Work At Home

Turning What You Love to Do into a Home Based Business

By: Sylvie Charrier

Do you want to learn the biggest secret that all great telecommuters know and the main reason they are employed full time from home?

The secret is simply that if you want to work from home, you have to change your mindset and realize that you are in control of whether or not you are going to have a job you love. Once you realize that you are the only one who can make the necessary changes in your life, you are giving yourself permission to imagine what it would feel like to have a work-at-home job that you absolutely love.

Let's explore what makes you tick and what you love to do. See, if you are going to work from home, you might as well do something that you love to do. There's no point in spending time doing what you hate doing or you'll be miserable every day you're doing it. So, let's go about finding out what you love to do so you can find joy in your work!

List Your Hobbies
To discover what you love to do, begin by listing everything that you love to do in your spare time. If you have a passion for cat grooming, put it on your list. If you drool over building birdhouses, put that on the list. Don't dismiss it just because you think it has nothing to do with telecommuting. You may find yourself surprised how even the most peculiar hobby can be turned into a successful home business.

List Your Skills
Now, you need to list your skills. This list should include all the things that you do really well, whether or not you like doing it. Be very precise.

Now that you have your raw list of skills, let's start flexing our creative muscles. To discover your ideal job, you're going to have to start thinking like a business consultant, you know, those well-paid executives who are paid to come up with creative ideas for other companies to implement. It's time for you to start being your own business consultant and come up with your own creative niche in your telecommuting career.

Invent Your Own Career
What you need to do is take a few steps outside yourself. Pretend that you are a well-paid executive business consultant that needs to figure out what you do best. Review your two lists very carefully and let your creativity tell you what your perfect career choice may be.

If your favorite hobby is antique furniture refinishing it might not seem like there would be a telecommuting career hidden in there. But, if we look closer, we'll see that there is any number of possible home-based careers that can take advantage of your knowledge of antique furniture. For example,

If one of your skills was writing, you could write a How To Guide on refinishing antiques and sell it as an eBook. You could also write a How To Guide on finding great deals on old antiques and how to spot an authentic antique under years and layers of old paint. If you were an excellent researcher, you could freelance your research skills to antique stores. You could contact antique shops and offer your services as a researcher to locate rare pieces for them to purchase. If you were tech savvy, you could create a series of web templates specifically geared towards antique shops and give them away to antique stores. Of course, you would also offer to modify any template of their choice and maintain their site, for a fee. If you were good at organizing parties and events, you could organize an antique show and involve many of the stores and shops in your area. You could set up a trade show where antiques were showcased and all the stores who want to participate would pay a fee to have their booth at the show.

As you can see, even a seemingly obscure hobby like antiquing can be turned into a work-at-home job when you align your loves with your skills. Are you starting to get the idea now? If so, turn on that little light bulb blinking above your head and get started imagining how you can turn what you love into a thriving and satisfying home-based business.

This article is excerpted from "You Can Work in Your PJs", a real world guide to telecommuting. Sylvie Charrier works from home full time and wrote this book to share her unique techniques with others. You can download your copy of "You Can Work in Your PJs" by visiting http://www.inyourpjs.com