The last two weeks have been a whirlwind of visiting friends in Connecticut, NYC, and just beginning the family visits in Michigan. I find myself wanting to squeeze as many moments of friend and family time out of these visits as possible. I always have this feeling of "if I die tomorrow, I want to die with no regrets" and part of that is trying to make time to see everyone I love when I can. It doesn't always work out, and in those moments I remind myself that I did my best simply by trying.
A couple people have recently asked, "How do you make time for family and friends when you're running a business that requires so much of your time?" They didn't like my answer when I said, "Make self-care a priority, then family a priority, then friends a priority, then you can give what is left to your business." I know exactly why they considered this to be impossible because I also thought it was impossible as a self-employed business owner as well!
In the beginning of my business, I couldn't see any way out of the business owner trap I had created for myself. I couldn't see it until I started to actually make the changes needed. Once I rearranged my priorities, my business actually started doing better than when I was making it my top priority! How can that possibly be?! I became less stressed and more creative once I had more time for self-care. I became happier when I didn't feel I was neglecting personal time to connect with my spouse or family. I regained a sense of freedom and soul rejuvenation when I made time to hang out with my friends. All of those good vibes feed back into my business, into the work I do, and into my clients, which naturally create better client relationships, easier referrals, and ultimately less pounding the pavement to make it all happen myself! It amazed me how much rearranging these priorities actually benefitted my business!
When I held the belief that I needed to work harder in order to have a more successful business, I stayed trapped in the cycle of working harder and working longer hours and creating more stress in my life in the attempt to create more success. However, once I realized what success really meant to me, working endless hours with no time for self-care, family, or friends was nowhere in my version of what success actually looked like! As Henry Ford said, “If you always do what you’ve always done, you’ll always get what you’ve always got.” I didn't want to scale my business based on the difficulty and the struggle. I wanted to scale my business in a way that gave me freedom and time for people I loved.
Once I realized that success for me was having plenty of time for self-care, family, and friends, I HAD to rearrange my priorities and begin living a more successful reality IMMEDIATELY. I couldn't put it off for a certain income level or number of clients filling my calendar. I had to put myself, my family, and my friends into my calendar BEFORE I put work into my calendar. The end result required me to work much SMARTER with many fewer hours left open for endless work and time spent on low priority tasks. When we have less time to do the work, we have to prioritize better, we have to outsource more, and we have to rely on more help. It's no longer of choice, it's a necessity.
You can look back at the year before I started making changes and see how stressed I was. You can look back at the post where I outlined my priorities and how I changed my life. You can look back at the years when I felt I had really mastered what it meant to be successful on my own terms. I hope that by sharing my story, I can encourage you to set your priorities in a good place as early as possible in your business. The earlier you schedule your ideal schedule and life into your calendar, the earlier you learn how to craft your business around supporting your ideal life as well. Even with everything I've learned, I still continue to face new challenges with regard to crafting my working life and ways I can serve others from a country that requires me to continually find ways to work smarter while meeting increasing challenges that I haven't faced anywhere else before. The difference now is that because I know how important my priorities are to my wellbeing and business success, I craft each new thing from a place of making room for what is most important to me.
If you'd like help with business strategy to craft your business from where it is now to where you'd like it to be in the future while still being in the thick of it all, reach out to me. I can help walk you through the process in a way that honors your unique needs and scales the things you really want more of in your life. It's my joy and my passion.
A couple people have recently asked, "How do you make time for family and friends when you're running a business that requires so much of your time?" They didn't like my answer when I said, "Make self-care a priority, then family a priority, then friends a priority, then you can give what is left to your business." I know exactly why they considered this to be impossible because I also thought it was impossible as a self-employed business owner as well!
In the beginning of my business, I couldn't see any way out of the business owner trap I had created for myself. I couldn't see it until I started to actually make the changes needed. Once I rearranged my priorities, my business actually started doing better than when I was making it my top priority! How can that possibly be?! I became less stressed and more creative once I had more time for self-care. I became happier when I didn't feel I was neglecting personal time to connect with my spouse or family. I regained a sense of freedom and soul rejuvenation when I made time to hang out with my friends. All of those good vibes feed back into my business, into the work I do, and into my clients, which naturally create better client relationships, easier referrals, and ultimately less pounding the pavement to make it all happen myself! It amazed me how much rearranging these priorities actually benefitted my business!
When I held the belief that I needed to work harder in order to have a more successful business, I stayed trapped in the cycle of working harder and working longer hours and creating more stress in my life in the attempt to create more success. However, once I realized what success really meant to me, working endless hours with no time for self-care, family, or friends was nowhere in my version of what success actually looked like! As Henry Ford said, “If you always do what you’ve always done, you’ll always get what you’ve always got.” I didn't want to scale my business based on the difficulty and the struggle. I wanted to scale my business in a way that gave me freedom and time for people I loved.
Once I realized that success for me was having plenty of time for self-care, family, and friends, I HAD to rearrange my priorities and begin living a more successful reality IMMEDIATELY. I couldn't put it off for a certain income level or number of clients filling my calendar. I had to put myself, my family, and my friends into my calendar BEFORE I put work into my calendar. The end result required me to work much SMARTER with many fewer hours left open for endless work and time spent on low priority tasks. When we have less time to do the work, we have to prioritize better, we have to outsource more, and we have to rely on more help. It's no longer of choice, it's a necessity.
You can look back at the year before I started making changes and see how stressed I was. You can look back at the post where I outlined my priorities and how I changed my life. You can look back at the years when I felt I had really mastered what it meant to be successful on my own terms. I hope that by sharing my story, I can encourage you to set your priorities in a good place as early as possible in your business. The earlier you schedule your ideal schedule and life into your calendar, the earlier you learn how to craft your business around supporting your ideal life as well. Even with everything I've learned, I still continue to face new challenges with regard to crafting my working life and ways I can serve others from a country that requires me to continually find ways to work smarter while meeting increasing challenges that I haven't faced anywhere else before. The difference now is that because I know how important my priorities are to my wellbeing and business success, I craft each new thing from a place of making room for what is most important to me.
If you'd like help with business strategy to craft your business from where it is now to where you'd like it to be in the future while still being in the thick of it all, reach out to me. I can help walk you through the process in a way that honors your unique needs and scales the things you really want more of in your life. It's my joy and my passion.
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