Your Passion May Kill Your Business - 5 Ways to Save It (and Yourself)

I love what I do. I love it so much that it almost ate my life, ruined my friendships, and my health. As crazy as it sounds, working on my passion almost ruined my career.

I guess I finally woke up to the fact that I loved my work a little too much after I was headed towards the second burnout in my business. I’m ashamed to say that it actually took that long for me to finally realize that I was turning my passion, my dream, and my drive into entrepreneurial self-slavery.

As my own boss, I worked much harder than when I worked for someone else. The problem is, as an entrepreneur: hard work is expected and applauded. You hear phrases like ‘true grit’ and ‘only the resilient succeed’. The whole cycle is viciously seductive and horribly like self-slavery. I was a slave to my own dream!

Why We Drive Ourselves So Hard

I suppose if had I been unsuccessful in my career, I wouldn’t be as driven. Maybe. Because I was successful, it drove me harder! The more progress I made, the more I wanted to make. Dopamine is a wonderfully, awful thing. It will give you a thrill when you achieve your goals. You like it so much that you want more. Add a driven goal-oriented overachieving personality and the result is a workaholic.

Bene Brown, Ph.D. hit the nail on the head in her book The Gifts of Imperfection when she said: “In today’s culture — our self-worth is tied to our net worth, and we base our worthiness on our level of productivity.” How busy you are has become a status symbol.

I was working an average of 10–13 hours a day most weeks. . . And I felt GOOD about it (at first). When you consider that most Americans only do about 3 hours of actual work per day in their jobs, I was demanding an insane amount of productivity. I would tell myself lies like: “this is only temporary, once I reach XXX goal, I can relax for a little while”. Strangely, whenever I would reach a goal, it only drove me to strive for the next one.

This cycle continued through one burnout period where I almost closed my business because I was too busy. I had so many clients I was overwhelmed. I couldn’t work hard enough or fast enough to keep up with everything. While being overwhelmed was certainly part of it, I could also feel my life slowly slipping away from me and it freaked me out.

Blindly Following the ‘Dream’

Before I started my company and lept into entrepreneurship, I spent much more time focused on networking in my profession, volunteering, getting together with my friends, planning fun events, going on personal trips and generally enjoying life outside of work. The problem was, I truly despised corporate life and all its inefficiencies, meaningless performance expectations, and daily hum-drum.

I thought I would have more freedom to do everything I loved to do while doing what I loved for work.

Instead, I found myself going out less, spending less time focused on developing friendships, less time planning adventures, and almost all my time on my business. From my reading and research on owning your own business, I was given the impression that this was normal. Entrepreneurship is supposed to be hard in order to ‘make it’.

After everything I have been through — the ‘necessary hardship’ model of success is mostly a load of crap. Entrepreneurship IS challenging and it is not for the faint of heart. However, if you really look into it, you are not actually expected to be successful in less than 5 years. By successful, I mean actually being able to pay yourself. I did it in less than TWO years.

As an entrepreneur, you aren’t expected to be a ‘known quantity’ in less than 8–10 years. In other words, it’s not expected that you will be making significant progress and prosperity in less than 8 years — more like 10+. It takes a while to build credibility, create momentum, and establish yourself. I did it in THREE years.

I doubled my revenue and my business size from year ZERO to where I am today … EVERY SINGLE YEAR.

The problem is not that I wasn’t successful or that I didn’t have what it takes to make it. The problem is I succumbed to the Age of Impatience. We are a fast food society: “my way, right away”. I wanted to make it happen and make it happen fast. I did it and I am what you might call Successful. I also paid a price.

My Wake Up Call and Pivot Point

Here’s the real deal: You CAN be successful doing what you love. However, if you let your passion drive you 24/7 — you WILL burnout. My best tip for anyone seeking success as an entrepreneur: Be Patient. It takes time to understand your core business model, develop your business, connect with your ideal clients, build trust and credibility, expand your reach and see the results of your work begin to compound.

It all takes TIME. Particularly if you want to do it right. My problem is that I’m incredibly impatient. I want everything done 100% yesterday. I think most of us do. We want things right now. Life doesn’t work that way. Life doesn’t give a rip about your plans! If you barge into entrepreneurship intent on instant results — you might get results, but not the ones you wanted.

The minute I stopped flogging myself to perform is the minute I finally started to get my life back. It took courage to realize that everything takes longer to marinate, process, and develop than I’d like. I need to be ok with that or drive myself into burnout #2. I would rather do the right thing and get the right results than do it quickly and get into a quagmire. The best thing I can do is be consistent and be patient.

Regaining Passion and Balance

I was asked by a colleague around the New Year what my goal was. I said: “Balance”. He was shocked. “Not more money or a product launch?” he asked. I explained that all the money in the world is useless if you don’t have the time to spend it. If you don’t have balance in your life and in your work, you might not be able to reap the rewards of the seeds you so frantically sowed.

Since I started my business I can attribute several significant health issues directly to stress. Stress will kill you if you don’t learn how to BALANCE your life and your work. I want to work on my career that I love so much but I also need to have a healthy life. In other words, I need to love ME just as much as I love my work.

Here’s how I am working on my plan of balance:

1. Get very clear on what your priorities are.

If you have multiple priorities or a fuzzy focus, your business will not thrive. Don’t be afraid to let go of the products and services that don’t give you energy. If you aren’t 100% excited about whatever it is, it will be a chore and you are no better off than when you were working for someone else.

2. What can you delegate to free up your time?

I’m BAD at delegating. If you are an entrepreneur, you might be like me and concerned about your brand. Ask yourself this: “What can someone else can do 80% as well as I can?” Those are the items you let go of. If you have something that only you can do and you cannot delegate at an 80% return, keep it. The point is to let go of anything that you do not HAVE to do to manage and grow your business.

3. Set your boundaries and stick to them.

This sounds obvious but we entrepreneurs are terrible at sticking to our boundaries — or even setting them in the first place!

· Set boundaries on your time at work

· Set boundaries on when people can expect responses

· Set boundaries on what type of work you will do

· Set boundaries on how much work you do

One of the biggest struggles for emerging entrepreneurs is saying “Yes” to things. Just stop it. It’s tough to create your boundaries when you don’t know what your niche is yet.

Try things out and know when to stop and reevaluate. If you chase shiny objects too much you will become too diverse, too scattered, and lost very quickly. Say ‘No’, set your boundaries and stick to them.

4. For pity’s sake, charge what you are worth.

Right up there with saying ‘yes’ too much is charging too little. Learn to say ‘no’ to things that undervalue you. Find a balance that allows you to add value to your clients without resenting the time you spend. Do your research, understand your niche and what others in your industry charge for the services you provide.

As my business coach says: “Joyfully charge what you are worth.”

5. Above all else: commit to consistent uncomplicated excellence.

There is a difference between Excellence and Perfection. Strive for excellence. Most importantly, focus on uncomplicated and consistent excellence. As a veteran in business process improvement from my corporate years — I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that complexity is not sustainable.

Be consistent with your work. Allow the momentum to build. It all takes time and a little patience. I’m not a patient person (my husband says I have patience minus 100%). It’s been a painful lesson to let things build and see results. Letting go of trying to do everything perfectly right NOW has been challenging for me.

It’s funny. The fundamental laws of building trust, credibility, and relationships have in place for thousands of years. For some reason, we think we can accelerate this because we have the internet and smart devices. No folks — what we have are clients bombarded by too much information. Take your time, commit to consistent uncomplicated excellence to break through the noise and you will see results.