When you stay at home and work, either at a stay at home job or at a home based business, it’s easy to start feeling isolated and lonely. This is especially true if you worked in a large company with a lot of people before you decided to stay at home and work. It really is possible to go days without seeing anyone but family members when you work at a stay at home job or home based business. After a while, the isolation can get to you and make you long for the old days, as bad as they were.
So it’s important to take breaks from your stay at home work or home based business and find opportunities to interact with people. One of the best ways to avoid feeling lonely and isolated in your stay at home job is to join a professional group in your area. Your local Chamber of Commerce is a good organization to join and take part in. Not only will the meetings give you the chance to be with other people, they can also be a great way to network your home based business or to pick up projects for your stay at home job. Best of all, you’ll be able to spend time with people who also have small businesses, many of them home based businesses, and you’ll be able to pick up some great ideas for your home based business.
Another strategy for coping with the loneliness that goes along with a stay at home job or home based business is to find other people in your area who are also working at stay at home jobs or home based businesses. You probably already know many people who are in similar shoes. They’d love to get together and shake off the stay at home loneliness for a couple of yours. Get in touch with them and see if you can’t set up a once-a-week breakfast. Again, this will give you the chance to talk with people about stay at home job and home based business issues. You’ll get a lot of good ideas and maybe even be able to co-op some work for your home based business of stay at home job service.
And here’s another thing you can do to beat the home based business and stay at home job “lonelies”join your local Y. Too often stay at home workers and home based business owners spend way too much time at their desks, staring at the computer screen. You need to have some exercise. And one of the advantages of having a stay at home job or home based business is that you canor should be able to!make your own schedule, at least to some degree. Yes, you have to met your stay at home job and home based business deadlines, but you can plan to spend time a little time exercising at the Y several morning or afternoons a week. Going to the Y has the advantage of letting you be with people who are NOT connected with your stay at home job or home based business. Because while it is a good to be with home based businesspeople and stay at home workers sometimes, you also need to be with people who aren’t so that you can forget about your business and stay at home work some too. It’s too easy to let your stay at home work take over your life. So join the Y and meet all kinds of people. You’ll find you go back to your home based business office refreshed and ready to go to work.
Also, take advantage of email. When you stay at home and work or have a home based business, you’re likely to deal with many people just like you who are staying at home to work or running their own home based business. It’s easy to forget, though, that they are people who get lonely too. So make some online friends. You’ll be amazed at how much less lonely you’ll feel in your stay at home job or home based business just by doing this one thing.
Finally, if your stay at home job or home based business really has you feeling lonely and blue, and you’re yearning for the old 9-to-5 cubicle you once had, stop and think for a minute. Were those many conversations you had with co-workers really all that great? Did you actually want to hear about Sally’s gall bladder operation or about Steve’s son’s grand slam hit or Gary’s marital problems? Didn’t think so. And now your stay at home job or home based business office looks better than ever, doesn’t it?
Charles Fuchs
I grant permission to publish this article, electronically or in print, as long as the bylines are included, with a live link, and the article is not changed in any way.
Copyright 2006, Charles Fuchs, President of Vision Management Enterprise Inc., is an established online marketer who specializes in helping people start their very own
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