Striking a Balance Between Personal and Professional Life as an Entrepreneur
You’re constantly checking your email and feeling stressed all the time.
You are burnt out and feel like your life is all work and no play.
You can’t remember the last time you made plans with friends or had a home-cooked meal with something green in it.
If any of this sounds familiar, you probably have little to no work-life balance.
This is common among entrepreneurs — work bleeds into your personal life until it completely takes over.
Personal-professional harmony is crucial not only for your mental health and overall well-being, but also for the long-term success of your company.
As a therapist and business coach in Portland, I’m here to help you navigate striking a balance between personal and professional life so both can thrive. You really fucking can have it all!
The Relationship Between Entrepreneurs and Work-Life Balance
I get it — your business is important to you.
It feels like a huge piece of your identity because much of your company IS you!
So, maybe you think that working extra hard now will bring so much success that you’ll be able to relax and be more hands-off later.
But building habits to maintain a healthy work-life balance as an entrepreneur is important at any stage of your career, whether you’re just starting out or a seasoned business owner.
You have the drive and passion that fuel entrepreneurship, and that’s fucking awesome!
These are excellent qualities, and we don’t want to minimize or banish them.
However, as a counselor in Portland, I’ve repeatedly seen the consequences of prioritizing work over personal life.
You could struggle with burnout and emotional exhaustion, and, contrary to what you might think, your business could suffer, too.
The Impact of Having No Work-Life Balance
Without striking a balance between personal and professional life, you will likely suffer from stress, anxiety, and depression.
You’ll neglect self-care, relationships, and personal interests.
When imbalance persists, life gets filled with nothing but work!
Say hello to distant friendships, a lack of enjoyable hobbies, and even no time (or patience!) for things like basic grooming and grabbing groceries.
Another important thing to remember about entrepreneurs and work-life balance is that it affects your business, too, and perhaps not in the ways you would think.
Entrepreneurs get stuck in over-focusing on financial growth.
But Guess What? Numbers aren’t everything!
(go grab a glass of water to help you get that dry-info-pill down)
Hyper-focusing on one aspect isn’t sustainable – businesses naturally have seasons of growth and reflection.
This mindset also doesn’t account for the full spectrum of authentic values needed to guide us in life and business.
If we only focus on financial growth, how will we know when enough is enough? What else do we want for our life besides our business?
How to Achieve Work-Life Balance
So, you want to create personal-professional harmony, but you have no fucking idea where to start.
Here are a few of my favorite tips for work-life balance as an entrepreneur:
Learn to Unplug
Take breaks from your phone, email, social media, etc. Establish healthy boundaries with yourself and clients so you don’t feel obligated to respond to every message or request right away. Stick around and keep reading - I am gonna dare you to try this out!
Prioritize Self-Care
Don’t neglect your personal well-being for professional wins – this includes grooming! You may be completely beat by 8pm, but your teeth still need care and cleaning. Take a look at your exercise, nutrition, and sleep habits to see where overworking is affecting you. If you haven’t hit the gym in a while because you’re too busy working long hours, force yourself to stop at a reasonable time and go for a run – you’ll be amazed by how much your stress levels reduce after a good sweat sesh.
Nurture Personal Relationships and Social Connections
When you have no work-life balance, it’s easy to let personal relationships slip away. It’s important to talk to and spend time with people who aren’t clients or related to work. Call your mom, meet a friend for coffee/happy hour, or strike up a conversation with someone new at a painting class.
Practice Mindfulness and Stress-Management Techniques
Meditation, yoga, and progressive muscle relaxation are all great ways to reduce stress. Look into these practices on your own, or a good coach or therapist can guide you through these techniques.
Delegate and Outsource Tasks When Necessary
It can be hard to relinquish control and allow others to do things for you – trust me, I get it. But sometimes it’s okay to ask for help or hire someone to do certain tasks.
I Dare You To Try It Out: Unplug from Technology!
Having a healthy relationship with your work email and phone is crucial when it comes to striking a balance between personal and professional life.
Here are some exercises to help you unplug and set boundaries with yourself and others:
Step 1:
Set an automatic “Away From Office” message in your email. Add your working hours to your email signature so that clients know not to expect a response from you until a certain time/date. For example, after your name, credentials, and whatever else you’d like to include in your signature, you could add “Available M-F 9:00am-5:00pm EST,” or “Available Tuesday-Friday 10-4, I will respond within 3 business days!” This helps you feel less pressured to constantly check your messages and lets clients know what to expect. If you want to know how to achieve work-life balance, setting time limits for work time vs. personal time is an awesome way to start.
Step 2:
Schedule a 100% unplugged day: I know this may sound crazy or impossible, but it’s SO GOOD for your mental health to take a full day without picking up your phone. You can start small by going an hour or two without it, and work your way up to a whole day. Then, maybe once a month, plan an entire day of no phone/computer time. Go to a park, see a movie with friends, or hit the beach with a good book. It may be uncomfortable at first, but notice how relaxed you feel by the end of the day.
Step 3:
Set restrictions on your devices: You can remove your work email from your phone so you’re not constantly checking it, forcing you to only email when you’re sitting at your computer. You can also set time limits on different apps, like email, task managers, etc.
The Benefits of Balance
Following the above exercises and tips for work-life balance as an entrepreneur will help you find personal-professional harmony.
Once you’ve been working at it for a while, you may notice:
Improved mental and physical health
Enhanced creativity, productivity, and decision-making (which will improve your work!)
Greater job satisfaction and fulfillment (yes, really!)
Stronger personal relationships and overall well-being
Sounds pretty fucking great, right?
As a business coach and therapist in Portland, I get so much satisfaction from helping people find personal-professional harmony and seeing how much it improves their lives and businesses.
The tips and exercises here are a great place to start, but there’s so much more we can accomplish together.
Are you ready to find balance so you can have the work and personal life of your dreams?