Hands up who agrees that the energy it takes to build a business is ginormous? In fact, according to the Australian Bureau of Statistics, more than 60 per cent of small businesses stop their operation within the first three years of their startup journey.
When you look into reasons why this happens, there’s a lot of talk about lack of business plans and bad marketing. But from our experience of working with women in business, we found this to be only a small part of the picture.
Here are some of the contributing factors we’ve noticed:
- Falling into the ‘busy trap’ and getting exhausted working long hours but not moving the needle
- Not understanding what drives you, which means you don’t play to your strengths. Instead, you listen to ‘experts’ that tell you to hustle more – umm, #nothelpful
- Getting into bad habits with diet, sleep and exercise because #nohoursleftintheday
- Never-ending guilt when it comes to trying to balance work and life (and not doing either justice)
All of this is heading down the path towards burnout. And ain’t nobody wants to stay on that path!
So, what’s the way out?
It isn’t about dropping the ball in your biz and spending 2 hours a day with your laptop by the pool hoping and praying that everything will fix itself.
This is about seeing prioritising your life as EQUAL in importance to growing your business and managing your money.
If you are resonating with any of this, I’m here to let you know it’s ok.
Here’s how to get out of this mess…
Your first step
Give yourself PERMISSION to make decisions for yourself, trust them and stand by them. Stop looking to people outside your business to tell you how to run your business.
Instead, lean into your why – what matters the most to you about the business you want to create. And importantly, what does that give you on a personal level? Because you are a whole and complete person. You want a business that adds value and richness to your life, not one that drains every last ounce of energy from you.
Once you have taken that step to trust yourself, start building up your trust bank. Here a just a few ideas to get you started:
- Make little promises to yourself and no matter what, keep them – like going for a walk instead of hitting the snooze alarm, or drinking water during the day instead of 4 cups of coffee
- Give yourself mini-breaks during the day – set an alarm if you have to so you will get up and stretch, get some fresh air, or cuddle your dog (they will love it!).
- Set boundaries and enforce them. Got a client who texts you on a weekend? Reply Monday morning. Have a hairdresser’s appointment (that’s been rescheduled two times already)? Then say no I’m not available at that time when someone asks you to ‘squeeze’ them in.
By taking small actions every day to prioritise what matters to you, the pay-off will be that you have more energy and a greater desire to do your best work in the time you allocate for it.
Want some help with this?
Nicky and I are offering business owner’s their personalised True North in Business Diagnostic – a deep dive into your Business Health Check, eDISC Develop & Grow profile and a Road Map Meeting where we clearly set out your next steps.
We would love to support you to turn cashflow chaos into cashflow calm, being in the busy trap to being business savvy and shifting from burnout to feeling empowered and free.
Just pop your details below and we’ll be in touch.
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