How Not to Become a Lone Wolf When You’re Working from Home

Have you ever wanted to quit your day job and start building a business at home?

Are you currently a work from home business owner who is fast becoming a lone wolf and you’re starting to feel isolated from the real world?

Starting out as an entrepreneur isn’t as easy as it looks when you’re building your business at home. It’s not always about having the free time doing what you want when you want it to be done.

BeLive’s live streaming host of the #LivePositive show, Jeff Adams, interviewed Eddie Garrison who is a work from home entrepreneur, social media strategist, digital content creator, speaker and live streamer. Eddie shares with us his journey when he quit his 9–5 job and started exploring the world of building his business at home.

Eddie says that working from home can be everybody’s dream job, but it can also be a nightmare. When you go to an office, you are used to this routine of waking up, going to work, and as you go home you rest. When you become your own boss, it’s a totally different ball game.

Working for yourself can lead to the lone wolf syndrome and total burnout where you would find yourself staring at the computer for hours with no colleagues to talk to, and your kitchen, just a few meters from your office. Eddie will be sharing with us lots of tips on how to avoid being a lone wolf and enjoy your life more.

Understanding the commitment

We need to understand that the commitment of working from home is not all sunshine and daisies.

Most people think that they have the advantage of waking up late at noon or they can go outside the entire day as if they were on vacation. It doesn’t work that way. You have to understand and accept the changes in your day to day life when you enter this journey.

When you have a corporate job you are working for somebody else, and you have this guaranteed money, but in business, you’re out there on your own. You don’t know when the first revenue stream is going to come in. You don’t know when you are going to get paid.

Stop sitting too long! Go out and experience life

It takes a lot of guts and commitment to leave your 9–5 job because there’s a transition between what you have gotten used to, to a totally different environment. Before, you can easily grab lunch with your colleagues and talk to people but when you work from home, it’s just you. You simply go to your home office then back to the kitchen and back to your home office again. Sometimes you can even be found eating in front of your computer which I highly recommend you not to do.

Do you also find yourself sitting too long at times?

Eddie comes from a graphic design background so he’s guilty of sitting 4 or 5 hours at a time! What he doesto avoid this is he lays out a content calendar on how he will run his business for the week and include those hours where he needs to add an active lifestyle, like walking to the fitness center and walking the dogs.

You wear many hats during the day and building a business can be tough. You’re always in front of your computer or are fixing other legal matters. You can’t always be in this numbness, mindless groove every day for 8 hrs. Give yourself a break.

Your physical and mental well-being is important.

If you find yourself starting to talk to your dogs, that’s a sign that you should start going out and experiencing life.

Go out and do things!

Establishing your business doesn’t have to be cruel wherein that’s the only thing you do every single day. Go outside, buy something and interact with people. It will help you refresh your mind. Live streaming is also a great way of interacting with people either on your phone or your laptop, where you can communicate with others instantly.

Another beneficial way to unwind and at the same time become productive is to look for your local chamber of commerce events. Go out and meet other entrepreneurs and solopreneurs once a week or twice a month. This will help ensure that you won’t be a lone wolf. You can even network your business or maybe look for someone to work with. When you get to find these group of people who are also lone wolves themselves you can start to build your own tribe. As Eddie says:

“There is no better place to remedy your lone wolf syndrome than amongst other lone wolves.”

Be financially prepared

Before getting into this lifestyle where you work from home, Eddie stresses that you must have some cash fund set aside before you dive into this business.

When you start your business, it requires a lot of money to form the company and launch it. You also have legal papers to attend to which incur costs as well as bills to pay!

Endless as the cost may seem, this is part and parcel of starting a business at home. This is why it is recommended to have at least 4 to 6 months worth of your previous salary to cover your overall cost before you think of stepping out of your comfort zone. A lot of people don’t realize how much money needs to be invested at the beginning and they plunge in without enough nest egg. Having no income set aside for yourself is the mistake that most people who switch from being employed to becoming self employed make the most.

Another tip is that you if you have a significant other you have to make sure that you are on the same page of exploring this type of business. It’s going to be a struggle as you start out and it takes a lot of understanding from both sides.

Part of what an entrepreneur like you should also do when starting out your work from home business is to establish a support team or a mentorship group who would help you with your ups and downs. It can be your family and friends who are there behind you who can cheer you all the way.

It is important because there is somebody there to pick you up and help you go forward in your ultimate goal in life.

Are you planning to start your own business? Watch the full show to get more tips from Eddie:

You can also follow Eddie on his Facebook page to know more.

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