Start by working remotely
It’s kinda annoying how hindsight is always 20/20. We know exactly what we should do if we were to go back and relive a situation.
But of course, we can’t.
So the best that we can do is to learn from our mistakes or mis-steps, and then, if given the opportunity, share with others the lessons we learnt so that they can make better choices than we did.
In this post I’m going to tell you how I wish I had started making money without having to go to a conventional sit-in-an-office job.
I’m also going to share with you a free e-book which will answer the top 10 questions (& answers) about how to reinvent yourself with remote work or business.
If you want to skip straight to getting the free e-book, here it is here: Remote Life Reinvention Guide
How I currently make money online
After 3 years of slogging away at blogging (this blog and BenAndMichelle.com) I’m finally making some decent money.
It’s still not quite enough to cover all our expenses, but coupled with money earned from Virtual Assistant (VA) work, and our savings, we’re doing okay.
But it wasn’t always like this. Of course.
How I started making money online
Prior to embarking on our travels around Australia, both my husband, Ben, and I were working jobs in New Zealand.
Ben was a caretaker at a high school, and I was working in health and safety for a large infrastructure construction and roadworks company.
When we decided that we wanted to travel around Australia, we started up the blogs, saved as much money as we could, then sold everything we owned, quit our jobs and headed across the ocean to Australia.
When we got here, we bought a car and a camper trailer (North Americans would call it a tent trailer, I think) and hit the road. We figured we would have enough money to last us 6 months of traveling this beautiful country.
The money lasted 5 months.
So we stopped in a country town where we had some friends, found bits and pieces of work, and stayed there for almost a year.
We traded in the tent trailer for a vintage caravan, something a little bit more comfortable, but still small and cheap.
And then we headed to a bigger town where we could find better paid work.
All this time, I had been working on our blogs, and I’d also managed to pick up some work as a virtual assistant.
So, while Ben found good work full-time as a truck driver. I found some part-time work and continued blogging and being a VA.
Of course, this meant that we couldn’t be traveling around the country. We had to stay in one place for work.
We lived in our caravan to keep expenses low, but it was hardly ‘living the RVing dream’.
For much of that time we were just making ends meet, not getting ahead, and certainly not saving much.
What I wanted to do (for work) when I first started traveling in an RV
In hindsight, I wish I had started out with some kind of remote work already lined up before we hit the road.
The company that I worked for in New Zealand was also in Australia. There’s a possibility that I could have kept my job, but worked remotely.
Or I could have tried to get a transfer to a similar position in Australia, and then worked remotely.
But I didn’t even try.
I thought about those possibilities.
But that’s as far as it went.
Why I didn’t even try working remotely
<Sigh> It’s easy to shake my head now, and wonder why I didn’t explore the possibility of working for my company remotely.
But here’s why I didn’t:
- Confidence, or lack of it, played a big part. I just didn’t want to put myself out there.
- I didn’t realise my value to the company – they may have valued me enough to see if it could work, but I didn’t give them that chance
- Even though I worked by myself 90% of the time, I just presumed they needed someone to be there in person.
Notice how they’re all assumptions I made, who even knows if they’re accurate or not.
What I would do now if I wanted to start working remotely
With the way COVID-19 has turned the world upside-down, companies are more aware than ever, that having a remote workforce is not only possible, but desirable.
If I had my time over again, I would bite the bullet and try and get remote work.
Knowing that my mindset (mainly lack of confidence in my skills, and not wanting to appear ‘demanding’) was my biggest hurdle, I would work on eliminating my own fears first.
That’s where this free e-book I mentioned at the beginning comes in.
Camille has a course on getting started with remote work, and she’s giving away this e-book that answers the top 10 questions she gets about working remotely.
She addresses the fears that so many of us have, about working remotely.
Things like “Do I really have the skills to work remotely?”, “Do employers really want remote workers?” and “How do I get started?”
Who is Camille?
I first found Camille via her RVing blog morethanawheelin.com and through her Remote Work 101 online course.
The first time I heard her speak, was on a webinar she did where she shared some really helpful tips for anyone wanting to get started in working remotely.
I thought that the delivery of her webinar and the information she gave was really top notch. It was just like the many courses and training events that I attended in my corporate days.
That’s when I discovered that Camille’s background is in corporate training, human resources, employee development, skill and competency development and leadership training.
So that’s why she’s so good at what she does!
Grab Camille’s e-book here
If you’re thinking that you want to start working remotely (either for your current job, a new job or to start your own remote business) then Camille’s book will answer those most pressing questions.
Just click the link here, you’ll need to fill in your name and email address so that the book can be sent straight to you.