing results?
3. Why do I keep messing up?
4. What am I missing?

Take just a moment and step back from those questions. Now think about the answers that MIGHT be provided in a hypothetical way. Do you see how you might be telling your mind to look for answers that continue to reinforce the self-imposed limitations?

Now with that in mind and pushing all negativity aside, lets think about how we can approach this same dilemma with positive questioning to incite positive result.

Here are examples of questions without limitations:

1. What would I have to believe about myself to feel secure in my decision and path?
2. What would I have to believe in order to be excited about myself and my business?
3. What opportunity for growth am I faced with right now?
4. What would it take to make me want to take on this challenge with excitement and enthusiasm?
5. What would have to happen in order for me to feel like my business is successful no matter what?
6. What can I do right now to make this success happen?
7. What resources are available to me that I haven’t explored yet that might help me build my business? Are there friends, books, professionals I know that might help me take my business to the next level?
8. What things do I already know about my business that will eventually make me successful? What haven’t I done yet and why haven’t I done them?
9. What accomplishments have I already achieved?
10. What lessons can I take from past successes that will help enable me to repeat successes on greater levels?

The power behind a positive question that opens doors instead of imposing limitations is key in helping you find all the answers you need within yourself.

So says The Law of Attraction.

Instead of asking questions that will keep calling in limitations – put some thought into how you can ask the same questions, in a positive way that will call on success to pay her visit.

We get what we ask for.