A lot of my friends are unhappy with their jobs, and statistics show that probably means they’re unhappy with their bosses or coworkers. So the mountains they’d like to move are the nuisances at work.

Guess that’s why many people tell me they’d give anything to trade places with me, be their own bosses, and—best of all—work out of their homes!

But the mood isn’t always merrier in the home office.

Being your own boss means giving up regular paychecks, pensions, 401(k) matches, FICA matches, tax refunds (since you’re paying a quarterly estimate, any year-end overage is just deducted from the next quarter’s estimate), and employer-provided health insurance. Working out of your home means giving up the camaraderie of your coworkers. But perhaps most challenging of all, being self-employed means becoming self-motivated.

Self-motivation is my greatest challenge. When I was five, my first-grade teacher labeled me the classic day-dreamer … and nothing has changed. So how self-motivated are you? Ask yourself these questions:

• Where do I want to be one year from now? You want to be rich and famous? Isn’t that special? Well … not really. Most people want to be rich and famous, secure and happy, in the black, self-sufficient, or some other typical description of success. You need to have specific goals—for instance, “I want to have X number of clients” or “I want to have X readers” or “I want to earn X dollars per month.” To successfully motivate yourself, you must know your objective.

• How do I get where I want to be? It’s not enough to know you want to earn X dollars per month, you have to know what you’ll need to write, sell, develop in order to achieve that goal. You have to be able to take your larger objective and break it into step-by-step components that will take you from here to there.

• Will I fold if things don’t work out? What happens if something goes wrong? It’s important that you be able to answer this question because, I promise, no matter what you’re planning in life, something will go wrong. And it’s unlikely that someone else will come along and carry you through the darkness. You’ll have to find a way to motivate yourself through those inevitable setbacks. Self-motivated people are resilient. They can adapt.

• Do I know when to ask for help? Americans, especially, love stories of the lone hero who triumphs over the odds with no help from anyone else. But those stories are rarely true. Everyone needs a little advice or a helping hand now and then. The key is knowing when to ask. Are you someone who will let the house burn before you’ll ask a friend or neighbor to grab a hose? Don’t be so self-sufficient that you can’t be motivated to seek help when you need it. Do It Yourself will take you only so far.