How to Shift Your Business Practices to Gain More Freedom
Chances are you started your business because you knew early on that working long hours for someone else’s dream wasn’t for you. You love the idea of being an entrepreneur and so you created a business to offer your awesome services to your clients. Yet despite all of these well-meaning intentions, you somehow find yourself working around the clock and somewhat drowning in your business.
What’s even more frustrating is that you aren’t bringing in the consistent income you would like. The instability is taking a toll, and you’re wondering how long it will be before you burn out.
If you’re wondering where to go next, here are five ways you can start shifting your experience today:
1. Act like the CEO of your business
I’ve never seen CEO in any successful company who handles all of the responsibilities to keep it running. Businesses grow and succeed when people work together as a team to accomplish a shared vision. As the CEO of your business, your job is creating the vision, determining the strategy for lead generation and getting new clients, making sure your clients have superior service, and managing your team.
If you’re spending hours and hours every week doing menial tasks behind the computer such as invoicing, making changes to your website, bookkeeping, and scheduling, you will hit a plateau and eventually burn out. It’s just a matter of time!
My advice for growing a team is to start where you are: it may mean delegating specific tasks to a VA, hiring a full time administrative/personal assistant, or simply finding an intern to help you with social media. Start exercising your CEO muscles, which means leading, leveraging, and hiring, as it’s the quickest way to grow your business AND avoid burnout.
2. Be unapologetic about your goals
As the saying goes, “Be willing to step out among them.” Like many entrepreneurs, you may be carrying around a story, either consciously or unconsciously, that you need to keep yourself “small” and “fit in a box” to fit in, receive love, and get approval. If this resonates with you and you are willing to do the work to let it go, you’ll set yourself free to live your own life on your own terms. Set goals and intentions that are true for YOU, and be unapologetic about going for them each and every day.
3. Choose to see everything as an opportunity for learning and growth
It’s my belief that the universe is constantly conspiring on our behalf and setting up opportunities to learn and evolve. Whether or not you believe this, you’re where you right now for a reason. When you take a hundred percent responsibility for your current situation and look at it from a perspective of “What am I meant to learn from this current situation?,” you begin coming from an empowered place.
These are some questions to start asking yourself:
“What is this current situation meant to teach me?
How can I grow from it?
What does my soul want me to learn from this experience?”
4. Make a decision to have a different experience
This may sound trite, but simply making a fierce decision that you are unavailable to keep going on the hamster wheel has the power to stop it.
Make a decision to stay out of overwhelm and stop spinning out. Do whatever it takes to get yourself centered, grounded, and in a positive state of mind whenever you find yourself wandering down the rabbit hole. This can be accomplished in a number of different ways. Choose the one that fits your lifestyle:
Commit to a ten-minute meditation in the morning.
Set an alarm to remind yourself to stop for a lunch break.
Go to a yoga class.
Read an inspirational, personal-development book.
Practice radical self-care.
5. Hold yourself accountable
Put together a mastermind or find a colleague, coach, or group program to work with. Surround yourself with likeminded people who are supportive and a positive influence. Nobody is meant to do this alone.
My husband used to joke with me about “Team Heidi,” because I would hire coaches for every area of my life. Looking back, I can say that Team Heidi is exactly what I needed and has contributed a ton to my current level of success, happiness, and wellbeing.
