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What’s your guilty reality TV pleasure? The Bachelor? Survivor? America’s Got Talent? Of course, the granddaddy of them all — American Idol — just started a new season. Some 30 or 40 million fans have been waiting six months for American Idol to kick off. If this season is anything like last season, expect at least 50 hours of American Idol on your TV. No, that’s not a typo.

Last year I gave you a few ideas on what you could have done with those 50 hours instead of watch American Idol. For example, you could earn an extra $1,000, read several books, start writing your own book, burn 43,000 calories jogging, learn the waltz, and others. But, who am I kidding? If you like the show, you’re not going to listen to me. Heck, I’m not even going to listen to me because I’m going to watch this season!

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If you’ve decided that you’d like to be your own boss, it doesn’t have to remain a dream forever. In fact, with some proper planning on your part, you can become your own boss in no time.

If you want to be your own boss you need to start your own business. Being self-employed will more than likely seem overwhelming in the beginning, but in the end many people feel that the benefits far outweigh the costs. So start brainstorming some business opportunities!

Here are some reasons why you should be your own boss:

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As a graduating engineer myself, I have often found myself hard pressed to solve a particular problem. Everyone experiences these kinds of situations more or less frequently, and even though every single mind has its methods and nuances in how it approaches problem solving in general, there are common pitfalls that everyone seems to fall into. I would theorize this phenomena is related to the structure of thought itself – our highly pattern-based thinking is optimized by evolution to solve certain problems, which comes at a cost. Exploring the biological and physical origins of these phenomena, while certainly interesting, will not be pursued in this short essay, both due to my lack of qualifications on those subjects and the goal of the writing of the essay. What I do intend is to provide insight into some the top three common pitfalls, so you may recognize them when you inevitably run into them. If the short time it takes to read this essay spares someone an afternoon of head-banging, then it will already have been worth it.

As the astute reader will notice throughout the essay, most (but not all) of these pitfalls are related to thinking habits and employment of otherwise good thinking strategies to the wrong problems. At every pitfall I will try to provide an illustrative example, and I’m sure more than a few readers will remember themselves in past experiences where they, too, walked in circles in a frustrating battle against a seemingly unsolvable problem of the same nature. I would also like to point out that in most cases an equilibrium must be found, as for every pitfall there is also the opposite equivalent. Having that said, I’ll begin by exposing a well known thinking flaw.

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There is a persistent myth that living healthy is only for the well-off. With hundreds of fast food chains proudly boasting long lists of 99 cent menus – it seems like for those living on a budget, fried burgers and nuggets are the best option. However these are just marketing gimmicks that propagate the myth. Living healthy DOESN’T mean you have to go broke in the process. There are some excellent ways to save money and still lead a healthy and happy life. Here we look at some easy ways to save bundles and keep you and your family on a healthy track.

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Some people appear to be hopped up on happy pills, being oblivious to any bad events going on around them. Others are all too quick to express their disgust at anything that doesn’t go exactly their way.

Could it be that the healthiest emotional mix is somewhere between the extremes? Say, four parts good feelings to one part bad feelings, shaken not stirred, and served with a twist of lime?

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Photo Credit: Niklas
Often we see things that others have and wish that we had the same. Or sometimes, if we see somebody who is very happy, we feel a lack of happiness in our own life and feel jealous of the other person. Jealousy is a very unhealthy, counterproductive feeling that directly results in making us feel discontent and unsatisfied.

As jealousy is an emotional response and almost seems involuntary it feels like it is something that cannot be fought. The biggest problem of a jealous person is that we makes a lot of assumptions and don’t see the clear picture. In order to stop feeling jealous, we need to make an effort to think clearly and rationally. The following are some tips that can help in thinking straight and tempering jealous emotional responses:

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Image courtesy of Chelsea Grainger
Are you progressing in life, or are you just treading water?  This is a brief article intended to motivate you beyond stagnation into purposeful action, once and for all.  These are the steps I use to get things done.

Almost everyday I go to the gym, and almost everyday I see people in the gym who are unfortunately making very little progress.  Although these individuals frequent the gym quite regularly, they are experiencing very little change in their bodies.  This is quite the misfortune.

Today I want to discuss this phenomenon and explain the steps that cause some people to progress, while others stagnate.

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When I’ve got a case of the blues, I sometimes cheer myself up by buying a new book or two on Amazon. Perhaps you have some similar habits: you know what cheers you up, whether it’s going shopping, eating a giant bag of chips, opening a bottle of wine, lighting up…

The problem is, a lot of these little habits don’t really cheer us up, and, over time, they can have a very negative effect on our health, our wallet, or both.

These are some perennially popular ones – and reasons why they’re not a good idea:

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How often do you feel excited, really juiced to get out of bed each and every morning to work on your goal? Do you habitually feel motivated, every single day, to do whatever it takes to make your goal or objective happen?

If you don’t feel excited and motivated, don’t want to get started, don’t itch to get down and put every effort you possess, to do what it takes to make it happen, then the goal that you set yourself may be a weak one.

Or, perhaps on this occasion you hit an obstacle, a complication, and it gradually drained your motivation. It happens, we’re human after all. I don’t think we can be highly motivated every single day of our lives.

In such circumstances, even when you’re faced with an inconvenience or discomfort, such as having to do a particular task, one that you think is a pain, one that you hate doing, find boring, or find difficult, you still need to get it done.

It could be that sales call you’ve been dreading, that person you don’t want to meet, or that sales copy that you have to write. Whatever it may be you see a big wall in front of you with a big red cross over the word ‘motivation’.

Yet you still need to get it done. So what do you do?

I ask you to sit back and remember the times when you raced through a project that you hated so you can leave on time on a Friday night to meet up with your friends, or the time when you made all the ten dreaded phone calls one after the other, with no coffee break in between, so you can tick them off your to do list so you can arrive early at the restaurant to get the best table.

What happened?

You were strongly motivated to get out of work on time or to arrive at the restaurant to book the best table, no matter what. You had a goal in mind. As much as you hated and dreaded the project and phone calls, for you to achieve your goal they had to get done.

You did whatever it took to make them happen. You motivated yourself to get them done. Somehow you found a way to get all the motivation you wanted.

Here are two fun and mighty ways you can bring into play to inject added clout to your motivation level when you are faced with a bothersome task:

1.    Have fun along the way. Don’t take everything so seriously. If you view working towards your goal a chore or an unpleasant and laborious task, you will fall short of completing the task, or if you did finish it off, you will have had an awful time getting there.

Your goal then becomes a pain, one that you will not want to achieve. You won’t find it fun anymore and you will lose your motivation. The journey to fulfilment should be pleasurable and entertaining.

For you to keep the momentum going it’s important for you to have fun while working on your goal. There will be some things that you will have to do on the way that you do not like doing. I think it’s fair to say that it’s a given fact. Yet, if these so-called chores have to be done anyway, why not make them fun and enjoy doing them?

Spend some time to come up with ways to make the road to success and fulfilment fun and enjoyable, amusing and exciting.

When I have to do things that I don’t enjoy doing yet realize their true worth and value, I gear myself up. What do I do? I act like a fun-loving child for a few minutes (or more).

I have a scrapbook of my favourite cartoon illustrations in my top drawer. I flick through the pages to lighten up. I look at the cartoons, then the work I have to do, and then back to the cartoons. I switch back and forth until I see the humour in the work that I have to do. In the end, the ‘was’ chore has now become a ‘fun’ task that I do happily with a firm smile on my face.

Effective? You bet!

2.    Believe you can! Now you might be thinking, Oh, I can’t do that. I can’t take my scrapbook out and have a whale of a time, giggling and laughing. Who says you can’t? You say!

Change that limiting thought. Sure you can have fun. Sure you can flick through your pages of jokes and have a good laugh.

Steer clear of your self-doubt, or any thoughts that you have designed to stop you from having the attitude of a self-motivated and happy person to achieve what you want.

What’s the worst that can happen? Your boss will tell you off for turning the pages of a joke book? Fine. Take a break and take the scrapbook with you!

You see, having motivation and remaining motivated in the long-term can be achieved. You just have to figure out how to remain motivated, especially when things get in the way.

Now you know a fun way of keeping the momentum going. And by the way, not only will you remain motivated, you will enjoy life more by laughing more.

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How many times have you sat in rage-inducing, morning rush hour traffic, cursing your boss for making you come in early to finish that report, when clearly you would have already had the report finished if you’d only been allowed to write it from home instead of sitting in this car!?

How many times, distracted by your coworker, whose high-pitched laugh while regaling her BFF on the phone about a ‘hysterical’ new Facebook post, have you cringed thinking to yourself, if only I were working from home I wouldn’t have these distractions!

How many times in a week do you find yourself thinking, if only I could work from home I would be so much more productive!

Well, according to last months’ Time Magazine – The Future of Work issue, more and more employees and employers are opting for new and innovative ways to redefine the workplace, the most common of which, is changing it – more specifically from your office to your home. And while I hear upon writing this, a chorus of working stiffs belting out Hallelujah!, before you jump into your new way of life (conference call in your pajamas, anyone?!) – a life free of stress, bureaucracy, and office politics – I caution you to remember the old adage: Be careful what you wish for, you just might get it.

While without question, if done correctly, working from home will yield more productivity, less wasted time, and generally improve your quality of life, if done incorrectly you will see the exact opposite happen to the point where your job itself, may be threatened. And with the exuberance of being ‘free’ there is the risk that you will throw yourself into your new situation, without proper preparation. Simple upfront planning will ensure your success and increase your satisfaction factor.

1. Discipline: This is the single hardest part of working from home. Looks easy from your crowded cubicle, but simply not true. First you must honestly ask yourself what kind of person you are: Are you the type of person that works better in a structured environment? Or do you thrive with this type responsibility? Remember once you’re working at home there’s no rush hour and no pesky coworker to blame: your performance will be judged solely on you. If you are going to work from home, understand you’ll have to be ruling yourself with a stiffer fist. The general rule of thumb that I’ve found works is: If you wouldn’t do it at your old office (i.e. take 5 calls from Francine about her blind date last night) don’t do at your new office. I have found that the transition from office to home office is made significantly easier if you start working from home on a part time basis, and then gradually make the transition to full time from home.

2. Scheduling: One of the most important and overlooked aspects of working from home is creating a schedule. Just because you’re not required to be somewhere at 9 and can’t leave until 5, doesn’t mean you shouldn’t have a firm schedule. It is absolutely necessary to write out a weekly schedule for yourself – and stick to it. Working from home can come with many distractions – i.e. all of a sudden that bookshelf you’ve avoided for weeks needs to be dusted right now – and if you aren’t strict about your working hours they will quickly escape you. One of the other pratfalls is that when working from home there is no limit to how much you can be doing – theoretically you could be working 24 hours a day. So it is important to make clear guidelines about where your time will be spent everyday.

3. Create the appropriate space: When working from home, one of the big challenges is keeping your ‘home’ life from your ‘work’ life, otherwise with time both worlds will blur into one, leaving you feeling like you’re always working and never living. If your space allows it, designate one room to be used specifically and ONLY for your office – while it would be more comfortable to sit on your couch writing that report (like I am right now…horrible, horrible, horrible!) it is important to have a concrete spatial divide. If you don’t have the space available, craft out a corner which again is reserved for ‘work’ time only.

4. Separating work from home: Building on creating different spaces, your entire work practice should be separated from your living practice. Though at first it might seem sooo productive to be doing your laundry while taking a conference call, it’s actually not, and most probably both tasks will suffer as a result. Use the time you have allotted to work, to work, conversely use the time you’ve allotted for personal chores, for personal chores. It is also a good idea to get out of your house on designated breaks, i.e. lunch, afternoon break. Go for a walk around the block or eat your lunch outside. Being trapped in your house day and night has many negative long term effects, both personally and professionally.

5. Staying Connected: Just because you’ve said Hasta La Vista to your office, doesn’t mean you should say the same to your colleagues. One of the bigger risks of working from home is becoming isolated and out of the loop. Make the effort to reach out to colleagues you have a good rapport with – suggest a group happy hour drink/coffee once a month. Most jobs and careers still benefit from making connections and having in person relationships. Meeting up once a month will keep you abreast of relevant insider information that will invariably help you in the long run.

Got any working-from-home advice or stories that can help? Please feel free to comment below! (Only if you’re on a break!!)

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