Solopreneur, Hurry Is Your Enemy!!
Aka: The business magic of creating space for reflection
We’ve just had a 3-week hiatus with one of my mentioring clients. She’ve been getting through the major life change — moving to a new home.
In the previous two weeks she spent only about two hours on any kind of self-care; she worked till 11 pm every day on the move and new home renovation. She had zero time to think through any business issues or plan.
So, when we finally met yesterday, she collected dozen of different pieces of her life that slipped through the cracks.
Here is a sample of things we’ve captured:
Personal Finances
-separation of the renovation fund from money for everyday functions
-new personal bank account and debit card
-tracking personal finances
Change of Address
-in official documents
-in her bank
-in the databases of various service providers
Home Renovation
-what is next/ important
-service providers to redirect to a new address (electricity billing)
Business
-due services (she was behind with sessions for seven customers)
-new customers
-delayed accounting (no tax calculation for July!)
-Profit First tracking
Isn’t it scary how many things slipped from her mind just because she had no reflection/ planning time scheduled?
Hurry is your enemy. Avoid it at all cost! The cost of being busy is just too high!
The least that can suffer from hurry is your business. You pay the cost in your health, relationships, time, and money.
BTW, during that session I was silent 95% of the time. My client didn’t need my wisdom, tactical tricks, or even perspective. Almost all she needed was a space to stop and think.
This is not uncommon. I observed in numerous coaching/mentoring processes that the space to pause and reflect is often the most valuable part of the process.
Why?
Because most people are overwhelmed by hurry in their lives. They don’t pause and reflect enough. Most of us don’t do that altogether.
And instead of steadily progressing in their business, they spend their lives in a hamster wheel, constantly picking up things that slipped through the cracks and dealing with them.
Do yourself a favor now: either schedule a “me-time” in your calendar, so you can summarize, put your thoughts on paper, and draft a battle plan to deal with all the issues;
OR hire a coach/mentor who will force you to create the space for regular reflection (vision-crafting, planning, tracking the execution of your projects, scheduling, prioritizing).
Don’t let the chaos to consume your life. Slow down to speed up.
Originally published on LinkedIn
