At some point, as your business continues to grow, all business owners need to rethink their priorities. Will they continue to put in the amount of hours needed to assure that their business grows even more successful or are they content with what they have now?
In North America, the mindset is that bigger is better, more and more means success and happiness but the truth is, bigger and better and more equals more work and less time for yourself and what you really want to do.
While your personality may be the driven type, which is typical of a workaholic, others are looking for a way of life that will support what they want to do and they aren’t living for the sake of working. It isn’t that they are lazy and lack ambition. They have opted out of the stress filled days and decided that they only need a certain amount of income that will provide them with the necessities and a little extra. They would rather their lives were centred on enjoyment than a career. They know that their work is simply a means to living and each dollar that they make provides a certain amount of freedom.
Your expectations of your life and where you’d like your career to lead will help you to determine whether you are working to live, or living to work. At different times in your life, your circumstances may also dictate how much time you are spending on work. Having children, owning a home, debt; these can all lead to working extended hours but as you grow a bit older, the children are gone or you aren’t interested in home ownership, the amount of hours you work can be fine tuned until you know just how much you need in order to enjoy more time for yourself and still have enough.
It is up to you to decide just what you want to do with your life and where you’d like to centre your attention. Does your life revolve around work or leisure, family, friends and your own personal pursuits? Do you find happiness through your business or does your satisfaction come from what you perceive as a life well lived, one that encompasses not only business or a job, but also lots of time to spend on hobbies, reading, gardening or other interests?
While this compares to life balance, the difference is that your life may be heavily balanced in one direction or another and for different people, with different priorities, this can work out either way. Deciding what you want your life to revolve around is up to you, your personal set of circumstances and your needs and desires.
Whichever way makes your life better and results in your contentment is the style that work for you. Make sure that you have time to enjoy what you have and leave time to create a life, not just the pursuit of making enough money to purchase more things to add to your life.
© Chris Draper, DemGen Inc. 2014
image courtesy of pinterest
