Most of us are used to being supervised and told what to do.  When we were children, most of what we did was under the guidance of our parents.  They would be watching us, telling us what we could or could not do, where we could or could not go.  They showed us how to do things.  If we did something good we were praised and rewarded.  When we did something bad we were reprimanded.  This dynamic carried over into school, where our teachers became our surrogate parents and there were rules to follow just like at home.

A job is what most of us have transitioned into after finishing school (and some of us while in school) to replace the environment but still maintain the same relationship dynamics between our parents and our teachers.  Essentially, our bosses are our surrogate parents at the workplace.  A job makes sense to most people because it is familiar (like family) and is something we are comfortable with.  Our job experience resembles our family experience and, without realizing it, is one of the main reasons why most people find it difficult to be a business owner or entrepreneur and instead find it easier to gravitate towards a job working for someone else.

Work from home jobs will require that you become familiar with being independent, being comfortable with working for yourself and getting work done without supervision.  They are a middle step between a traditional job and running your own business (whether a “brick and mortar” business or marketing your own service or product online).  Real work from home jobs will require a bit of business owner thinking and discipline since, essentially, you are an independent contractor and will be “prospecting” for work as you would be prospecting for clients (though some positions can be long-term projects).  Work from home jobs will require that you are able to be productive without having someone watching over you (though there will be metrics that will be analyzed to ensure you are doing your job).  This can be challenging for a lot of people because most of us are used to the rigid structure of a workplace and can be easily distracted at home since the usual mentality is “no one is really going to know what I’m doing.”  Most people associate home with relaxing and not working, so making a mental shift to being productive at home and getting paid for working from home is challenging.  Most of us are also used to getting paid a wage per hour.  Though most work from home job opportunities offer hourly wages, the flexibility of working the hours you want, together with the associations of staying home and relaxing, are mental obstacles difficult to overcome.

Perhaps I’m making the mental aspect of working from home seem like a daunting challenge, but, although it is very important, it’s not that hard to overcome.  Work from home jobs are a relatively easy transition from a workplace.  It’s challenging to find good, long term, legitimate work from home jobs at first and this is usually the phase (the start-up phase) that requires the most perseverance, but once you start working from home, the new mentality will become habit and you will be on your way to long-term success working for yourself.