Beginning to get our lives back from our business
Here’s what I see happen for so many entrepreneurs… (myself included)
When we start our business, it’s often all fun and happy and exciting times. We’re so expansive with possibilities, we know that everyone needs what we have, and we are positive everyone is going to come rushing in for our offering and we’ll be an overnight success!! I mean, duh, why wouldn’t we be?! The world NEEDS what we have.
We work tirelessly doing all of things that we’ve been told we ‘should’ do. We’re posting on social media every day, we’re adding value, we’re positioning ourselves as an authority. We’ve put together a brand we’re proud of and even managed to throw a decent website together — go us! It will be so temporary anyhow because we’ll be paying a designer to do a professional brand and website in no time because we’re going to be THAT successful and in demand in a matter of months.
And then a few months go by… and we’re hearing crickets. We’re still showing up consistently but with a little bit less enthusiasm. The scarcity and worry are starting to creep in… we start to wonder where all of the clients are?! Can’t they see how important this work is? How much they NEED it? Our savings are start to dwindle a little bit but we’ve got time galore so we keep pouring more into our business. It slowly starts to become all-consuming because we need to make a sale to you know, like, survive.
A few more months go by and we’ve started to see some traction. We’ve gained a few more followers (not the 10,000 we thought we’d be at but 600 is good, too), and we even have a few paying clients! Things are starting to look hopeful but this is turning out to be a tad more difficult than we thought… Chin up, though! We’re still hopeful and we know success is just around the corner!
You get the idea. The cycle continues like this… where we’re always striving for a sense of success that is just out of reach. Where we believe that our business is going to magically blow up but we don’t actually have a plan on how to make that happen… we just have an inner knowing. Things go a little slower than we like, are a little harder than we thought… and we’re left discouraged, often overworked, and eventually we burn out. We’ve spent all of our energy, hope, time, and optimism on our business. And our expectations not matching with our reality leaves us feeling bitter, jaded & resentful of our business. But we’ve hitched ourselves to this entrepreneur bandwagon and we can’t imagine doing anything else… so where does this leave us?
I’m not saying all of this to be a negative nancy or to say you shouldn’t have big aspirations for your business. Of course you are going to be a huge success! But building a successful business takes more than just visualization and affirmation and holding your desires in your heart… it takes action, hard work, expanding your capacity, and often wading through several periods of expansion, which is… uncomfortable to say the least.
Amongst all of the excitement and hardship it becomes so easy to start to leave ourselves out of the equation. Our business starts to take over everything in our lives. At first it starts out with a passion and excitement that we can’t shut off… and then it turns into this necessity of survival and it ‘has’ to work. And once we’ve found our stride and our business is becoming successful, at that point we’re so stuck in our patterns of overwork and obsessive thinking about it that it’s hard to remember who we were before we had the badge of being an ‘entrepreneur’. We forget what things used to bring us joy and the fact that our fulfillment outside of our business is equally as important. That sometimes things need to just be for us and don’t always need to tie into the growth of our business (or monetized).
I know this isn’t everybody’s story, but it definitely is mine… and I’ve talked to many entrepreneurs who also experience a variation fo this.
So what do we do when we find ourselves in this spot where we’ve put our business in front of our relationship with ourselves?
Here’s what I’ve tried (and it’s worked-ish)…
#1 Boundaries
Recognize where you need to put some boundaries in place. Often the easiest places to look at are your communication channels. Do you respond to emails at all hours of the day? Maybe you text with your clients and that is causing you unnecessary stress and overwhelm. Try implementing these and watch your world instantly shift.
Put an autoresponder on your inbox. This can be temporary for a busy season, just on weekends so you can actually unplug, or maybe you decide to leave it on all the time because it is so dang effective.
Set up a scheduling software to cut down on trying to find a time to meet with clients. Trust me, the $15-20/month is worth it if it’s going to save you hours in emails a month. My favourite softwares are Calendly and Acuity.
Determine ‘office hours’ you’d like to hold for when your clients can reach you or expect to hear a response back from you. Communicate your new hours that you’ll be available so they know what to expect with your response time.
Streamline your communication channels. If you don’t like answering text messages, implement a no-text rule and switch to strictly email communication with your clients. If that isn’t an option, look into an app like Whatsapp or Voxer where you can text and send voice notes with clients but it doesn’t get buried within your other text messages or DMs.
Set up a secondary business phone that you strictly keep your business apps on and leave that in your desk or at the office on weekends and evenings. This one is a GAME CHANGER!
#2 Support
Often times it’s hard to get ourselves out of a sticky situation all by ourselves. I know it can be hard to admit that you need some help but I promise it will make your life 1000% easier if you allow yourself to lean into support. Everyone’s needs look so different in these situations but here are some initial areas I would look at bringing support in for yourself:
Look at hiring a VA or OBM to take over your inbox and scheduling. Chances are they can take several other tasks off your plate as well!
Hire a business or life coach to help you figure out what your boundaries need to be, and then help you implement them. If you’re new to setting boundaries with clients it can be tricky to try and communicate that at first. Having someone to help support you in the process (and keep you accountable) is amazing.
Explore other areas of your life where you need support. Perhaps you’re too busy to keep up with household chores and having a messy house is stressing you out. Can you engage a cleaning service to handle that for you? Are you forgetting to eat? Or maybe you’re eating but it’s not actually food that is fuelling you. Can you implement a meal prep plan, or get a meal subscription box for a few months?
Working with a counselor can really help you understand your patterns with work and why you are choosing to put your business in front of your life. Sometimes there can be deeper things at play and it’s really supportive to have someone to talk things through with that can help you identify areas maybe you’re not even aware of.
Determine what you need to do to take the best care of yourself. Maybe that looks like seeing a chiropractor regularly or going for a massage. Maybe you’re more into reiki and acupuncture. There are so many practitioners you can bring onto your support team to make sure you’re reducing your stress levels and showing yourself that your health is a priority.
#3 Play
Now this one is completely individualistic… and can often be the hardest one to pull off. Why? Because it requires us to actively step away from our business and do something for ourselves. And sometimes that doesn’t involve an appointment or other person to help us stay accountable. This is about us learning to prioritize our joy and play before our business. Things like…
Creative pursuits.
Getting out into nature.
Meeting up with friends.
Spending time with family.
Picking up a hobby.
Listening to music.
Cooking a good meal
Reading a new book.
Having a self-care night.
Taking a class or course that has nothing to do with your business.
I hope that these tips help you start to feel like you’re getting a piece of your life back from your business. Remember, your business is important, but it’s not more important than the relationship you have with yourself. After all, you’re the one fuelling this entire thing so you have to make sure you prioritize your wellbeing. It’s actually selfish not to ;)
