My Business Blueprint - What is Important?

As I started the research phase of defining my at home business, I thought the first step would be to figure out what kind of business I would want to run. The business needs to reflect my values, the work/life balance I desire, and utilize my strengths. Then I found this article on WITI, Selling a Business and Designing a New Life: 10 Questions to Your Best Future and it helped me realize I need to first decide what I want my days to look like. By defining what I care about and want to spend my time doing, I can begin to list the characteristics of a business that still lets me live.


So I am making a list of what is important to me. I want to be with Lee (my hubby) every day. We really like each other and I am lonely when I can’t talk to him or see him. I want to be able to find a group of people to pray with and to praise God with. I want to be able to walk in the country every day. I want to be able to cook in my kitchen, garden in my garden, and play in my river most days. I want to be able to have my grandchildren staying with us and be able to take breaks for adventures with them. I want to write poems and stories and songs. I want to travel sometimes, and don’t mind working on the trip, as long as I also get time to really play. I want to be able to help my kids with their kids and opportunities that come up in their lives. I want to hang-out with my girlfriends and work from the beach a couple of times a year with my buddy. I want to be involved in community activities, especially in non-profits locally. When I look at this list, I have no time to work. Ha Ha But the truth is I love working, solving problems, motivating and empowering others, and learning. I want something that inspires me and makes a difference.

Money used to be really important because we had four kids to raise, but now we can live off a lot less. We don’t have a lot of debt so we can make some choices. A (very) few years ago I read a book, One Acre and Security, an instruction book for how to live simply. That year we grew a big garden and had chickens. We hunted deer and turkey, and I made fresh bread all the time.  We loved that year accept for the chickens.  Lee will veto chickens forever after that experience. But I have always liked knowing I could live with very little and like it if I needed to. I think this is a good mindset when I start a new business because success will not happen overnight. We need to be ready to live lean (for a time).

I realize as I write this, I am fleshing out a blueprint for my life and a new business will be only one piece.  This process is not going to be a straight line.  I will proabably take a lot of side roads and walk in a few circles, heh that sounds like my life story up to now.  But I am getting more excited about stepping out and finding the next path.  Thanks for walking with me.