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Working from home isn’t for everyone. There’s nothing wrong with admitting that.

Okay, right now, you may not have a choice in working from home. The pandemic has caused a lot of businesses to send their workers home to follow COVID protocols.

But there’s nothing wrong with admitting that you want to get back to the office.

What about those who are starting their own business. Is this the right thing for you?

There are just so many romanticized versions of working from home. People just seem to have the world. They get on with their tasks and make thousands of dollars on a weekly basis.

I can’t blame you for thinking that you can, too. But I’m going to burst your bubble and say that it isn’t really like that. Working from home isn’t for you, and you really need to think of another career path.

Why’s that? Well, here are five signs working from home isn’t right for you. Don’t worry, though, all is not lost! I’m also going to give you a few solutions so you can make it work.

You don’t have a clue what you want to do

This is for those who are looking to start their own business.

You want to work from home, but that’s where you get stuck. Just what do you do now that you are working from home? Do you write, take pictures? How about playing with the kids?

If you don’t have a plan, don’t quit your day job right now! Don’t just straight into the world of working from home.

I started it all from the deep end. I was unemployed, couldn’t find work that made me want to get out of bed on a morning, and was downright fed up with the world—and the fact that I’d moved 400 miles for a boyfriend and had left a fun and interesting job. I wasn’t annoyed with the boyfriend, just the situation. It was the middle of the recession in the UK and I had no idea what to do.

The idea of working from home sounded so interesting, but what could I do? I didn’t have a clue, but the boyfriend did. He suggested writing and so I started researching. I made sure it was a legitimate way to make money from home and discovered how to do it and where to go to make that money.

So, while I didn’t have a clue what to do, I didn’t let it stop me. Don’t quit your job if you have one. Just think about your option and make a decision. Choose one work from home venture right now. You can branch out in the future if you decide working from home is for you after all.

By the way, the boyfriend became my husband and now we’re both making money from the comfort of our own home.

Working from Home Please Do Not Knock Or Disturb Wood Sign 8×12 inch / 20×30 cm ($)

You aren’t willing to put the work in

Working from home takes time and effort. If you’re not willing to put those in then working from home isn’t for you.

Those stories you hear of the overnight billionaires are false. Another bubble burst: they all took months, if not years to get to that point.

You need to put the effort in. It’s important to do work—after all, it’s called “work” from home, not “lay-around-in-your-PJs” from home!

The solution for this is simple: change your mindset. Do some research and find out how real people have made money at home. Hire a mentor and follow podcasts of those who have succeeded. Those two things really helped me!

You need interaction from people at work

Working from home is quite isolating. You’re working from your screen while others work from theirs.

You’ve lost that interaction with people in the workplace. Sure you can Zoom, but it’s not the same. Zoom is usually left for meetings, and you lose the daily interaction that you’d normal get in the office.

There is absolutely nothing wrong with needing this interaction. As humans, we’re social. We need to speak to other people, even if it’s just catching up with what someone did over the weekend.

The move to working from home is difficult for many. Losing that social aspect of work can lead to mental health problems.

So, if you need to work at the office, don’t worry about that.

What about people running their own business? You may want to work at the coffee shop or at co-working spaces, even if it’s just a day or two per week. You get to run your business and get the social interaction at the same time.

Working from home is the new normal ($) right now, but I don’t think it’s 100% going to remain that way.

You don’t have the discipline

Motivation is great, but if you don’t have the discipline then your business is doomed to fail. You can have all the motivation in the world, but without discipline, you’re not going to stick to that plan you created.

With discipline you can lose motivation and still get on with the plan. You know that you need to get through X amount of hours and then you can do what you want.

Trust me when I say that discipline has saved my butt plenty of times. There are always days in the month that I just don’t want to work. I’ll think about pushing the work off to the next day or just scrapping it altogether.

There are days where I’ve had such a bad night’s sleep that it’s tempting to sleep in and start work later. I know my most productive time of the day is in the morning. If I get up later, I’ll end up working less in the afternoon. I’ll either not get as much done or I’ll hate myself for having to work late into the night.

Discipline kicks in. I remind myself that after a few hours of work I can call it a day I can move on a day what I want.

Working from home isn’t for you if you don’t have that discipline. You can develop it, but it will take time.

You don’t really want to do it

When you think about working from home, what are your real feelings? Those feelings deep down that tell you if you really want to do something or not.

Do you feel excited about the possibilities? Do you get that feeling of dread, thinking that this is just what you’ll have to do? That it’s better than nothing?

Well, if you don’t really want to do it, you’re not going to succeed. Even if you do succeed, it’s all going to feel like a chore and the willingness to do work and plan will go out of the window.

I’m sorry to say but if you don’t really want to do it then it isn’t for you. And there’s not really a solution to this problem. Unlike all the others where you can make some changes to yourself, you can’t really change what you like and dislike when it comes to a career.

No matter how many times I’ve tried, I can’t stand working in retail. I have serving customers standing behind tills and find it soul sucking. Working from home is my opportunity to offer a service I can do and work with people from around the world.

Now it’s up to you to look through these signs and determine if they apply to you. The first four do have solutions, but if you suffer from the last one then working from home really isn’t for you and you need to get back to the drawing board.

MORE: 5 signs you need to rework your working from home idea

What are you struggling with when it comes to working from home? Does it work for you? Share your thoughts in the commens below.

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