Are you making sure you have enough time out of your business?
I’m asking this pertinent question this week, after the flu left me floored last week and forced me to take time out of my business – a whole week to be exact, which as a freelancer is never an easy choice to make. But floored me is a good description.
And it got me to thinking as I lay there in bed about the decisions we make in our business, about our time, about money and about our fears and insecurities.
I had wanted a whole week off before the Christmas break to work on my business. To have no client work or diary entries, to give me the space I needed to reflect and map out where I wanted to be in my business and what I needed to do to get there.
Now I ‘was’ protecting this week, but as it got closer and closer and the year started running out and new clients were desperate to get started, that I started eating into my week off. And before I knew it, it had all gone.
My brain justified it that this was money on the table, people desperate to work with me and that’s essentially what I do help people with their business, so of course I’ve got to say yes.
And as I lay there in bed last night I got to thinking that perhaps this was the universes way of forcing me to have that week off. And the only way it could get me to stop was by flooring me with an illness.
Now I’m no stranger to illness, being ill with cancer for almost a year definitely took its toll, but it also taught me a lot of things, about myself and my place in the world.
Every time we are forced to stop, I believe we have to stop ourselves and think ‘what can I learn from this?’.
I did a lot of thinking and a lot of reading.
And magically it coincided with this week, when I was starting to feel better and I had booked out 2 days out of my week to go and work with a fantastic business coach to work ‘on’ my business, to map out my next 12-month strategy. Both from a life and a business perspective.
It’s powerful sometimes to just stop.
If you’re always doing the doing of your business and always delivering and saying yes, it gives you very little time to plan. And it’s definitely in the planning where the growth is.
I’ve got some exciting things up my sleeve over the next few months, that I can’t wait to share with you! My diary is fully booked until March 25th, and even then there’s little breathing room until April 20th – but if you’re interested in working with me in spring for an intensive 3 months coaching programme to grow your business I’d love to hear from you!
And if you don’t have the funds to work with someone on your business, look at how you could carve out some time for yourself to think, dream, and plan how you can grow your business. Even an afternoon in a coffee shop with a notebook would be a great start!
Hoping you're feeling good and there are no lurgies on your horizon, just time to think and plan!
