Have you missed the turnoff that leads to your dream of working at home?

Wouldn't that be disappointing? No one likes to think that they have wasted their chance, missed their opportunity. But that's exactly what happens to many.

Sometimes you can become so focused on a single-minded purpose that you miss the opportunity when it presents itself. Maybe it wasn't the goal that you started out with, but that doesn't mean that it's not the right path to follow.

Years ago, I left my career to stay at home with my kids. I remember the months after I had made up my mind? I was obsessed with my dream of becoming a stay-at-home mom. It was all I could think about: How would we make it happen? Could we afford it? I dreamed of watching my girls play from our porch, cooking dinner every night, having the time to work in their classrooms, go to their sporting events.

Long story short, we did it. It wasn't easy; I quit my job, we moved to a different area, my husband had to transfer. But we did it.

It was just as I had dreamed it would be... for a while. But it didn't take long for my restless nature to crash the party. I soon realized that I needed professional interaction. I also needed to be able to contribute to the household income, as much for personal fulfillment as out of financial necessity.

So, I decided that I should try to find a job that I could do from home. I'd have the best of both worlds. I knew that I had valuable skills and experience. It never occurred to me to start a business- I'd never owned a business before so it never crossed my mind. I just wanted a job.

Of course, once I started looking around I realized that finding a job that I could do from home was not going to be easy.

Then I came across an ad for an opportunity to promote an educational product. I would earn commissions on my own sales as well as the sales made by any others that I invited to join. That's right, it was a Multi Level Marketing opportunity, not that I really knew what that was at the time. It looked pretty easy, so I gave it a try.

What ended up happening was that I earned enough money to start my own business. I plunged every penny that I made into building the business that I run today, Work-At-Home.com.

An MLM was not what I was looking for, but it ended up being the right road. It's not something I wanted to spend the rest of my life doing, but it helped my to achieve my goal. And that goal wasn't even the one I started out with. I'm really glad that I didn't miss my turnoff.

Here are 5 tips that will help you to avoid missing your chance to work at home:

Be open-minded. If I had been as closed-minded as many people are about MLM's, I would probably still be trying to run my website with a free webhosting account. Ask yourself, "why not?" and educate yourself before closing the door on an opportunity.

Recognize when what you're doing isn't right for you. Sometimes you work so hard to achieve a goal, you fail to see the forest for the trees. Be honest with yourself and whether or not a situation is right for you.

Don't waste your time. We all know by now that there are no typing jobs out there, right? Stop going down the dead-end roads of the home typist, ad placing and mail processor jobs.

Be flexible. Be open to changing your plans, and even to completely revising your goals. This doesn't mean that you should spend all your time waffling between one goal and another, but that you should have the courage to follow a different path if it calls you.

Have faith in yourself to follow through with your goals. It's so easy to take the path of least resistance and give up. It's hard work no matter which path you choose, but isn't it worth it?