There comes a time when you need to ask yourself a very serious set of questions. Are you going to do this? Or are you going to believe excuses for the rest of your life? Are you going to make a firm decision to work your business as a career? Or will you forever work it like a hobby and whine about your results? Let me show you what this looks like.

Imagine if you will what this same kind mindset would create if someone applied this in a hospital setting. When a person is facing a life threatening situation and they are in the emergency room of a hospital how would they feel if the doctor showed up and said, “You know I am giving this my best shot, I graduated last year and well I work this position as Doctor in the E.R. as often as I can, when my kids are acting right and my wife isn’t nagging me, so here we go! I’ll do the best I can!” Most people would be rolling off the table and running out of there, and if they couldn’t run they’d be elbowing it army style as quickly as they could. Yet that is what people say everyday in their home based business and for some odd reason, they believe these excuses. I have always believed excuses to be nothing more than well planned lies.

When I was first developing my home based business I was taught three important truths that would make or break me. These three issues are the activities that separate someone who makes $10.00 per month from someone who makes $10,000 per month. In training and coaching people during the last 17 years I have noticed how important these same issues are. They are the dividing line between someone succeeding and someone failing, period, end of story.

Basics, People Skills and Personal Growth- These Dictate Your Income

Basics- This is when you pick up the phone and talk to someone. You hand out flyers and give out your business card. These are the basics. If you don’t do the basics you don’t have a business.

People Skills- This influences who you will talk to and who you will avoid. Your people skills dictate what happens when you are in conflict with a team member or a prospect. Will you stomp your feet and quit or will you do what it takes to get along with people, even those you don’t agree with? People skills affect your paycheck greatly.

Personal Growth– This is where the rubber hits the road. No one has ever made it to 6-figures and above without dealing with their personal growth. Your personal growth has everything to do with your paycheck. Avoid personal growth training and issues and you will never make it to the level of a pro.

This last issue I must address emphatically. Because you see, your level of personal growth dictates if you will work even when you don’t feel like it. Personal growth has a lot to do with whether or not circumstances dictate your hours of business. (You know, I work 2 hours on Monday, I work 4 on Tues, I don’t like to work on Wed because of soccer games with my kids, I work on Thurs if I can fit it in and I try to work on Friday night). Hours of business need to be consistent with the word business. A grocery story would never dream of being open in this sporadic way- can you imagine if you needed diapers on the day the store owner ‘didn’t feel like coming in’!?

There are going to be times in your business when you just have to ask yourself, “Am I going to do this or not? Am I going to the top or am I not? Will I do whatever it takes to succeed or not?” Ironically these are the same questions that a doctor must ask himself before he goes into Med School. If he were to show up for school or on his 24 hours shift assignment when he feels like it he would soon be thrown out of Med School! Yet everyday, people who call themselves home business owners, operate in this exact same way- they work when they can fit it in, when they feel like it, when the moon, stars and the universe line up. Sadly, they can’t figure out why they don’t have a paycheck. Small wonder, not one business on the planet could prosper with that mindset.

It’s important to address these three issues if you are going to succeed in this business you are in. Make sure you are doing the basics everyday. Get training and build your people skills. Lastly, work on your personal growth everyday, every year.

Let me tell you about one of my clients, his name is Tyler. When he first came to coach with me he was homeless, with 8 kids, living with his wife and his children at a relatives house. I told him what I just told you – decide when you are working, treat this like a career, make the decision right now to never be homeless again and let’s get to work. He made that decision and made 6-figures his first year in business. Thank God he made that decision, his children and his wife were depending on him! When Tyler got on the phone and did prospecting, when Tyler held a business presentation he didn’t take into consideration if he felt like it or not, he didn’t take into consideration if this was a good day for his kids, his wife, himself- he went to work. He worked his home based business like a career and it paid him like one, to the tune of 6-figures!

Now I know you didn’t get started in your business venture to fail, and you didn’t get started in this business to be miserable. So you have one thing you must do right now. Make the decision right now to work your business as a career and I promise you, the results will shock you! Improve your skills here in LifeMap To Success.