Does Your Business Get in The Way of a Family Life?
Do you spend so much time making your business a success that it has started to impact on your relationship with your family? If so perhaps it’s time to readdress the balance.
It’s understandable that you have allowed your business to take precedence over everything else, after all, it pays the mortgage and you probably feel that if you make the sacrifices today, it will lead to security and prosperity for you and your family tomorrow. But sometimes tomorrow never comes and by the time you have built your business to the level to be able to provide that security and prosperity, you may not have a family to enjoy it with.
Business owners often feel a sense of guilt about spending more hours working in their business than with their family.
Many business owners feel a sense of guilt that they spend more time working at their business than they do with their family.
This in turn can lead to other side effects such as:
1. Constant stress.
If you’re spending every hour of the day in your business meeting deadlines and satisfying the needs of customers. You will get ground down. Set a specific time to end your day and then go home and spend quality time with your loved ones. When I say quality time, that is time when you are not thinking about the business
Business owners — Set a specific time to end your day, then go home and spend quality time with your family.
2. Lack of sleep.
Sleepless nights, are the constant companion of stress. You must give yourself time to relax before you go to bed. If you don’t you’ll quickly discover that you feel just as tired when you wake up as you did when you went to bed. Why not use the last hour before you go to bed to just sit and talk with your partner, it doesn’t have to be an in-depth conversation that changes the world. Sometimes it’s nice to just to sit and talk about nothing.
Business owners — You must give yourself time to relax before you go to bed.
3. Lost family and friends.
You must be aware that it’s not only family that you risk losing if you don’t make time for them. Like family if you don’t make time for friends, you’ll lose them. You don’t need to live in each other’s pockets. But you do need to make time to check in every now and again, even if you’re unable to see each other. It can be detrimental to your friendships when time isn’t allocated for social purposes. Spending too much time in your business makes you hard to get hold off. It will cause you to forget special occasions. If you want to lose a friend quickly, just forget their birthday.
Business owners — Like family if you don’t make time for friends, you’ll lose them.
Your life can change when you make time for family and friends:
1. Relaxation frustrates stress.
One of the biggest benefits of spending time with family is that it helps you to relax. Use your time at home for activities that help you to relax and relieve stress. Spend time doing things with family members. Play with your children, go for a walk with your partner or just simply put your feet up. Taking the time to relax with your family will help you better prepare for the challenges of your business. It will also help you to make better decisions due to a greater clarity of thought.
Taking the time to relax with your family will help you better prepare for the challenges of your business.
2. Renewed positive energy.
By finding the time to spend with your family will ensure that you don’t have pent up feelings of guilt. You will quickly discover that you have a lot more positive energy. You’ll get excited about different things and look forward to going home in the evenings. It may be that you discover that you can fit a little exercise into your busy schedule which in turn will give you even more energy to handle the challenges of your day to day business activities.
By finding the time to spend with your family will ensure that you don’t have pent up feelings of guilt.
3. Strong friendships.
Making time for friends means opening yourself up to their experiences and sharing your own. As with family, these are the things that make relationships blossom! As you change for being a workaholic to a person who likes to spend time with family and friends, you will find that people come to respect you and invite you to more social occasions as they know you will make the effort to attend. It may take time but they will start to notice.
It’s important to note that I’m not saying that you should neglect your business, I am saying that you must get the balance right. Spending time with your family and friends, will ensure that you experience things other than work. Your body, mind and family will benefit greatly!
Till Next Time
Mike Gardner is The Time Doctor
