There is nothing like being self-employed, working from home or at a home office and being able to start and end each day when you wish.

But, as a survey undertaken by Dr Bridget Kirsop, of One Life Coaching, discovered, it is not quite that simple.

When the boring parts of a business need to be done by a self-employed person while working at home, then doing anything else – including the household chores – suddenly rise to the top of the To Do list rather than the completion of the business task in hand.

Distraction and self-motivation came high on the list of the business people surveyed when they were asked ‘What are the biggest challenges you face in business?'

The solutions boil down to the mindset of the self-employed person and their discipline at work, said Dr Bridget, who runs Certified Neuro Linguistic Programming (NLP) Practitioner courses, Mastermind groups and individual NLP Coaching programmes.

Dr Bridget said:

“When people work as an employee for a company, they generally have a line manager, or similar person in authority to whom they are accountable, above them. This means that their mindset is that of needing to get the task done in order to satisfy that person in authority.”

With single-person,self-employment, however, that authority is sometimes not there. Working for clients ensures that projects are completed. But when the self-employed person is conducting direct sales to the public – selling cakes, for example – the discipline to get admin-type things out of the way can wane.

There are 4.7 million self-employed people in the UK, according to the Office for National Statistics, and each of them will have times when they will not be fully focused on the matter at hand and do something else.

Dr Bridget said:

“Of course, business means marketing and making connections, but it is also about discipline and motivation. “Schedule your diary with your work for the day and stick to it. Discipline yourself not to get distracted as, once that job is done, you will feel much better as you move onto the work that you REALLY want to do!”

For more information about One Life Coaching and how Dr Bridget can help you and your business stay focussed, go to www.onelife-lifecoaching.co.uk