What is a lifestyle business? …plus 3 signs you built your business backward (and how to fix it)

Quick overview of what's in this video:

• 0:00 Intro
• 0:35 What is a lifestyle business? Several aspects that make up a lifestyle business
• 2:20 The problem many solopreneurs make — building it backwards!
• 2:45 First indicator you built your business backward — everything starts with your business, rather than your personal goals
• 3:05 Why this is a problem (your business will get in the way!)
• 3:20 Second indicator you built this backward — you make your business choices based on what you see others doing
• 3:40 Why this is a problem (you won't enjoy your business, and might start resenting it!)
• 3:55 Third indicator you built your business backward — you force yourself to constantly work on your never-ending task list
• 4:20 Why this is a problem (your business won't be sustainable, AND you'll burn out)
• 4:50 What you can do to FIX this problem of building your business backward
• 8:05 How you can take ACTION on these fixes

TRANSCRIPT:

Today, we are answering the question, what is a lifestyle business? Plus the three indicators that you have built your business backwards, why that's a problem and what you can do to fix it. 

My name is Sagan Morrow and I'm an anti-hustle Productivity Strategist and internationally board-certified Success and Life Coach who specializes in working with solopreneurs! Be sure to grab my free training, Anti Hustle Secrets to Solopreneur Success. 

Let's get into today's video: What is a lifestyle business?

This is a freedom-driven business that enables you to do business on your own terms depending on your unique lifestyle wants and needs. It suits your personality, your learning style, your lifestyle, your background, your goals and your personal values. It's built in support of who you are.

This means that it allows you to create a schedule you actually want and to do the work that you most enjoy doing with the people who you love working with. We don't need to force ourselves into a box of working nine to five, Monday to Friday! 

You get to create your own schedule, you get to really look at what your particular needs are, when your creativity levels are highest, when you're most energized… and you get to build everything around that to then produce even higher quality work, faster and more enjoyably than ever before. This is very intentional, highly intentional, very strategic, and this is a very mindful type of business.

You created your business as a solopreneur because you love the work that you are doing. Let's be honest, business is hard. It takes effort, right? So because of that, we probably aren't starting our business just to make a quick buck. No, you started your business because you love the work that you're doing! You genuinely care about your industry, your services, your products, and your clients and customers. And all of that gets to be part of your lifestyle business.

It's a really important thing to consider here that your business actually fully supports your personal life as well, rather than the other way around. And this is the problem that a lot of solopreneurs face: they end up building their business backward so that everything is about the business rather than the lifestyle. 

Here are three indicators that you have built your solopreneur business backward…

Number one: You started doing everything solely focused on your business goals, rather than your personal goals. 

So this means that your services, products, business structure, schedule systems, etc., aren't necessarily conducive to the life that you want to live. Now, this is a problem because your business is always going to come before — or get in the way of — your personal life. You're going to be caught in this endless cycle of living to work and we don't really want that right.

The second indicator that you have built your business backward is that you make all of your business decisions based on what you see other people doing in the industry, rather than choosing tailored strategies that work really well for you as a unique individual and as a unique business.

This is a problem because you will not genuinely enjoy your business when it's not designed to suit your unique wants and needs. And what's going to happen here is, you will start to resent either your business or your personal life — or both! We definitely do not want that. 

And the third indicator that you have built your business backward is that you tell yourself, “I just need to push through and do these 15,000 tasks, and then I can take a break” …which often means that you don't actually get evenings or weekends or any free time to yourself. 

So it's really not a lifestyle business. It's not time freedom! This is a problem because you will not have energy for your business to be sustainable. And you will just end up burned out and exhausted and overwhelmed, which isn't good for anyone involved — you personally, your mental health, your family and your loved ones, the community that you live in, your clients or customers, all of these people are going to be negatively affected if you are not taking good care of yourself. 

So what can we do to fix these problems? If you are sitting here and thinking, “Oh, no, I have built my business backward!” …What can you do about it?

It's okay, this can be fixed! I see so many solopreneurs who have built their business businesses backward and we always are able to fix it and get them back on track so they can enjoy that true lifestyle business, and provide a lot of value to their clients and customers and really live the life that they want — with a business that they absolutely love. 

Here are three things that you can do: 

Number one, start with your personal goals first, so that your entire business is built to accommodate for all of your unique personal wants and needs. 

Always begin when you are goal setting — Rather than focusing on what you want to do with your business, **focus on your personal life.** What do you want your personal life to look like? What is your ideal lifestyle? What are your personal values that are really, really important for you? Start with that. 

And then you can start looking at things like, what type of business schedule do you need to accommodate for that ideal lifestyle? What types of products and services do you want to have that fit perfectly with that ideal lifestyle? What do you need to take into consideration if you have ADHD or anxiety or if you're raising little kids or if you are juggling a side business while you're working a nine to five job? What are all of your unique considerations to take into account so that you can build your business while accommodating for all of those things.

The second thing that you can do to fix the problem of building your business backward is to customize everything and be willing to step outside the box. 

Just because something is an industry norm does NOT mean that is the only way or the best way to do it. Lots of times what you'll see in the online business world is that some people start doing a particular thing, and you get a lot of copycats other people start copying and pasting what they're doing — because they assume that that is the best way, the most effective way, or it's the only way to do a particular thing. But that is often not the case! A lot of people are experimenting. And again, when you get caught in this cycle of copying and pasting what you see other people doing, then that just perpetuates it. So it's really important to break free of those constraints and really focus on what is right for you and your unique situation and build from there.

And the third fix is to use energy management as the foundation of time management so that you can get more done in less time without feeling exhausted or burning yourself out. 

Energy management is the absolute foundation of true, not toxic, productivity, so that you can really make progress and achieve your goals without burning out along the way… without getting stuck in toxic hustle culture and all that kind of thing. Focus on energy management first; managing your energy levels from day to day, week to week, season to season (of life and business, and also seasonal changes of the year). 

Focus on energy management: that is the foundation for your time management strategies, your productivity techniques that you'll use, and everything else builds from there. 

You can learn how to do all of this and so much more in my signature e-course, Productivity Powerhouse!

It is designed especially for solopreneurs to be able to achieve your goals make really great progress on what you want from both your personal life and from your professional life, AND to save 10 hours a week without the burnout or overwhelmed so you can really get your energy back and get that time freedom… and really enjoy and embody the lifestyle business that you truly desire. 

If you want to build a true lifestyle business, get yourself inside Productivity Powerhouse and get started today.