Tips for Maintaining Holistic Balance When Running Your Own Business

 

Running your own business can be a remarkably positive, powerful, and uplifting thing to do.

For one thing, it puts you in a position of true autonomy, where you are in control of your own destiny in a way that you simply aren’t if you are working a conventional job.

For another thing, running your own business allows you to express your own creative vision, and put something out into the world that you are truly proud of.

Of course, running your own business also comes with various challenges – and perhaps one of the most common of those challenges is the issue of striking the right holistic balance in your life to prevent burnout.

Just as it’s a good idea to consider holistic solutions to practical concerns, such as solar thermal energy, it’s equally important to do the same with regards to the microcosm of our own lives.

Here are some tips for maintaining holistic balance when running your own business.

 

Focus primarily on your short-term obligations, with longer-term goals being signposts

Many people in general – and many entrepreneurs in particular – run themselves into the ground and lose the right sort of balance in their everyday lives, primarily because they are totally fixated on achieving their lofty long-term goals, to the exclusion of the present moment.

While it’s certainly necessary to have a long-term vision, and some long-term goals, in order to run a successful business – freeing yourself from the stress and perpetual future-focus that goes along with this is very important if you want to safeguard your well-being.

A good solution is to focus primarily on your short-term obligations in the day-to-day – such as the to-dos and routines you need to attend to that day – and to use your longer-term goals primarily as signposts and reference points that you don’t fixate on.

 

Keep set routines for mealtimes, sleep, and the end of the work day

To maintain any sort of holistic balance in your life, it is essential to maintain certain set routines that help to structure your time, and prevent eroding the lines that separate your personal and professional lives.

The most important routines to keep in place are likely to be regular meal times, a regular sleep and wake schedule, and a set time each day when you will end the working day and have time to spend by yourself and with your family and loved ones.

 

Batch tasks together and let yourself get caught up in the flow of the projects you’re working on

The concept of a “flow state,” describes a psychological frame of mind where we are fully engaged in a task, and have the sensation of our sense of self fading into the background.

“Flow states” feel very good, and they are typically states we associate with the greatest degree of creativity and true productivity.

To optimise these flow states, batch similar tasks together in your professional life so that you can really engross yourself in them, and then switch your attention fully to something else when you’re done.