This isn’t a psychology lesson, but you do need to consider your ego when
you’re becoming your own boss.

You might think that you have to become your job in order to be successful
at it. It must be in every thought and crevice of your mind. Everything that
you do needs to in some way assist your goals as a home business owner.

Some people believe that they have a certain ‘status’ as a person who works
from home and that any success only increases this status, while any failure
only decreases it makes them less of a person.

Can you see where this might be sticky?

You can not let your business and its ups and downs determine who you are
as a person or who others are to you. It is a never-ending process of ups
and downs so you need to find a steady place before you get too dizzy.

When you find a balance between your ego and your job, life becomes a lot
easier. You’re not fighting with yourself or measuring yourself against some
unrealistic set of standards. You are going to have bad days and that’s no
reflection on your personality. Likewise, you will have great days, but that
doesn’t mean that you’ll never have another bad day.

Why not just agree to have ups and downs without the drama?

If you’re not sure if you’re letting your ego control your life, think about the
past week. If you’ve felt threatened by feedback or others’ ideas, then you
may have been letting your ego control you.

Wouldn’t it be nice to just live your life because of decisions that you want to
make? This is extremely helpful when you’re running your business. You
won’t be burdened with self-doubt about everything that you do.

And on the other hand, you won’t feel so invincible that you make mistakes
or stop trying to learn and grow.

Don’t be afraid to ask for help and accept help when you need it. This is the
ultimate struggle that most people have with their ego. They think that
because they don’t know every answer that they are stupid or just give up.
Why not find out the answer from someone else? No one knows everything.
And once you release this idea, you’re better able to make decisions with the
help of others.

It’s all about balancing the truth from your perception. Find out what really
matters and just worry about that. In the end, it’s just work—it’s not you.

LEARN TO PRIORITIZE

The interesting part of running your own home business is not having anyone
tell you what to do. At first, this sounds like a dream and then you realize
that you have to figure out what’s important and what’s not.

It may help to start with keeping a list of all of the things that you have to do
during the day. This can be kept on a simple sheet of paper, on a dry erase
board, or in a calendar or PDA. As soon as you know of something that you
have to do, find a place where you will write it down.

Next, you will read over your list to determine what is most important.
Some people like to ‘grade’ their list in terms of A through F--‘A’ being the
most important and ‘F’ being the least, while others just like to number their
list.

But how do you determine what is important and what can wait? Well, if
there’s a deadline, then it has to be done by that date, so that will help with
some of the list.

Let’s talk about what is really important: problems, crises, meetings,
deadlines. And then there’s the not-so-important, but fairly urgent: mail,
reports, phone calls. Further down the line are things like junk mail, eating,
television, cleaning. Where a lot of business owners fall short is the things
that are important but they’re not overly pressing.

These are things that need to be done, but they really don’t have a timeline
on them UNLESS you make them so. This is your marketing and planning for
the future. This is handling reports and setting goals. These are more
abstract parts of your business that need to be done, but so much time is
wasted on the unimportant things that they slip away.

On the other hand, you can’t make everything so important that you don’t
sleep at night. It’s a trial and errors system that eventually sorts itself out
into a system that will work to keep everyone happy.

To help you tackle this list, you may want to check them off as tasks are
completed or wipe them off the erase board. Find some way to make
yourself feel as though you are accomplishing things so that you have
motivations to finish others.

The little things can wait until you have small breaks in your time and you
need a break after a larger item is completed.

SHOULD YOU EVER SAY NO?

When you’re first staring a business that offers services, you can be tempted
to say yes to every offer that comes up so that you don’t miss any chances
you have to build relationships.

This is a good policy to have, up to a point.

Let’s take for example, a writing service. If you take on too much work
because you can’t say no, your quality will suffer and you may miss
deadlines. This isn’t a good way to start a business.

Here’s what you can do in order to avoid saying no in the first place.
Estimate more time than you actually need for projects when you’re first
beginning. This will give you enough time to finish, even if an unforeseen
emergency should come up and if not, enough time to produce a quality
project.

Next, you should make sure that you are qualified to handle the project that
you are given. You don’t have to be an expert in everything, but make sure
that you are trained to handle the work that you are being offered. You want
to make sure that they are getting the highest quality in return, so if you’re
not capable of doing it, and don’t think that you can figure it out in time,
then turn the work down.

There is an exception to this rule: learning on the fly. A lot of small business
owners will learn their skills while they’re just starting out. And some people
like to learn like this because it makes them focus and try all the harder.

If you have some experience in the field that you are starting your business
in, this might work, but if you’re still relatively new, you may want to learn
first, and then try completing that kind of work. Make notes of the things
that you have to learn and then learn them.

If you are already swamped with projects, it may be best to say ‘no’ in rare
instances. Another example is if you look over the project and see that the
work involved is very complicated. If it’s too complicated, you’ll lose time to
work on other things that you’ve already scheduled.

Saying ‘no’ is hard to do in the beginning of your home business, but when
you think about the quality of the service that you want to provide, you may
find that some cases call for it.

KEEP YOUR CREATIVE JUICES FLOWING

When you’re in a home business, you need to be creative with your problem
solving and with your product. How exactly can you keep those juices
flowing?

First of all, you will need to schedule some time for yourself to brainstorm
and be creative. It seems like an oxymoron to schedule yourself creative
time, but when you give your brain a regular chance to be free to express
itself, you’ll actually train your brain to work better.

Set aside an hour or two each week to just write down ideas for your
business. They can be silly or serious, but just write down everything that
comes into your mind. Take out your product and manipulate it and play
with it to get new ideas.

You may also want to keep a small journal with you in order to write down
ideas as you have them throughout your day. Some of the best ideas come
at random times, so you want to be able to document them as they pop up.
Some people like to carry a mini tape recorder with them in order to talk
their ideas out, but you can use whatever you WILL use.

Perhaps you just need to ask yourself questions about our service or your
product. What can be made better? What else can it do? What else would
my customer want to do in their life and how can I fill that need?

You may just need to rearrange what you’re already doing in order to be
more creative in your everyday work. Try a new priority system, a new
picture in the office to look at. Look at your business plan and try to see if
there are things that can move. Even if it doesn’t make sense or seem to
need a change, try it out.

Try seeing if you can make your product or service more efficient or more
compact. What are other industries doing with their products now and how
can you adapt that to your business? Pick up your product and think of all of
the uses that it’s not intended for. You might stumble on another idea.

Think of reasons that people might give your service or product as a gift.
Look at your product or service through a customer’s eyes and see what you
would change.

Some of the best ideas were stumbled upon accidentally and creatively.