Everyone from Internet marketing gurus to career advisors sell the idea of working from home as being the perfect way to achieve work/life balance.
Unfortunately, 99% of them are full of shit.
In fact, they’re flat out lying to you.
Because anyone who works full-time at home knows it’s far from the fairytale some people make it out to be.
And that can be working for yourself, or an at-home job for a corporate.
It comes with its own set of challenges, problems and headaches – none of which any amount of positive thinking can prepare you for.
I’ve seen everyone from successful authors and entrepreneurs bail out of the “working from home” experience to go back to day jobs.
That’s because they fell for the same lie I did.
Allow me to explain.
My story
During the financial crisis of 2010 I had to swallow my pride and take a day job, leaving my work-from-home routine behind.
It was do that or lose my home.
But I had no idea how socially isolated I’d become until I sat down to lunch with my co-workers during my first week back in the 9-to-5.
I’d actually forgotten how to interact with relative strangers.
I kept tripping over my words, rushing to try to string a thought together.
That’s when it hit me – I hadn’t actually spoken face-to-face with another human for at least 2 months at that stage.
Sure, I chatted with the people at the grocery store or coffee shops, but I hadn’t had a full-on conversation with anyone in several weeks.
Somewhere along my journey to be free of an office cubicle, I completely lost myself.
It took weeks to adjust to simply being around people again.
That feeling still lingers with me today, years later sitting here in my home office.
It taught me some very valuable lessons that have served me well during the current pandemic.
The lie
For me, the biggest lie about working from home is that it’s inherently better than working in an office.
That you’ll somehow be happier, healthier and better adjusted than you were in your day job.
You can take it from me, that’s absolute bullshit.
Yet that’s exactly how people will pitch remote or home work to you.
That it magically solve all your problems, and you’ll earn more because you’re happier, etc.
If anything, working out of your home is way more difficult – especially if you have even the tiniest existing mental health problem.
Plus you now have to face all the additional distractions that come with being at home all the time, from your partner to your pet to noisy neighbors.
Hours can bleed into days and days then bleed into weeks.
Or they will if you fall for the total mistruth that working from home makes everything in your life instantly better.
So…it’s all terrible then?
God, no.
I love working from home.
Even with all the complications that come with it, I trade those off against my very deep need to decide how I spend my day.
I’ve given employers more than enough of my finite time on this Earth.
But it’s my constant awareness of the “lie” that keeps me sane.
I don’t fall for it anymore, and that also means being able to forgive myself when I fall off the wagon, and think about getting a day job again.
So my advice is this – enter the world of working from home with both eyes wide open.
And don’t fall for any of the utopia bullshit peddled by others.