On reclaiming our most precious commodity: TIME
Lunch al-desko? Not on my watch...
DID YOU KNOW: 58% of female businesses started their business to create a better work life balance and make more time for their families. 41% ARE BURNT OUT.
Have you ever noticed what a complete and utter chokehold of long working hours and not enough rest most of us were brought up operating within?
It’s like we all got taught that working hard was a prerequisite for success and we only got shown one way to be successful, and working hard for decades straight while also maintaining order at home is the sure fire way to get to it. Never mind all the times your body tells you it’s tired, push on through. Lunch al desko? Sure! Who needs fresh air and 10,000 steps anyway?
That’s exactly what happened, and we bought right in.
In reality, the two things are barely connected - all you have to do is look around to see that. The system we live in doesn’t reward hard work with happiness, time off or fair remuneration. What it does do is it keeps most of the population mighty busy though. Busy, and dog tired.
So tired they barely have the energy to think, form opinions or question what on Earth they’re doing.
This is the power of programming and it is a ROTTER.
In business ownership, though, we have an opportunity for something different, huzzah!
The choice to rewrite the rules about what it means to be self made!
The autonomy to create our own working hours!
So why then, do the majority of women end up recreating the exact same working situation as they had before?
The power of programming, how nice to see you here. Again.
Let me be clear: if you have your own business, working all the hours is not the goal. And if you think it is, you should probably just go back to a regular job.
The main flex is being the business owner who bins off long hours, “just a minutes” and never being “done” in favour of a whole new paradigm. One where you - perhaps for the first time - decide things will finally be different.
Because in your business and your life: they can be. But only with a greater understanding of all the ways your programming is holding you back.
To have a business that brings in bigger income than it does right now, you have to lead - your programming about what is acceptable for you, how big you get to be, how your business gets to run - does not get to call the shots.
When you let programming do it’s thing you’ll always end up at exactly the same place.
If you want more, you have to CHOOSE more.
Choose different to the version you got sold, and decide to be the person who knows how to have it.
What happens when you go all in on something different is that you become more self aware than the employee version of you ever knew how to be.
You come to know you’re more than just the sum of the things you’ve learnt how to do.
You realise are not defined by your skillset alone - you are also a human being with thoughts, opinions and truth to share with the world.
Underneath all that programming is a whole new level of truth about what you really think and how you really see things, all of which is bursting to get out.
When you unleash this power that exists within you, you take the brakes off your ability to connect with your audience on a much deeper, more genuine level than your skillset ever will.
Connection is key for sales, growth and a business that doesn’t run off long hours and brains too exhausted to think.
To form your opinions you need TIME to ponder, to reflect, to bring vocabulary to the things you’ve observed happening over and over again. Being stuck in the busy work is keeping you from your thoughts and that is keeping you small.
Your next level of personal power is waiting to be put into bat, and if you’re ready to multiply your connection, your impact, your results and your ease, you’re going to need time on your side.
Long-hour lovers need not apply: this is for the women building financial stability AND space for living, space for thinking and space for forming opinions of our very own.
Sara x
Too true!
Everyone goes into self-employment or a start-up thinking they will then be in control of their working life, when in fact they end up working all hours, as they can’t turn down any new opportunity.
But there are adjustments you can make to reduce the immediate stress, things like setting your email to only check and download every 30 mins instead of the immediate ‘push’ is a great tip to dial down the noise.
Good luck to all with a new venture! 👏👏👏