Whether you’re a new business owner or if you have been running your business for several years, one of
biggest challenges you face at one point in time or another is overwhelm and imbalance.How many nights have you dragged your weary body to bed only to lie awake for hours with nagging thoughts of what you haven't done or don't have answers to?
How many of your children's' ball games and school functions were missed because you had business commitments?
How many evenings did your partner spend alone because you were burning midnight oil by speaking on telephone or hovering over your keyboard, workbench or reference materials?
Was this because you loved what you were doing so much that nothing else mattered, or was it because you felt you had to do everything alone?
One of biggest mistakes small and home-based business owners make is assuming they have to become chief, cook and bottle washer and perform all of their related tasks flawlessly and concurrently.
I know many entrepreneurs who suffered failed relationships and experienced great loss because they over-committed themselves to their businesses and let everything else important to them fall by wayside.
Many of today's most renowned entrepreneurs and success stories will tell you of losses they experienced because they didn't know how to do things right first time or how to balance their priorities.
I was one of those people.
When I was building my first business in my 20's, I locked myself in my office for days on end. I would pour over books trying to learn business skills. I would be on phone trying to drum up customers using painfully ineffective sales techniques I made up myself.
I created my chart of accounts, set up my bookkeeping system and decorated my office. I made flyers and pinned them up around town. Then I went home and waited for phone to ring while I studied my product literature and organized and created and collected endless sources of information I thought were necessary for business success.
My partner spent many of his evenings and weekends alone. He would make dinner. I would join him once in a while, then head back into my office.
I wanted to succeed. I wanted to be my own boss and earn my own way and thought if I could invest every possible waking minute of my life to learning about business and acquiring all of skills necessary, I would create success and freedom I desperately sought.
Unfortunately, biggest lesson I learned was, if you lock yourself in an office for two years straight, there probably won't be anyone waiting for you when you come out.
I learned that I had been completely unrealistic and selfish in my thinking.
No successful businessperson has made it entirely on his or her own. If there is an exception to this statement, success probably came at a terribly high price, and in end, would you call that success?
