What is required to be successful in your home business? Before we can answer, you must understand what "success" means and what common characteristics successful people have. If you are reading this article, you probably want to be successful and possess a strong sense of perseverance which will pay off in achieving your dreams. The truth is that only a small percentage of people will ever achieve their full potential, and those who do are ones who persevere toward their goals.

Success isn't something you chase. It's something you have to put forth effort for constantly. Then maybe it'll come when you least expect it. Most people don't understand that. -- Michael Jordan

Success is generally looked upon as achieving favorable results and gaining wealth and/or fame, but you must realize that success is different for each individual. For some, a yearly income of a few thousand dollars would be a success, but for another individual it may be several hundred thousand dollars. Whatever your definition of success is, there are several personal characteristics that are common denominators among successful people.

Goals are an important factor in realizing success. Without goals that are realistic, how can you know when your success level has been reached? Successful people set goals for their home business, and perseverance of these goals pays off. Goals should be specific, realistic, measurable, time related and attainable. Your goals can be changed as often as necessary until you reach your ultimate goal, and it will happen if you persevere. Completing your tasks one at a time and then moving on makes task easier and you can see immediate results.

If you want your home business to be successful, following facts, tips and words of encouragement can help you achieve your dreams if you try hard and understand that "perseverance pays off" when starting your home business.

By: Elaine Currie, BA (Hons) © The Hunting Venus Group

I found myself suddenly and unexpectedly unemployed after more than twenty-five years in same job. Prior to this I had no ambition to own my own business. I had previously had vague thoughts that it would be very nice to be able to work from home, but I never had any idea of what I could actually work at. I have a computer, I am literate and can type at a pretty fast rate. Apart from these, I have no skills which I can see as basis for a home based business. I like reading and I grow all manner of plants from beans to cacti, but I couldn’t see anybody paying me to stay home and do any of these things.

If you had told me then where I would be today, and what I would be doing, I would have thought you were crazy. I would not have believed that I would own some websites (my own domain actually), be working from home and have published articles which I had written myself.

I searched for work, both on and off internet and more I searched, more downhearted I became. Sure, there were jobs about but they all required things I lacked: some wanted experience, some wanted much younger people, worst ones wanted people who were prepared to work long hours for peanuts.

I was regularly searching on Internet for opportunities for home work. I joined forums and read posts from women who were desperate to work from home, most of them had children and were unable to find suitable jobs to fit in with their schedules. It began to seem as if there is a great army of people all wanting to work but unable to find right opportunity to suit them.

I signed up with a couple of companies to get paid for reading emails, but reading a couple of emails each day is not way to make a fortune. I still read emails for these companies, but only out of sentiment (you will understand what I mean by this when you get to end of this story).

I picked up a couple of ideas which seemed promising and I tried them out. The first thing was mystery shopping, which sounded simple enough, and potentially enjoyable – well, getting paid to go shopping sounds good to me. I found many companies through searching internet and I applied to dozens of them; I wanted a full time job, not just odd shopping trip. Months went by and I heard nothing from any of these companies.