Forums: Discussions for entrepreneurs and small business.

I have worked as a solo entrepreneur for the past seven years. I have enjoyed it and I have hated it. One of my double-edged swords has been that I tend to work an incredibly high number of hours each week, month, and year. Yes, it does increase profits, but you don`t realize just how much of your time has been spent working, until you wake up one day and realize that you haven`t spoken to a "friend" (re: not client) in months.

A good friend of mine has also found herself in the same boat. We have a reached a point in our lives where we want more: success and a life. After much discussion, we are in the midst of joining forces in a business venture, with the understanding that while profit margins are important, so is down-time. Our goal is achieve business success without losing ourselves in our work; so that we will each have time for friends, family, hobbies, etc.

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Claddagh Publishing
Claddagh Ltd.
Your First Choice ~ The Right Choice
CladdaghPublishing

Dear Claddagh,

I can relate what you`re saying. It happened to me time to time until I realized (or someone helped to realize) is that we`ve mistaken: the final goal.

Your goal is not work until die.

Not even leave apart your other treasures in life, like your family and friends.

Also you maybe feel guilty by achieving those profit and grow in your business.

 

This is what happen: Let say you go for a diet, and decide to run...10 miles!

Then you come back from those 10 miles and feel tired to death.

And what happened, you relate diet with tired to death. And it`s not.

You went to LOOSE POUNDS, and run 10 miles (also if you try it the first days) is your wrong approach, that`s all.

You should change the approach until it fits in what you want (loose pounds) without kiling yourself. And run 10 miles could be good, IF you have a nice-easy to follow plan that grows every day a little until you get what you want.

If IT is not good after all, just change the tactic, lets say, walk, run a bike, swim, climb a mountain, or anything that YOU ENJOY in your way to get there.

There are thousands of way to loose pounds: that is your ULTIMATE GOAL.

In my humble opinion, if you KEEP CONSTANTLY FOCUS on WHAT YOU WANT finally, if you don`t loose your compass, you will get it.

How a sailor does it? Maybe they use a compass, or the stars or some PRE-cognition way to do it, but work hard certainly is NOT enough.

You have to have your horizon CLEAR ON FRONT of you ALWAYS.

You loose it for a while and you loose many steps (and time!) on the right direction.

I have to `force` (nicely) to myself to get a minute to call my friends, becasue I have no time to visit them.

And see my kids growing without enjoy it a little every day IS NOT AN OPTION when I think about them.

Don`t blame yourself because you run for something and seems like you are loosing others more important. YOU ARE LEARNING.

Better yet, take that `alert` that a feeling always is, and change the way you try to get there

Because at the end, you are not looking for money or prestige, you are looking to USE that TOOL (money, prestige) to get finally what you want:

a better life, support your love ones and get MORE TIME FOR YOURSELF.

That`s (maybe) your horizon.

By the way, there exist millionaires outside (and all scale in between of achievers) that didn`t kill themselve to get rich, but still work because is a passion to do it. AND IT`S NOT LUCKY.

So, ask yourself better question: How they get there tough?

Learn, search, hunt the answer!

Ask How can I get profit the same or more money in a smarter way ? (it means less hours and not abussing someone else, of course)

Can I delegate certain type of tasks?

Cam I Outsource them? (Is that what I do in some areas)

Your brain won`t stop thinking anyway (!!)

(never wonder how it works no matter you try not think on anything or put your mind in blank?)

so put better questions in the machine ...and WHATCH THE RESULT.

It will help you A LOT. Believe it.

Regards,

Claudio

Hi everyone. I am new to this sight and found it to be the more interesting one. The post are wonderfully informative. Where I run my business solo, you bet I feel lonely at times when I`m making decisions and choices. Even people that I know personally in my industry can`t fully be supportive of how I run my business, because I am always looking for ways to be different then the others. So when I am in need of bouncing ideas about, I pick up the phone and make an appointment with my business counselor. He is my idea bouncer and does help to show me both sides of the coin. Still, it is up to me to make anything happen and to make sure that I make the right choices as a manager of the day and a leader into the future. In the end of any alone times, I find that when I make it threw one hoop to another, I feel absolutely awesome that I did accomplish something with my very own efforts. So yes, there are alone times, but that price is not as big as the pay off at the end of anything successfully created on my very own. When you`ve tackled the solo entrepreneurship, at least if your ever in a position to have a partner, you know that if for some reason that partner leaves or does not work out, that you can handle it, because you`ve been there before.

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AJ