Beware! Working From Home Can Make You A Loner
Many people feel that their highly competitive corporate career has thrown their social life into oblivion
. The Monday to Friday hectic routine followed by laundry, cooking, cleaning and other household chores on the weekend can take their toll on any traces of social life that you may have had when you were in college or when you had just started working.Many such people look out for flexible options like working from home to take control over their lives rather than being dictated by their bosses. While working from home does allow for a lot of freedom and self regulation too, there are various pitfalls to working from home that need to be guarded against. And one among those is the possibility of becoming a loner. The very reason that you choose to work from home - work whenever you want, can become your biggest threat. In majority of the cases, you end up working (or thinking of work) all the time leaving absolutely no time for socializing and going out.
Even when you do not have time to go out and meet friends after work or throw a party at home on a weekend, the fact is that a regular job allows you to go out each day and interact with a fair number of people. There are many of us who find good friends at the workplace and then take these friendships out of the office even after we change jobs or start to work from home. Even little time spent at the water cooler or during snack breaks help break down the monotonous routine and let you relax.
When you start working from home, most of the interaction that you have is online via mails or instant messengers or conversations on the phone. Face to face interactions are limited and therefore there is hardly any chance of general talk.
In addition to this, if you have had a high strung career and have been busy most of the times, it is possible that you have already lost touch with many of your erstwhile college friends or family friends that you may have had earlier. It seems a bit awkward to start to call them when you are suddenly more flexible and working from home. You tend to get typecast into a busy person and in most cases are left out of plans for going to the mall in the afternoon or lunch get-togethers.
People who enjoy their work at home may also find it difficult to pull themselves away from their work to make time for social gatherings or an afternoon in the mall. For those who have converted their passion into work, activities like watching movies or window shopping may appear frivolous and waste of time.
No matter what the reason, it is clear that working from home can indeed make you a recluse unless you take necessary steps to prevent such a possibility. Extended period of staying alone or only interacting with your family and staying indoors can affect your mental and physical health. It certainly affected mine to such extent that many a times I contemplated quitting this work from home stuff altogether and start some real business to simply get connected to the real world!
Below are some tips that can help you avoid falling in to the trap and becoming a loner when you work from home.
* Choose a hobby that takes you out - Even if you have converted your passion into your work from home business, it makes sense to start a new hobby that takes you out of your home. It not be a hobby as such. Activities like exercising, sports, swimming, aerobics, apart from making you healthy can also be used to socialize.
* A family outing - On holidays and weekends, planning to short trip to a nearby location with other families can be a lot of fun. Be the first to start and plan something and invite your friends over.
* Ease into your old friend circle - It may not be easy for you to start getting in the groove with friends whom you have not been connected to for a while. Don't feel shy and take the initiative. Social networks can help you getting in touch with them and starting a conversation before you call up and make plans to do something together.
* Plan a dinner party - If you are not being included as part of social get-togethers because you have been out of the circuit for so long, you can initiate the process by calling some friends over for a dinner party. A start can be made by celebrating a birthday or an anniversary before you move on to casual dinner parties.
* Kids are a great source of making new acquaintances - If you are having difficulty chatting up with your neighbors after you have been seeing through them in the past, it is important to note that your kids can be a great source of making new acquaintance. All relationships start with a short conversation. You just have to make that initial move. It takes over automatically thereafter.
If you feel that you are falling into a loner trap, be conscious about it and take some steps to avoid becoming someone who does not like to talk to or interact with anyone.
by: Vishal P Rao Got An Excellent Network Marketing Product Yet? How To Keep Current On New Website Technologies Can You Make Friends And Co-workers On The Web? Mlm Leads - How To Generate More Than You Can Handle! How To Set Up A Highly Profitable Membership Site In 5 Simple Steps Honestly How Much Money Do You Make Selling Avon How to send valentine gifts to Mumbai online Short Key And Shortcuts Of Windows How Vehicle Tracking System Works Gps Application For Iphone Bulk Sms Empower Us Market Sms Vaildation Period Sms Gateway