People who start home-based businesses come from all kinds of backgrounds.

Some were professionals in the ‘corporate’ world, some were moms who were looking for a little extra cash, some were people who never got a ‘job’ because they wanted to be entrepreneurs and some where anywhere in between.

Because of the varied experiences some people excel at one thing while others seriously struggle.

One of the biggest struggles when building a home-based business is not letting it overrun your life.

Home-Based Business Lifestyle Planning

Think back to when you started your business – why did you do it?

Was it to have more free time?

Was it to have more money and opportunity?

Was it to spend more time with your little ones and family?

I know for me I wanted all of those things. The main driving reason, however, was being able to be flexible and free to spend the time with my son I thought he needed from his mom as he developed in the early years of life.

Choosing Your Activities to Fit Your Business Lifestyle

We get caught up in our businesses, invest. We become emotionally attached and even obsessed. It’s so important to recognize that early and address it.

For me, I became a burnt out, stressed out, overworked virtual assistant who had nothing resembling the ideal home-based business she had imagined. I let it get out of control and I didn’t pick a business model that really fit with my desired outcome.

What Fits? What Must Go?

At the point where I knew I needed a change to make the lifestyle I wanted happen I had to make a decision on what I wanted to do in my own business. I saw four main options based on my experience and interests:

1. Service-Based Business: This is where I was clearly getting into trouble but I wasn’t entirely convinced I couldn’t figure out how to do it better. A service based business is a lifestyle of responding to requests that often need fast attention. It also means more communication with clients and being able to switch your attention between many projects.

2. Information Product Business: While I did test out this model for me it is something I choose to put off for now. As an information product business owner you have a responsibility to customers to be available for customer service and support, something I’m not looking to add to my lifestyle at the moment.

3. Affiliate Marketing Business: An affiliate marketer lifestyle was definitely the most attractive to me. While you can work now/get paid later as an information business owner I liked that you could do that with affiliate marketing without having to also provide customer support/product updates/etc.

4. Coaching and Teaching Business: The lifestyle that comes along with coaching or teaching is really up to the person running the business. A coaching business could be very time demanding if all work time is spent on the phone or it could be quite flexible if it’s group coaching at the owner’s determined times.

What I decided out of these four choices was a combination of both affiliate marketing and services. My goal is to absolutely become a full time affiliate marketer but I’m definitely not there yet. So in the meantime I am supplementing my income with services by working with clients who I absolutely adore working with – that way it’s a win-win!

I’m not saying that all four options above are the only business choices for you. There are plenty of other business models.

The most important thing is that you choose you business model based on the lifestyle you want and then you protect it like hell to make it exactly what you want to be.

Should you work hard? Of course!

Nothing is going to replace the initial phase of hard work you must to do reach blast off in your business BUT there’s no point in blasting off to the MOON when you want to go to MARS, right?

p.s. If you think affiliate marketing might be a great option for you and your business model then I want to invite you to sign up for my weekly tips list and free bonus Beginner’s Guide to Affiliate Marketing <– Click the link to check it out.