You imagine four-day weekends, long breakfasts and relaxation. You end up getting stressful afternoons, working holidays and a cold dose of self employment reality.
Got a lot of ideas about self employment? Imagine a world with no employer to criticze or ask you to work late, where you can conduct business in your home office. Now imagine seven-day work weeks, holidays where you scramble to meet deadlines and criticism that seems to come from the world at large. That’s what it’s really like to work at home. But that doesn’t mean self employment ideas are completely removed from self employment reality, either.
Self Employment Ideas vs. Reality
It’s true that when self employed, you are your own boss. But it’s also a widely-held truth that you are your own worst critic, too. Successful self employment means getting paid. You will have to wow clients and customers, gain work from employers and answer to somebody at some point. You will probably have the option of working how and where you please…but you may not always work on the projects or assignments you love best. The reality of self employment is that you’ll have to make money, and that may mean doing work that isn’t particularly ideal.
What it’s Really Like to Work at Home
In other words, you may be calling the shots…but you won’t really be calling the shots. Your clients and employers will set deadlines, and have ideas about what they want - ideas which might not match yours. There may be weeks when it’s necessary to work seven days, holidays when you can’t spend every minute with friends and family and days when it seems like self employment was a bad idea. But if you have an idea that you’d like to find your own work, be your own boss and possibly earn income from your very own home, the reality of self employment may just be ideal.
