What do you value in life? Does it get the appropriate time that it needs every week? Maybe, maybe not. Today I want to talk about how to not stop short of making time for what matters most!
Hey there friends, Thomas Joyner with Business on Purpose here.
It’s so, so easy as a business owner to have blinders on. To be the one that sacrifices every day and makes sure that nothing falls through the cracks. To just keep your head down and grind until you succeed.
But, what gets sacrificed in the moment…and what gets lost if it takes longer than you’d planned to arrive? Well, many times it’s your mental health (which we’re seeing is a much larger deal than we’ve ever realized), other times it's your marriage and family, and other times it’s just joy and fulfillment in life.
So, if you’re honest, which of those, when you go head down and grind out those 50/60/70 hour weeks really gets lost in the shuffle? And now let’s take it a step further…
Let’s play this out 20-30 years. Is success in your business worth the tradeoff? If you were to look back on your life and see it all in hindsight, is that tradeoff worth it, or is it worth digging in and finding a different way to do things?
We hear excuses like this all the time…” Thomas, this is the only way I know how to do it!” That’s great, let’s start asking around and finding a different way to do it.
Or maybe it’s this, “Thomas you just don’t understand, if I hire someone else to manage those things, then I’ll have to raise my prices to cover it, or I won’t make as much money.” Ok, then the thing you’ve lifted into that position of what matters most, is the almighty dollar. The take-home paycheck. And is that worth it when you look back 20 years from now?
So…if you need to stop this recording after I ask this next question, do it. It’s that important. You may need 5-10 min to really be honest with yourself. Cut it back on afterward and finish the last few minutes.
“What matters most when it comes to how you spend your time?” What matters most when it comes to how you spend your time.
It’s why we spend so much time crafting a vision story. So we can know exactly what we value. It’s writing things down like, what time do I want to leave every day, because we know that if we leave it to chance we’re going to work way longer hours than we should, and the things that matter will get pushed aside. It’s writing things down like what the trips we want to take and how often to take our spouse on a date. It’s making sure the main thing stays the main thing.
Now, I know it’s not realistic to say you want to go home at 2 pm every day and think that your business is going to thrive. That may just not happen, but I also know that if you don’t paint a realistic picture of what your week looks like, with boundaries around it to keep you from getting carried away, then you don’t stand a chance at staying at hitting your target. Because 9 out of 10 times, there’s always another task you COULD do, another sales call you COULD make, and another number you COULD double-check. And on and on it goes.
And here’s where it starts getting serious. If you realize that your business is keeping you from what matters most, it’s not worth it! Nothing is worth sacrificing your mental health, your family, and your joy in life. NOTHING!
So, find a way to do it differently. We believe that the BOP roadmap liberates business owners out of chaos and frees your time up for what matters most. We’ve literally walked hundreds of business owners through it and gotten them back engaged where they truly need to be engaged.
Last thing I’ll hear regularly from clients…the business is doing great, our numbers are up, the staff is tracking and we’re just doing awesome.
I love hearing that! But I go back to those personal pieces on the vision story and start asking about other things. When was the last time you went on a date with your spouse? Well, last year. Ok, let’s try another…you said you wanted to take your son out for breakfast one Saturday a month, have you done that? No….ok, how about that weekend camping trip in the fall that you thought would inject some life back into your family? No, and no and no and no.
We have to press pause and make sure that our business isn’t thriving at the expense of what matters most. We have to make for darn sure that we’re not stopping short of making time for what we, and by we I mean you, believe matters most. So that 20 years from now we can look back and be proud of the things we made time for. The people we made time for and the experiences we made time for.
We at BOP truly believe that’s our work worth doing…every single day. So, if you struggle with that, let’s take an inventory of if your business needs help. Would you take our healthy business owner assessment? Go to myboproadmap.com/healthy. It takes about 7 minutes and you will see how your business is set up on things that we believe will liberate you from chaos.
And then let’s have a conversation about how to find you more time for what matters most.
