How Starting an Online Business Changed My Life – My 12 Reasons to Start a Blog

If you are not sure if starting an online business is a good idea for you, then this post is for you as I will show you 12 different ways of how online business changed my life.

I started as a blogger in 2017 while still working full-time at a 9-5 job, and if I had to describe that job in just a few words, it would – stressful and hopeless. Whatever I would do at that job, it would never get me even close to the goals and aspirations of the lifestyle I envisioned for myself and my family. 

So now that I am a full-time blogger, a Youtuber, and well… an online entrepreneur. Every day I go to bed with the feeling of gratitude for one more day of my dream life. 

Let me start the list of the things I am thankful for and all of those things are only possible in my life because I started an online business a few years back, as a typical side hustle for women, working in my free hours and on weekends. 

1. Working from home 

The first thing and the most fundamental reason for me is that I can work from home. I know not everyone enjoyed working from home especially if you have a small apartment and a couple of toddlers running around, all the things that happened to a lot of people during the pandemic. But for me, it is a blessing. I’ll tell you why in the next pointers of this list. 

2. Spending Time with My Kid Whenever I Need

So, the second point is that I have the freedom of spending as much time as I need with my daughter. She is now a year-old running around all day long, curious to explore the world and if I was at my 9-5 job, I’d have to send her to daycare at around 4 or 5 months young. 

She would have to go through separation from her mommy at a very young age while naturally from the psychological point of view, children reach the separation phase from their parents around 3 years old. 

I know a lot of parents have no choice but to use daycare very early and if I were in their position, I would have to do it as well. I don’t blame anyone because most people simply have no choice. But having an online business and working from home allowed me to have this option and I am thankful for it every day since my daughter was born. 

Every business day I can spare a couple of hours to have a peaceful walk in a part with her. I don’t have to wait for a weekend to see spend time with my child. That’s what I was working the extra hours for when I started my blog while still doing the full-time job. It was totally worth it because now I have the liberty of taking back all those extra hours out of my working day.

3. Can Do Shopping and Driving Outside of the Rush Hours

When does everyone who works the 9-5 go shopping? Around the same time after work. That creates longer lines in the shopping malls, traffic jams and so on. My online business allowed me to avoid doing anything in the rush hours. Traffic jams take so much out of people’s lives – they don’t only take your time, but also add layers of stress. And we all know that stress leads to health issues. That leads to extra medical bills. So, I thank God every time when I go shopping at 11 AM that I don’t have to do it at 7 PM.

4. My Online Business Removed the Glass Ceiling

I was fortunate to have pretty quick career growth at my corporate jobs. I worked as an editor, editor-in-chief, and at different online marketing positions but I knew that working for a company I wouldn’t ever get a salary above the average salary in the country where I lived. A lot of people see blogging as a side hustle only and I started the same way. But you know what? The sky is the limit when it comes to your online income as a blogger.

My highest income report so far was $40,000/mo and I look up to established bloggers who make way more than this, people like Pat Flynn from the Smart Passive Income Blog. He used to publish income reports and back in December 2017 he made over $125k in net earnings.

If you want to learn how I make money with my blog and try to replicate my monetization strategies from when you are just starting a blog and to advanced strategies like selling your own digital products, I have an online course that will help you understand everything about the money side of blogging and hopefully will get you to your first $10k/mo. Check it out here.

5. Can Work with Clients in Every Time Zone

Since I work my own hours, I can actually have more business and clients from all over the world because I am not limited by the 9-5 hours in my time zone. Although I am a blogger, I also provide 1:1 coaching and Pinterest marketing consultations. So, living in Europe, I have worked with clients from Australia, from Figi Island, from California, from China, and from Newfoundland in Canada.

I often work with clients that are 11 or 12 hours away from me in their time zone. I can do that because I work for myself and I don’t mind doing a client call at 9 PM my time because well… I don’t sleep yet, and I had whatever schedule I set for myself during the day. 

6. Don’t Have to Ask Your Boss for a Leave

I don’t have to ask a boss for a leave when I need to visit a doctor or if I have a leak in the house and I need to spend half of the working day solving this problem. That was the part that I hated probably the most in my years of corporate jobs.

I absolutely hated the fact that being a responsible adult, I had to go through this humiliating process asking for a leave, feeling uncomfortable and as if I was guilty of something. Plus, not every time I would even get permission for a leave, so I’d have to think and worry every time I had to ask for a leave, how would affect my career in the future.

When you have children, the situation can get even more difficult, so again I am so thankful for my online biz for not having to do this ever again. 

7. I Can Cook And Work at the Same Time

I can cook and make notes for my next week’s newsletter or my new post. Just so you know, I drafted this whole post while keeping an eye on the soup I was making for my daughter. So again, it’s all about saving time. Working from home allows me to do these things simultaneously while if I worked the 9-5 I’d either have to spend all the evening cooking or would have to buy a lot more of ready food which is not always the healthiest and the most cost-effective diet for a family. 

8. I Don’t Waste 2 Hours Every Day Commuting To Work

1 Hour each way – that’s about how much time it used to take me to get to my office at the 9-5 job. If you think about it, 2 hours a day is 10 hours a week and that’s more than one entire working day you guys! I don’t know about you maybe it takes you less time to commute, let me know in the comments below by the way. But just this point alone would be enough for me to consider starting a blog if I were to start it from scratch now.

9. I Can Work When I Have a Spike of Creativity

You might not realize but writer’s block is a real thing. And creativity is a big part of being a blogger. On some days I am better off just answering emails and doing routine tasks. If my daughter didn’t sleep well, I had a rough night, I have a terrible headache – do you think I can come up with a whole inspiring post? Of course not. And I am so thankful for my flexible online business that allows me to skip some days or choose which tasks I would be better at on each particular day. 

10. I Don’t Have to Dress Up Every Morning

On most of the days, you’ll find me at home working wearing comfortable clothes. In the winter months, I have very comfortable and warm pajamas so I don’t even change the clothes unless I have to record a Youtube video or make a video call with a client. 

It saves a lot of brain effort on choosing what to wear every morning and actually saves me a lot of money because my clothes pretty much don’t wear out since I rarely use them. 

11. I Can Switch Between the Activities When I Need To

I don’t know about you but for me, there is a point when I just have to take a break from using my brain, from staring at the computer screen and doing some physical work for a change. Since I am at home, I often take a break to do a quick cleaning session in one of the areas of the house.

12. I Don’t Have Anyone to Report To

Some days are very busy, I might get 150 emails in my inbox and if I can’t answer them all today, no one will tell me to stay extra hours after work to finish all the emails. I’ll close my laptop when I feel that family time has to start and that’s it. 

 

This list could be a lot longer because every day some situations come up where I think, “oh my God what would I do if I was still at my 9 to 5 job?”. But I think you’ve got my point and hopefully, this post was a motivation for you to start your own blog and your own online business. 

Now if you are fired up to start your own blog, check these two resources: For complete beginners, I have a free course on how to start a blog, it will walk you through all the basics so you can get clarity about how blogging works, what are the moving parts, what are your first steps and which mistakes to avoid. You can join this free course here.

If you already started a blog but you can’t figure out how to make it profitable, then it’s time to join my course Blog Your Way to $10K – this one will show you all the secret sauce that helped me make over $350,000 with my online business last year. If you want to join, you can check it out here. 

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