Balance in entrepreneurship and family

Work/life balance – I wonder who came up with this name.
It sounds like separating work and life. While work is part of our lives.

At Wikipedia you can read:

Work–life balance is a concept including proper prioritizing between “work” (career and ambition) and “lifestyle” (Health, pleasure, leisure, family and spiritual development/meditation)

Balans bedrijf gezin

In this Wikipedia article on work/life balance you can also read:

One of the aspects of happiness is when you can make as little distinction as possible between your work and your play

The optimal combination of work and life makes you happy.

It is not all about work, even when you really, really like what you do. A risk that you and I have as an independent professional. We do what we like and like what we do.

Work/life balance is therefor also important for entrepreneurs. A good balance in entrepreneurship and life is maybe even more important for you and me compared to employees at a company.

We choose for entrepreneurship because we want to do it differently. We have an idea that we can use to improve the world. We can completely loose ourselves in this. We are going to prevent this.

You have a family that you want to spend time with too, time and attention for your partner and your children.

What makes you happy?

There are other things that play a role in our happiness.

The things that have less influence on our happiness than we think are, money, beauty, youth, intelligence and education.

Five things that have a lot more influence on our happiness than we expect are:

  • self-esteem,
  • social skills,
  • free time, (as in you can control your time)
  • volunteering and
  • humor.

(see 5 unexpected tips for happiness for more information on this)

5 pilars for a well-rounded life

We all want to be happy and are pretty selfish about this. We think about ourselves first. What makes ME happy?

The things that make us happier than we think will be covered in the 5 pillars for a well-rounded life.

These 5 pillars are: supporting yourself, your family, your business, your community, and creating a better world.

5 pillars for a well-rounded life for the independent professional

By the way the family and business balance is nothing new for me. I am working for years on this. This is the first time that I am able to word it and share it with you.

It is a accentuation of what I have been working on for a while now. All parts that I have been working on so far, like Attracting Clients, fit in this model.

A few suggestions of what you can do in these pillars that contribute to a better balance in entrepreneurship and family.

Supporting yourself

The first pillar is attention for yourself. Create time and space for you.

Rest. Close the electronics devices two hours before you go to bed. Sleep 7-8 hours each night. Enough rest and sleep contributes to a good and energetic feeling during the day.

Exercise plenty and regularly. Work on building at the least one hour physical exercise in your daily schedule. Walk every day for 5-7 km. Plan the exercise at moments of the days when your energy is low and you get less work done.
One person likes to start the day with exercise and the other needs some exercise in the afternoon at 3pm.

Another tip is to read books of various topics. It opens the creative part of your brain. When you start your day with this you will have more creative thinking power for the rest of the day.

Read 15-20 pages every day, and you will finish an average book in 15 days. This ads up to 24 books in a year. The average entrepreneurs or CEO reads 2-5 books per year.

Supporting your family

This is an important part for me. Next to attention for me and my business, I need to make time and space for my family.

Talk with your partner about the goals of your company. What do you want to accomplish with your business. Also talk about the financial goals of your business, in the short and long run. This way your partner knows what to expect from you and your business.

Stay in contact with your spouse about the business. How is the business doing and what developments do you see. What revenues do you expect in the next months. Do this when you are doing well so you can share your success.

Do this also when things are a bit rough. My experience is that your partner has a different view on the situation than you do and may have some good ideas to change the situation. Even when it takes some effort to listen to these ideas that are not yours. Or is that just me?

I am an optimistic person and my wife is more realistic (down to earth). Sometimes it is better to wait with sharing some positive news when they are not 100% concrete. Maybe you recognize this?

Supporting your business

As an independent professional, an entrepreneur, of course your business gets your attention. Without the business you are no longer an entrepreneur.

This is part of the series and I will write 5 articles about supporting your business.

As you can see below, the following topics are coming up:

  • Choose your target audience for focus
  • Build your hub so clients can find you
  • Contact with your target audience
  • In the center of your target audience: LinkedIn
  • In the center of your target audience: Facebook

Supporting your community

As mentioned earlier the things that makes you happier for a longer time are for example social skills and volunteering.

Volunteering for the community you can improve your social skills. You can use this experience and skills in your business.

Offer yourself as volunteer in the community. Look for things close to home. Help at your children’s school. Support the sporting club of your children with your expertise.

Get an education at the sporting club as jury or referee. You are supporting the sporting club, see your children at their activities and you learn new things.

Creating a better world

I believe that we all want to leave this world a better place than when we came on it. Everyone has there own mission in life to improve the world.

My mission in life is to help independent professionals to find a rich balance in entrepreneurship and family. Rich balance means enough money to live and enough time with the family.

What is your mission in life and how do you contribute to a better world?

Point of attention
Discuss with your partner how much time you will spend at each of the 5 pillars. How much time and space does your partner require to develop in the same way. What is the effect of this on your time for the children

Listeners series

The article above is the first articles in the listeners series on how you can tell your story and attract listeners and clients.

The 7 articles will help you to take the next step and there is more for you 🙂 Why? I want to help you to find a rich balance in entrepreneurship and family.

The next article will be published Thursday and will be about choosing your target audience.

Series:

  • Attracting clients and time for your family
  • Balance in entrepreneurship and family
  • Choose your target audience and focus
  • Build your hub so the client can find you
  • Contact with your target audience
  • In the centre of your target audience: LinkedIn
  • In the centre of your target audience: Facebook

Mission in life

What is your mission in life?
Share it with the world in the comments below. Show the world what you and your business stand for.

Credit foto: It’s a balancing act

By Erno Hannink

Sparring and accountability partner for entrepreneurs who create sustainable positive impact. Explores decision-making. Shares his insights on this in, articles, books (Dutch), podcast, newsletters, and tools. Has a life mission to reduce social and ecological inequality. Father of two children, husband of M., runs, referee for the national soccer league, and uses stoicism for calm. Lives in the Netherlands. Speaks Dutch, English, and German.