What’s a person to do? Take a nice cleansing breath and  maybe have that cup of  green tea to mull on what I’m saying. Don’t despair.   It’s never as bleak as it might seem.

In his post on About.com, Home Business, Randy Duermyer asks, Why Do You Want to Work from Home? A majority of the responses gave health as the reason.  It certainly was what drove me to toward self employment AND working from home.

I had no doubt at the time that it was the best option for me.  I love what I do and most days love doing it in my home and working solo.  But then, I also loved working with and for others when I did it.  And, I can’t replay this to find out if working outside of my home and/or working for others wouldn’t have been just as good.  It seemed like the best choice at the time  and still does 13 years later.

No doubt,  I don’t have to tell you that making a work/life change is a big step.  Most likely you’ll go about making this decision as you do others.  Until relatively recently, I made most decisions from the gut rather than my head. It worked well enough.  Although, as I’ve aged and taken my share of hits, I find myself evaluating a lot more carefully before making even a small shift.

If you’re someone who thinks before jumping in, here a few things to consider regarding working from home.   We’ll start with some basic questions:

• Would you be self employed or would you work for someone/some entity? Address this first as it can influence your responses.    FYI – If you’re considering self employment, see my last post, Chronic illness and self employment:  Is it Right for You? And, if you’re looking for employment at home, Randy Duermyer’s post, Work at Home, Jobs for the Disabled , mentions two websites that can help your job search.
• Do you have the motivation and discipline to stay on task  when you’re alone? Whether you’re self employed or  have  a “virtual” supervisor, working at home requires discipline that can come more “naturally” when you work among others.  You might be thinking working at home allows you to pace yourself and take the breaks you need — the hours or even days at a time when you’re not well.  But be honest with yourself.  If you’ve always struggled with  procrastination or time management, working at home will challenge these tendencies to the max!  If you’re setting the schedule, you need to be able to keep to it.
• Do you need social interaction with people you like and trust? Being employed offers more consistent social contact than  self employment.  The water cooler gossip, sitting and chatting with the other people in your office, and having coffee  with co-workers can make even a bad environment tolerable.  And, chronic illness can lead to isolation without a reason to leave home.  On the other hand,  the social aspect of work might be too demanding or too difficult for you. If you’re feeling the need for people, there are virtual networking (social media) and face to face opportunities.  Why do you think Starbucks has wifi?).
• Do you have a place in your home to set up an office? You’ll need more than a closet or the t.v. table that your computer currently sits on.  If possible, it should be a dedicated room –or even a space –that is dedicated to your work and won’t be disturbed.  Even better, make sure there’s a door that can keep children and barking dogs out when necessary.  As Virginia Wolff so famously wrote, A Room of One’s Own.
• If you live with others (such as family members),  will they respect the time that you are working at home as much as they might if you were out of the house? This might not seem important at first  But it’s very very frustrating to find that once you’ve some real, paying work going,  it’s frequently sabotaged by events beyond your control.  Explore ground rules with all whom this might affect –before you start!

What else do you have to think about?  Here are some less concrete, more reflective  questions to ask yourself:

1. What do I want from working from home?
2. What do I absolutely need from working from home?
3. What challenges/stumbling blocks do I face?
4. Do I believe I can make this happen?
5. What  support around me will I need to help me if I stumble?

Why do you want to work from home? Have you tried it?  What have you learned?  What have I left out?

I’m going to have my cuppa’  afternoon green tea.

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Here’s a question I get frequently but you wouldn’t have heard 20 or even 10 years ago:  Is self employment the best option for people living with chronic illness?

It seems that most employed people dream of working for themselves.  It certainly sounds  freeing and creative, doesn’t it? No one makes a more compelling case for self employment than Pam Slim in her blog, Escape from Cubicle Nation, and in her wonderful book with the same title.  If you want to read a clever and insightful post on the topic, GL Hoffman writes in the recent Career Collective posts, “The Life of an Entrepreneur: Is it for You?”

But what about if you live with impairments and waxing/waning chronic illness? You know that you have to think about these issues a little differently.  But how.

Well, as they say, “the devil is in the details”.  Here are some of my thoughts.

Self employment generally means  you’re solo.  For many, that’s a real plus.  A coaching client with Lupus  discovered the challenge in working solo when selling Tupperware.   She expected this kind of low key sales would give her  the flexibility she didn’t have when she was in computer sales.  But she  still had to show up at the Tupperware parties she’d scheduled and her salary depended  on her ability to be alert, friendly, outgoing and able to sell — even when she had no energy and in pain.

Furthermore, a lack of a guaranteed paycheck can be a source of anxiety for anyone, especially if you have others to support.  But it can be even worse if you  already face an unpredictable life due to your health. A client with Fibromyalgia  went to work for himself thinking that his wife’s income would give him the cushion he needed  to cut back  his work when necessary.   But  not having a reliable paycheck made him severely anxious.  He couldn’t take a vacation or sick time, worrying tha he’d lose business and be unable to pay his bills.  Working for himself, he pushed himself harder than when he was employed.

I’m self employed in my home office and it works for me.  I’ve always been extreme on the self motivation scale, I’m a born “creator”,   I love developing my talents and new ideas and I work my best when I can do it on my own schedule.

But while I’ve benefited from being able to adjust my schedule to my health, I’ve had to learn to live with an uneven and reduced salary.  I sorely miss the social interaction of an office and feel the loss of being part of a team who shares ideas and goals. I don’t miss my difficult bosses but I do miss the supportive ones who mentored me and helped me to grow.

For more about  self employment when chronic illness is part of your life , read Joan Friedlander’s  chapter,  You’re Fired  — by Your Body or Your Boss in our book, Women, Work and Autoimmune Disease: Keep Working, Girlfriend!

What have you found –  from working on your own?  Or staying employed?

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Recently I experienced, yet again, how hard it is to work and live with waxing/waning chronic illness.

And this just reinforces why I think that that working is the smartest thing I can do for myself.

When we traveled  to California to visit friends, I knew it would tire me. The time change and long flight  are always hard for me.

But I know I need fun, even if it costs.  We had a great time and I came back very tired.

I had a business trip to NYC two days later. The project involved being interviewed about the challenges of working with a chronic illness.  And it would be videotaped.

I knew this wouldn’t be an easy trip either. There was pain in my back and feet  (typical MS stuff) and my husband, Jake, wouldn’t be there to pull the suitcase/laptop. And a chalazia in my eye (like a stye) wasn’t improving.

Wouldn’t you know? The day before the taping my eye became infected. When throbbing pain in my eye woke me during the night, I gasped when I looked in the mirror. My eye was angry red, only partially opened and that side of my face was swollen.

I was up a lot that night, feeling really sorry for myself and … feeling sorry for myself.

The good news is I didn’t panic in the light of day.  I realized I would get through this somehow. Make up  hid it well enough so it wasn’t noticeable. I laughed when I was on the set about how I looked and acted like it was no big deal. Others laughed with me– and acted like it was no big deal either. I enjoyed myself that day immensely. Luckily the work was really interesting. I completely forgot about how painful my eye actually was!

Here’s the kicker.  When my husband met me at the train that night, I did something I’ve never done before  I told him I needed him to tell me how badly he felt for me.  And that he was proud of me for getting through it.

And he did just that.That felt good.

What do you do when you think you can’t go on but you also think you have to? What do you do for yourself when you’ve used everything you’ve got just to get the job done?

I’d like to hear it – -and so would others.

Do you want to talk with others about this? I’ve created a cicoach.com facebook (click here) discussion page for just these topics.  You don’t have to friend me — or even be “on facebook” to join.  Or paste this into your browser: http://www.snipurl.com/cicoachfbwelcome

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Over at GL Hoffman’s blog, WhatWouldDadSay,  author/speaker/guru guest,  Seth Godin, explains why:    “Don’t Get a Job Now”.

Only Godin could come up with that direct a message.  Even better, he’s got  great points.  If this guy doesn’t motivate you, who can?

Speaking of chronic illness –  do you think you should spend your time trying to fit into a square peg now?

Six years ago, having gone through multiple career transformations and started several businesses,  I read his book, Purple Cow.  That was it for me.  I finally created the job I could do that also happens to be my most successful, happiness producing gig yet.

Bet you never heard of a chronic illness career coach?  I’m a Purple Cow.

Read Godin’s  post.  I agree with him.  Unless you’ve got killer skills that few others have, this is a rotten time for job hunting!   Gotta’  give big points GL for getting the massively popular Godin to write it.  Know how he did it?  He asked!

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Wouldn’t you know it would take “March Madness” to show us that coming from behind can make you a winner?

Two guys at Wharton Behavioral Lab explored the idea that losing can lead to winning because of the strong  motivational effects of being close to your goal (When Losing Leads to a Win).

They applied their theory to sports and published a NY Times Article,  A Slight Deficit Leads to a Win, showing how teams just “a little behind”, say a point down after the first half, generally won.

What does it have to do with working while living with a chronic illness?  Everything.

People with chronic illness (CI) aren’t heroines (or heroes) as common mythology likes to paint it.  But,  living with a CI can teach you things about yourself, if you let it.   This was a BIG message in the book I co-authored with Joan Freidlander,  Women Work and Autoimmune Disease: Keep Working, Girlfriend!

I’ve seen in my own life that chronic illness gave me  a desire to succeed at work and a sense of  inner quiet I never thought I had. I’ve seen from my clients and the online community of people living with chronic illness whom I’ve come to know, that people who are motivated to succeed find a way to use chronic illness to be more than they might have been.

Living with any chronic illness makes life harder, no matter how you slice it.   For some, the issues are minor. They might feel like  the team that is  a point behind at half time.  Maybe illness will  be the  jolt that propels them ahead of the pack – in whatever that means for them.

For others, illness sets you back so far you can’t imagine clear about what really matters and pursue that.  That makes you a winner in  my book.

Have you found  that “coming from behind”, living with a chronic illness has made you  more motivated?   What did it do for you?

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This wasn’t a clearly thought out decision.  It evolved.

Fifteen years ago, I left my job as an Assistant Professor of Communications at Boston University. I was very sick with ulcerative colitis — to sick to do a decent job and it showed.

Two years later on disability, I was desperate to get back to paid work. Everyone thought I was nuts given how sick I was.  And I couldn’t explain why it mattered so much. I’d already made two careers changes because of bad health. I knew it would take years until I made the salary I’d made – if ever.  I was too sick to take a full time job out of the house.

But I couldn’t see not working for having a paying job for the remainder of my life and I wasn’t sure it was going to get any easier for me.

I’d always wanted to be a lawyer but law school required being able to consistently show up for classes — and it cost too much money. So with 48 hours of training, I became a certified mediator.

I volunteered to get experience. And after I had surgery to “cure” the colitis, I got  a part time job running an urban high school mediation program. But I was still too sick (now it was the MS) for a school schedule. I had to leave again.  I was disappointed but I had an idea.

I figured the only thing left was to start my own business since I couldn’t work on someone else’s schedule. I’d met other mediators who worked for themselves. With a partner with a geriatric social work background, we created a business in elder mediation.

Elder mediation wasn’t a hot field — no one even knew what we were talking about.  But I figured I had nothing to lose. It cost next to nothing to launch — and soon we were making enough to pay expenses.

In the beginning, I thought I’d work 15 hours a week.  But I soon realized nothing could happen in that amount of time.  And working at home, I could do a lot during off business hours – evenings and weekends – which gave me more flexibility.

I had everything to learn.  I talked to people who had built their own home businesses, read books, joined professional associations and found mentors. I learned to network,  market and run a business. We had several great elder mediation cases but, after a year, it was clear, we’d need to offer other services to make a living.

One opportunity led to another. Soon I was talking to leaders of companies, not just about the conflict in their companies, but about their challenges.  This was 1995 – and executive coaching was just catching on.

Over the next 6 years, I built a thriving business as an executive coach. I learned how to market on the internet. I created a newsletter. And after 2001, when the economy started to slide down, my business slowed with it.

I saw another opportunity. Working with my own coach, I realized that I had an expertise that people needed. I knew a lot – more than most — about working while living with chronic illness.

I changed the company name, created a new website, started writing and getting all over the web. And I got clients.

This business works for me because:

• I love what I do.
• I had financial support  (my husband’s salary) in the years while I was business building.
• I like working on my own (even though I miss seeing people and being part of a team) and am motivated and disciplined.
• I like being able to make decisions for myself and living with the results without answering to others.

Does running your own business, by yourself, for yourself, make sense to you?  There’s also a chapter in our book, Women Work and Autoimmune Disease, Keep Working Girlfriend! about starting your own business (You’re Fired By Your Body or Your Boss)

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A reader asked me to write about this:  I would really like to see more profiles with people who own their own business like you.  I am so demanding on myself, that when I am sick or in pain, I feel guilty about not going to work.  I would rather not apologize for not being able to come to work and work when I can because I know I am not a slacker.

First ,  we’ve devoted a chapter to this in Women, Work and Autoimmune Disease: Keep Working, Girlfriend!

I could devote several blog posts to this topic but I’ll limit this to  the highlights.

 Which is seems like a good fit for you?  Working virtually for an employer, working solo for yourself orrunning your own  business.

Working virtually for an employer (or even virtually with some travel to an office )   means you’ve eliminated most of the travel issues.  When you live with a chronic illness, this is almost always a big plus.  It also means that if you don’t feel well, you don’t have to face other people.  Having an employer means that you can rely on a paycheck and maybe even get some benefits.  But depending on how flexible the hours and schedule are, you can still be tied into working when you don’t feel well.  And it means that you still have to answer to a boss who expects performance standards.

Working solo, for yourself, gives you control over your schedule. You don’t have to deal with difficult supervisors or colleagues who don’t understand or are unwilling to be flexible to your needs.  But if your work involves client meetings, even virtual ones, you have a schedule and you’re required to “show up” on time.  With unpredictable illness, this is tough.  Clients, like a boss, have expectations.  When they’re not met, the client is unhappy.  When you’re sick, there’s no back- up team nor do you get paid for what you can’t bill. Finally, there are all of the other issues around self employment including start up costs and reduced salary, the isolation of working alone and the need to be self motivated.

Running a business with employees means that you don’t have a supervisor  looking over your shoulder (unless there are stockholders).  People who report to you rely on you to be available and to set an example.  It also means that you are responsible for others and their paycheck.  This can be a source of tremendous pressure. 

Do you fit into any of these descriptions?  What is it like for you?   If you’re working for others, do any of the above sound desirable now?

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Have you talked to a virtual assistant today?

If you live with chronic illness, you probably dream about two things — (other than becoming healthy): working for yourself and working virtually.

Do you know about the Virtual Assistant?

It’s a new career – - part of the “new marketplace” of solo entrepreneurs and web-based business. There are even professional associations, including International Virtual Assistants Association, Virtual Assistant Networking Association). Typical VA tasks include: scheduling, market research, travel arrangements, web assistance, and other administrative tasks. Some VA’s promote themselves as specialists to a specific profession, such as lawyers, accountants and coaches.

In a recent blog post, “When the Assistant is an Entrepreneur”, Marci Alboher points out that it takes a certain kind of entrepreneurial “moxi” to have a virtual assistant business. I work virtually and I can tell you that the best thing about working virtually is flexibility, a highly prized commodity when you live with chronic illness.

I’m also self employed. And, although there are many benefits to self employment, it’s not for everyone. Comments to Alboher’s post point out that many people can’t afford to go into business for themselves. Start-up costs and reduced salary until you build a client base, paying for your own health insurance and other benefits that are usually provided by an employer – make if financially impossible.

Finally, don’t forget that working for yourself requires mucho discipline! Can you set deadlines and meet them?

I have a client whose severe chronic asthma makes working in an office problematic. I thought that a VA business might be a natural fit for her skills. She researched and found she could start her own business or she could work for someone else.

But VA’s are small businesses who don’t offer benefits or salary security. And they’re often looking for precise skills that will complement their own. Which means there aren’t many jobs available.

After doing several self assessments (in my Working with Chronic Illness Workbook Program) that highlighted her interests and strengths, we realized this would be a big mistake for her. She doesn’t have the drive to build a business nor can she tolerate living without the semblance of financial security in a steady paycheck.

I think that this is a growth industry and one that would be ideal for certain people with chronic illness. But it requires an entrepreneurial spirit. I didn’t think I was an entrepreneur until I was forced into this position because it was the only option I could think of — and then I found qualities and interests I didn’t know were there.

It’s not in everyone’s DNA. Is it in yours?

Rosalind aka cicoach.com

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Have you asked for flex time because of invisible chronic illness symptoms – and not gotten it?  Emily, who blogs on Finding Equilibrium, did so and when she couldn’t get what she needed, she quit her job to work on her own in a virtual capacity.  That was a big move for her.  She regretted that her company couldn’t/wouldn’t meet her needs to work from home.

One person who commented on her blog noted he thinks that working for yourself (freelance) is becoming a “movement”.  That could be true.

But only for people who meet at least two criteria:  you need to have the right kind of skills that transfer to virtual work. Unfortunately, that’s not an option in many careers/jobs. The other is being able to afford or have access to health insurance (and other benefits).

When I wrote my book (Women Work and Autoimmune Disease: Keep Working, Girlfriend!), it was with this audience in mind:  women  who have either been given a recent chronic illness diagnosis or who had recently found their symptoms more problematic — and who wonder if work is possible.

The book explores the multiple issues around staying employed as well as the advantages to self employment.  I’m self employed as is my co-author, Joan Friedlander but we don’t suggest that working for yourself is easy or  necessarily feasible for everyone.

So, here are my suggestions before you make any big moves :

First, see if you can make your current job more amenable for you.

Next, think LONG TERM.
No one can predict how a chronic illness or disease symptoms will behave in the future. You’d need a crystal ball. But you don’t have to leave it all to chance.  You can develop those skills that will make you as marketable as possible so you can have as many options as possible.

My advice to Emily is to continue working hard on developing her skills. Regardless of her future career decisions,  this gives her more leverage.
When you live with invisible chronic illness,  it’s easy to become overwhelmed with difficult symptoms, difficult doctors and difficult employers  — and forget about thinking strategically for your long term career health.

Don’t let that happen to you.

Rosalind   aka cicoach.com

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Last February, I posted a survey to find out what more about your concerns.

This is what I learned from your responses:

2/3 or 66% worry about staying employed in the future

1/3 or 33% worry about finding employment

1/4 or 25% worry about advancing in their current job

Does that sound like you?

I know it’s true. I’ve been there myself and so have my clients. That’s why I’ve created this specialized career coaching program, Keep Working with Chronic Illness Workbook, just for people, like you, who either aren’t ready, don’t have the time or maybe lack the money to work with a career coach. The Keep Working with Chronic Illness Workbook is a system that been designed to complement my book, Women Work and Autoimmune Disease, Keep Working, Girlfriend! And while the book lays out and explores the challenges and opportunities you face – the workbook provides the practical foundation that you can use to build on your talents and strengths.

The Keep Working With Chronic Illness Workbook system is literally packed with the assessments, exercises and programs that I’ve created for my clients over the years. So it’s precisely tailored for people living with chronic illness. This will become your “Go To” guide. And it includes special bonuses (including a downloadable audio version).

Do you wonder…

• What’s the best job for me with unpredictable health?

• How will be keep working if I can’t work the way I used to?

• How will this illness affect what I can do?

• Who would hire me for a new job when I have a chronic illness?

I can honestly say that there is nothing else comparable to The Keep Working with Chronic Illness Workbook home study system — at least not that I’ve seen or heard about. The beauty of this is that you can use it on your schedule, use only those parts you need and work with it when you have the time. Even better – it gives you the tools you need so you don’t have to be afraid any longer.

PSST: To celebrate the publication of my book, the Workbook is being offered at a very special price for a limited time only. Don’t wait! Buy it now so you can get started before summer vacation — or you’ll put it off for yet another season! Got any questions? Email me: Rosalind@cicoach.com

Rosalind aka cicoach.com

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