We all know that we need balance in our business and life. It’s sometimes called “work/life balance”. But like so many things we “know”, do we actually put it into practice? In this blog I share some ideas on how you can do this.
When things are out of balance, we get notified in different ways. If our business bank balance is out of kilter, we might get a notification from our bank. If our diet is out of kilter, we might experience physical symptoms such as fatigue or any number of signals. But life can get so busy and fast paced that we just don’t take the time to notice the signs of imbalance. We ignore them, go into denial mode and bury our head in the sand, or take a pill.
In the long term, imbalance is not sustainable. We can probably get away with a day here and there working long hours without taking a break, for example, but over time the cumulative effect will certainly take its toll, leading to exhaustion, stress and burn out. We end up not being able to function at all.
It’s been said that our success depends on the things we do every day, our daily habits. The American entrepreneur, Jim Rohn, said that success is a result of small acts of discipline repeated every day. Failure on the other hand, he said, is a result of small errors of judgement repeated every day.
The thing with habits is that we don’t tend to know we’re doing them. They’ve become habits because we do them unconsciously on autopilot, without having to think about them.
The first step in getting more balance in our business and life therefore must be to bring awareness to our daily habits so that we can identify the areas that need to be addressed. Try keeping a log of what you do with your time over a couple of days. You’ll need to write this down as you go, though. If you leave it till the end of the day you won’t remember those things you did on autopilot!
It can take as little as 21 days to form a habit or break a habit. But it does require discipline and conscious awareness.
If a habit is deeply entrenched and you find it difficult to break, consider seeking professional help. I offer clinical hypnotherapy for example which is a popular way of breaking habits that no longer serve us well.
To form a habit all you have to do is to repeat something over and over again. Eventually, the habit forms a neural pathway in your brain so that you’ll do the activity without having to think about it.
I developed the 5 Principles of Business Wellbeing to regain balance in my business and life. When you practice them daily over time, you will be astounded by the results.
The 5 Principles of Business Wellbeing are based on the idea of the Law of Precession. The Law of Precession is that everything happens at right angles. For example, when a bee enters a flower, its intention is to sip the nectar. While it does this its legs are at right angles and gather pollen which the bee then inadvertently cross pollinates when it enters other flowers.
In business, it can be easy to focus solely on our end goal with no consideration for the right angle. We want to get from A to C without having to go through the right angle at point B. This is when things fall out of balance. We end up getting frustrated, angry, resentful, burnt out and exhausted.
To have balance in our business, the easiest way is to follow the 5 Principles of Business Wellbeing. All you have to do is to proactively decide to do something relating to each of the five principles every day. It can take as little as 5 minutes on each. They are not difficult. Indeed, you may think you already practise them. But you might like to challenge yourself on whether you’ve made them into habits that you do every day.
We need to spend time everyday building and nurturing relationships whether that is with our friends and family, our customers, our employees, our suppliers or other business contacts.
There are many aspects of our personal health that need looking after every day and we need to take personal responsibility for this, whether it’s our physical, mental, emotional, or spiritual health. This could be as simple as ensuring we drink sufficient water or taking half an hour to walk in Nature.
For our business to grow and flourish, we need to grow and flourish first and the easiest way to do that is to learn new things – and to implement them. You don’t have to take a degree course; it could be as simple as reading a book on something you’d like to learn about.
When we worry about what the competition is up to or think there’s not enough work to go round, we develop a scarcity mindset. A scarcity mindset keeps us holding on tightly and makes us shrink. We need to develop an abundant mindset, meaning that we know there’s enough for everyone. Rather than focusing on the competition, why not consider opportunities for collaboration. That way everyone wins and we attract more abundance into our lives.
When we love what we do everything is so much easier. So why not choose to have fun every day? If something needs doing that you don’t enjoy, consider outsourcing it or delegating or just turn it into a game that you can have fun with.
If you’re interested in learning more about the 5 Principles of Business Wellbeing, you might be interested in taking part in our 180˚ Programme. This is a 12 week challenge that will, among other things, help you turn the Principles into habits. We run it every quarter with the next one starting on 11th January 2023. You can find more information here.
