You WANT work life balance as a small business owner, but getting into that headspace and mindset is a struggle. How can you get in the zone mentally to accomplish everything you need to do every day? Let's dive in...
- 0:00 The secret to mastering work life balance
- 3:05 Mindset reframe about work life balance for small business owners
- 5:55 Important question to ask yourself to improve your work life balance mindset
You are always deserving of work life balance — you just need the structure and framework for SUPPORTING healthy work life balance, AND the mindset to allow yourself to ENJOY that awesome work life balance...
...And you get BOTH of those when you join Productivity Powerhouse today:
All videos in the Work Life Balance for Solopreneurs series:
- Top 3 Tips about Work Life Balance as a Small Business Owner
- How to Find Time to Work Toward Your Goals as a Freelancer
- How to Have Work Life Balance — Without Self Sabotage
- Work Life Balance Mindset When You Are a Small Business Owner (that's this one!)
Small Business Owner Work Life Balance MINDSET...
Do you want work life balance as a small business owner, but getting into that headspace and mindset is a struggle? How can you get in the zone mentally to accomplish everything that you need to do every day?
The secret is internal balance. All the strategies in the world will not help you if you do not have an internal sense of balance.
What exactly does this look like? Let’s dive in:
1) Redefining what work life balance looks like for you and what it means to you.
It's important to have your own definition of it rather than applying other people's definitions of work life balance. What is work life balance? What does it mean to you? Do you have a very strong internal understanding and comprehension of that? Where are you getting your idea of work life balance from?
Is the vision that you hold for your own work life balance? Is that something that you want, that you have internalized? Or is it something that other people have given to you, have presented to you, have imposed upon you?
You will not be satisfied or fulfilled with your work life balance if you do not have your own sense of it. This internal understanding and definition of what this looks like for you, you need to be in balance with yourself.
Work life balance is external as well as internal: You can have wonderful external work life balance, but if there's a lot of tumultuous thoughts and mindset and internal blocks coming up for you, then you do not have that internal balance. That is then going to start bleeding out and affecting your external work life balance as well.
2) Embodying work life balance by living it every day.
What does this mean? Every time that you are not living your own definition of work life balance, you can ask yourself this question: “If I were to live the work life balance that I keep saying that I want — this vision that I have in my head — if I were to live it right now, what would I need to do in order to do that? What would I need to do in this moment to make that happen?”
And then, when you know what that is, when you know what that looks like, DO it. Implement it. Take action on it.
As I've mentioned in previous videos in this Work/Life Balance for Solopreneurs series, embodying this is only going to work effectively if you have that foundational structure in your business to accommodate it.
That's why I recommend you become a Productivity Powerhouse: you will get my framework designed especially for solopreneurs to achieve your dream work life balance. It includes everything you need to know about exactly how to structure your business, how to set up systems and processes and strategies that support your lifestyle, and the mindset work that you need to do that will support you along the way:
Here's a reframe on the whole concept of balance that is going to help your mindset around navigating all of this: It's not necessarily about daily, or even weekly, or even monthly balance. Think bigger… What does it all look like by the end of the year?
On a larger scale, we want that work life balance. If you are looking at your entire life and business by this time next year, will you be able to look back on the year and think to yourself, “Oh yeah, I had incredible work life balance. Overall, my work and my life balanced out over the course of the year.”
Balance doesn't need to happen every single second, minute, or hour. It can be looked at on a larger scale.
If you know that you want 50% of your time and energy in your personal life and 50% in your professional life, then is that what happened over the course of a year?
That might mean that some weeks or months or quarters are more like 80/20 or 70/30. Some days, you are going to be very much in the zone with your work. Other days you're going to be fully present in your personal life. It doesn't need to be 50/50 100% of the time.
Does it balance out on a larger scale? And are you satisfied with where your time and energy is going throughout the year? When it fluctuates, are you happy about that? Does it bring you joy? Does it bring you fulfillment and satisfaction?
If you are spending 80% of your bandwidth and time on your work this month, is that what you want? Does that feel great for you for this particular month? And do you have a plan in place for flipping that? When are you going to be 20/80?
I find that very often in my own business, I will work four to five hours a day. That's kind of my max productivity. But the interesting thing is that if I get really into a particular project, I might work many more hours in a given day — and the following week, I will work way fewer hours. It all ends up balancing out to be in about four to five hours a day.
This also means that I am released of any guilt or self judgment or anything like that. When I am working and when I am enjoying my personal life, I can be fully present in those moments, because I know and I trust that it is going to balance itself out. I have the systems and strategies and structure in place so that that balance does happen and is happening all the time.
In our previous video, we were talking about self sabotage when it comes to work life balance. When you are thinking about how your mindset fits into work life balance, you'll want to ask yourself, “In what ways am I holding myself back from achieving the work life balance that I desire? What am I currently doing and thinking that is getting in the way of enjoying that healthy work life balance?”
Every time that you want work/life balance, but then you tell yourself, “Oh, I can't do that right now because of XYZ,” then check in. Take a pause and ask yourself, “Is that true? Is that true, that I cannot have work life balance because of XYZ? And if I tell myself that it is true, how do I know that it is true?”
You might think that something's true. But then underneath the surface, it turns out it's not actually true. You don't have any evidence that it is true. If, at that point, you do confirm that “yes, this is true,” then ask yourself, “What smaller concessions can I make to strike a better — not perfect — work life balance in this moment? What small tweaks can I do?”
And if, upon doing this, you realize that it is NOT true, then ask yourself this: “What would happen if I let go of imbalance right now and gave myself the permission to have the balance that I desire?”
You are always deserving of work life balance. You just need the structure and framework for supporting healthy work life balance and the mindset to allow yourself to enjoy that work life balance. You get both of those when you join Productivity Powerhouse… I will see you on the inside: