Strategic Coach Resources

“Is that all there is?”

The beginning of your entrepreneurial career was probably a very exciting time. You were working for yourself, turning a great new idea into reality, and taking it to a marketplace that was willing to show its appreciation by writing you cheques. In those early days, the idea of being a successful entrepreneur held many promises. This expectation likely compelled you to put in long hours and a tremendous amount of effort, too.

Several years down the road, though, some entrepreneurs find these promises still haven’t paid off the way they had imagined. For many successful entrepreneurs, there comes a time where they question what success is bringing them, because it becomes unavoidably clear what it’s taking away. They ask themselves “Is that all there is?” The excitement of being an entrepreneur diminishes when you feel that you don’t have the time or energy to innovate, strategize, or do what you love anymore because you’re too busy managing others and constantly putting out fires. Life seems less meaningful if you’re having to sacrifice time with family, friends, and other important interests to the demands of a business that only seems to get ever more demanding. At this point, some find themselves wishfully thinking that retirement or that “one big deal” will deliver them from all this.

Having lost their initial excitement and drive, many entrepreneurs sense deep down that — despite all the things they’ve achieved — there’s something essential they’re missing out on, and this missing piece is what they really wanted in life. For others, the busyness and stress can become strangely like a drug; it can be hard to get unhooked from them long enough to even recognize what you want.

Developing the skill of life balance will protect you from this, and help you enjoy a full, uncompromised personal life while actually becoming more productive in your business.

The skill of balance.

Though you may have been conditioned to believe otherwise, as an entrepreneur, you can have it all: You can have business success and a rich and meaningful personal life. It may feel like your business is somehow different, that the nature of your work means you have to make large lifestyle sacrifices in order to be successful. Actually, this isn’t so. Balance is a capability, and you just need the right tools and structures to be able to create it. Once you have these tools, material wealth becomes a means to support the lifestyle you want — not merely in terms of possessions, but in terms of the freedom you have to grow, create, and enjoy life. Your success will actually increase the more you take advantage of the freedoms that are available to you.

A strategic approach.

Entrepreneurs in The Strategic Coach Program™ don’t think about retirement much. They’ve learned to create rich, rewarding, well-rounded lives they get to enjoy now by incorporating their business into their lifetime goals. This gives work a meaningful foundation, and places it into a context in which life balance is common sense.

Certain fundamentals need to be in place for your business and personal lives to thrive simultaneously. Here are some of the strategies we encourage entrepreneurs in The Strategic Coach Program to use to protect and enhance the balance in their lives:

• Take real time off.
  
• Keep your energy level high.
• Increase your productivity and leverage so you can work less yet produce better results.
• Build a team you can trust.
• Focus on doing more of what boosts your energy, creativity, enjoyment, and results.
• Focus on your values and lifetime goals.
• Shed outdated, limiting habits, conditioning, and thinking.

You may think some of these sound impossible to implement, or that they won’t work in your situation. That’s not unusual. Each of these strategies requires acquiring knowledge, attitudes, skills, and habits that may be new to you. This doesn’t have to happen all at once. We’ve found that it’s a gradual process that starts returning rewards immediately that grow exponentially over time. Life balance is one of the fundamental results that is achieved and reinforced constantly in The Strategic Coach Program. Entrepreneurs from over 60 industries have found with the right tools and structure, they can work less, make more money, and do more of what they love in all areas of life, and that their ability to do so increases over time. If you feel that your life could benefit from greater balance, consider what you can do to implement the strategies above more effectively. There may be things you’re already doing that you could do more of. If you need more help or want more direction, call us and we’ll be happy to discuss your specific situation and suggest resources to assist you.