For reasons that escape me now, I kept sort of a diary during my
first full year of working at a home based business. It was
nothing close to being a complete daily diary, but was more of a
collection of scribbles about things that I felt were worthy of
note at the time. Since quite a bit of time has passed since
then, I decided to revisit these notes.

In no particular order, here are some of the things that I had
made note of.

Choosing the path...in the beginning, my enthusiasm was very high
(perhaps too high?) and I was chasing off on several different
home-based business opportunities at the same time (exhibiting
the "dog in a meat market" syndrome, I suppose) and not focusing
my efforts enough to be successful at any single one of them. I
finally reigned myself in and focused on a single work at home
business opportunity.

In other notes I find reference to emotional and/or psychological
issues that I experienced and are probably typical for most
people when starting a home based business. When working at home
a person can, at times, experience a feeling of isolation which
is probably brought on by the lack of interaction of a work force
environment.

There were also periods of doubt in the early going...did I pick
a viable business opportunity?...am I doing the right things to
develop my business?...when will I start making a profit?, and
so on.

Many of the entries in my so-called diary had to do with the
proverbial "two steps forward and one step backward" thing and
the ever-looming temptation to become discouraged. Although I
didn"t appreciate it at the time, it is now obvious that as long
as you have more steps forward than backward you will eventually
get ahead! Isn"t hindsight wonderful?

Other entries reflect the fact that relatively minor events can
seem huge in the early stages of developing a work at home
business and can really contribute to an emotional roller coaster
ride. For example, if you are just starting out and you have two
customers/clients and you lose one...that"s a 50% drop! However,
if you fast-forward in time to the point where you have hundreds
of customers/clients and you lose one...that"s just a mere
fraction of 1%! Same event, just at a different point in time.

Looking back on it now, some of the stuff I recorded now seems
humorous, but I"m pretty sure that I was not amused at the time
I made the notations.