Lessons Learned From Hamsters

Do you have a home business or a work at home job? Maybe you have already started working from home or began investing your time and money in a home based business to create income. If so then maybe you are now asking yourself what hamsters have to do with any of these actions. That is a good question and I will attempt to explain it to you now.

Have you ever owned a hamster or had a friend who owned one? Myself I have never owned one but have had many opportunities in my lifetime to observe hamsters and their behavior. Usually hamsters are kept in small glass or wire cages. The cage is sparsely furnished. It has devices to provide food and water for the hamster and an exercise wheel. It is this exercise wheel I want to focus on.

For the most part, hamsters are inactive. They sleep a lot. When they wake up they get some water and get some food. Then they go get on that wheel for a time. Sometimes the hamster will run for a while, stop and rest, then run some more. More often, though, I have seen them get on the wheel, run, run run, and then stop. The hamster gets of the wheel, stands up, looks around, then slowly and reluctantly gets back on the wheel and runs again. I have watched them perform this action several times. Are you with me? Still wondering what all this has to do with home business? Read on.

To me the hamster looked as though it thought it should be somewhere else. It spends that entire energy running to get out of its small cage. But, to the hamster's dismay it was still at the same place it had started. When we begin to work at home or start a home business we are fired up and highly motivated. It is nothing to spend hours working to build our business or make more income. Time goes by and the passing is hardly noticed. We are determined to succeed, nothing will stop us. Alas, too often after all that work we fail to achieve the results we want. We work for days, weeks, months and years, yet still seem to be in the same place we started.

This is where the comparison begins. I observe a hamster determined to get somewhere, far away from that small cage. It runs as fast as it can for as long as it can. When it stops to check its progress it finds itself in the exact same place it began. In home business or working at home there is a lot of administrative work we can do. We get caught up in doing this work. It keeps us busy working hard. We will succeed. We will be rich. Though we are working hard and long the work we are doing is not taking us to our goal or creating profit and income. It's hard to understand why we are not seeing results. After all we are working hard. What is the problem?

We end up just like the hamster. Expending a lot of energy but not getting anywhere. The lesson we can learn from the hamster is not to get caught up in this loop. Identify the work that is productive. Focus on that. Don't use all your time and energy doing busy work that cleans your desk and keeps you busy but accomplishes little else. Focus your time and efforts on that 20% that produces 80% of your results. Don't just spin your wheels make sure you have advanced from your valuable efforts. Remember, have you ever met a hamster who is successful in business?

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About the Author

Darwin Dennis is retired military who now divides his time between California and Thailand. Living an entrepeneurial lifestyle traveling, writing and owner/webmaster/internet marketer with work at home work and business business websites such as http://www.profits-in-hand.com