Your Passion May be Unhealthy: Find the Balance
Two good friends of mine recently told me:
Owning a business is kind of like being in a relationship……. you can love the other person with all your heart, but, before you know it, they can start sucking the life out of you; you forget who you used to be, you get so wrapped up in spending every moment on that person. It’s not healthy, even if you love it.
…you will accomplish all the goals you’ve set forth for yourself, and there are plenty more in the horizon awaiting you, but coming from an ex-workaholic myself, make time for self personal growth — don’t bottle in your feelings for too long, it only leads to further frustration of self. And entrepreneurship is indeed a way of life, but it need not overtake your life, if you don’t want it to.
These statements really give great balance to my last post about thinking of entrepreneurship as a lifestyle and not as “work.” My friends’ thoughts really made me think about my situation as a young entrepreneur.
There is no doubt that I as well as many other young entrepreneurs encounter times when it feels like our business is sucking the life out of us. There are always going to be cycles when we are feeling low and our companies are inevitably suffering due to that.
For many of us, myself included, we are struggling to find that balance in our lives. That balance of devotion to our business and devotion to our personal lives. Not matter how much I continue to tell myself that there can be no difference between “work” and “life” in the world of entrepreneurship, I must concede to the notion that there simply is a difference and there does come a time when you have to step outside of the “zone” and allow yourself to grow as a person, not just as an entrepreneur.
It’s a struggle to find that balance, sure. But it’s something worth fighting for; something that will not only change our lives, but has the potential to change the world.
Never stop seeking that balance!
(Thanks for your support guys. You know who you are)
Dave,
I’m happy you decided to delve into this on your blog. Balance is important. True, if your business is going to succeed (especially in the long-run), it needs to be more than just “work” - you need to love it. But it does not have to be a lifestyle. You can have that entrepreneurial savvy in you every moment of the day, but you need to know how to channel it.
Trust me when I tell you that you can get much more done in 8 hours every day vs. an “unlimited” amount. Because when you tell yourself you only have 8 hours, you are doing two things:
1. You are giving yourself a deadline, and rather than being in the mindset that you have all day and night to finish a task, you finish it by 5 instead. Because you just have to.
2. You are giving yourself a mental break, so that you are ready for 9 AM tomorrow. If you do the same thing all day and night (even if you love doing it), you will wake up the next day burned out. And if you don’t, then ultimately you will get burned out. In a month. A year. A decade.
Too much of a good thing is overkill. Your business may not be “work” to you, but it’s still business. And you can’t mix business life with your personal life, at least not all of the time. Which means that at some point in the day or week, you need to stop doing business and start concentrating on balance.
- Anthony