If you're feeling trapped by your career and feel as though there's no way out, take heart!

It's probably happened over a long period of time. Bit by bit you start looking for an escape plan. Perhaps it used to be interesting and exciting, but now you're thinking how you can somehow avoid having to go to work every day!

A change of career isn't perhaps possible at this stage in your life. You've grown comfortable with your salary.

I was in this position not too long ago. I felt trapped by the golden handcuffs of a well paid career which wasn't fulfilling me personally or professionally. Nothing else paid the same rate and I was getting too old to retrain to do anything else.

So I turned my attention to the internet and looked for a way to earn an income from the comfort of my own home.

At first I started with eBay. I bought and sold items on the auction site to make a little extra. Eventually I realised that there must be a better way. And there was!

I found a business model called affiliate marketing. This is a model which lets anyone sell other people's products over the internet for a commission. Initially, I was excited by the possibility of earning an income from the internet so I rushed in trying all sorts of different ideas.

I failed miserably of course because I had no idea what I was doing. But the idea of an automated income from the internet kept me going through the hardships and challenges.

Luckily for me, I had a career which I kept going while learning and building my internet business. As I got better I started making more from the internet business.

I'm not going to tell you how easy it is to do this. On the contrary, building an internet business isn't easy. It's definitely not for the faint hearted. So if you think you can just 'have a go', I wouldn't recommend it. You really need a strong desire to change your life in order to pursue it for long enough to make it work.

What's good about an internet based business though is the automation and the scalability involved. Once you have learn how to successfully sell something online you can rinse and repeat the process. What's better is the ability to scale this up over time and use automation to do so.

With the right business model anyone can learn how to build an online business from scratch and scale it up to replace their existing income. Over time, your income from your affiliate business can overtake your current income, whatever it is.

This is what first attracted me to the idea of an online business. Once you find a strategy of selling products which works, you've got a global audience to aim at. It takes some time to get to grips with but if you find the right community to help you, persevere and never quit, anyone can do it!



By Tim Halloran