Do you sometimes dream about working from a remote beach, sitting in a hammock, sipping your favourite cocktail while making business calls?
In this video tip you will discover how to create your ideal life around your small business.
There are 6 steps you can take right now to come closer to living your ideal life:
1. Get really clear on what your ideal life looks like.
2. Define the small steps in your business that help you get there.
3. Take time out to sit back and look at your business from the outside.
4. Say no more often!
5. Celebrate your achievements along the way.
6. If you really hate your business, build another one you are passionate about (with your ideal lifestyle in mind!)
How does your ideal life look like? Please share your thoughts below.
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Christo: Hey, what have you been up to?
Franziska: Just came back from the beach. What do you do?
Christo: Oh really? Oh, just enjoying life, playing a bit of music.
Franziska: Guns n Roses or…
Christo: Yeah. Just enjoying what you really love in general.
Franziska: Oh, that’s awesome. Today’s lesson is all about creating your business around…
Christo: Your life.
Franziska: Star.
Christo: Your audio life because there is more to business for us to support our life. We can create a business for the sake of creating our business but for small business owners especially. Just creating a business for the sake of creating a business is generally not inspiring enough to keep you moving. Who cares if we create a business? What’s the point? Whereas if it’s going to support the lifestyle that we would like, then it’s going to be more inspiring.
Franziska: And a lot of business owners, when they started out, they do have this ideal lifestyle dream. Maybe they got a job and started their own business so that they could hang out with their families or pickup their kids from school. But then once they get into the business, they realize that, business is actually hard work especially at the beginning to get started and make money. It sounds like it’s really hard work but if you become really clear on your lifestyle and how you want to live. It’s different for everybody else but if you get clear then you can live and work towards that. So, our ideal lifestyle will be to go to the beach and to go surfing, to play music and to hang out with friends and, you know, to travel. And that’s why when we first started our business, it was creating a business around our lifestyle so it fits in with our lifestyle and not the other way around.
Christo: Yeah, that’s right. So you create a lifestyle first. Another tip is you think about what are the little steps that you need to create, to create a business because as Franziska said, you will be busy for a while so you might have to sacrifice a little bit now to create more time later. But as long as you know, as Franziska said, what it is you are working to achieve, then it will be worthwhile. So if there are steps that you have to do now which you’re going to take the time, like maybe you have to create the systems in your business for example that you can then outsource. That creation period might take a little bit of time and you might have to work hard. It might take 6 months to a year, it might take 2 years. But depending on how much assistance you get, if you get a mentor, you get more data and you create the systems more quickly, you might be the one that has to create that. So define the little steps, whatever they are for you and break them into small achievable steps and then get cracking. What else?
Franziska: Well, I also think one thing that can help you get to your ideal lifestyle is to say NO more often.
And that’s something that has to be learned sometimes because sometimes you don’t say ‘no’, you say ‘yes’, ‘yes’, ‘yes’ to everything, to every job that comes in, to everybody that has a request, it’s ‘yes’. So, sometimes you just need to, when you’re clear about your ideal lifestyle, you just say ‘no’. So if your ideal lifestyle includes finishing work at 3 o’clock to go pick up the kids from school and somebody comes and says, “Oh, I want to book in an appointment with you at 3:30.” You just have to say no and say, “Look, I leave at 3 o’clock; either we do it before or tomorrow.” It’s about knowing your boundaries and saying no to people. Say yes to yourself and no to people.
Christo: Yeah, good point. I like it.
Franziska: Anything else?
Christo: And to build your business around your lifestyle, you do need to step out of it from time to time. So, take a little bit of time out for yourself.
Because we’re all getting to the day-to-day activity of our business in our work life, so much so, that it’s almost living like we never pop up for air and think, “Is this going on the right direction, this business of where I want to go?” A good idea on that little tip on this one is to write a weekly action task for every week for your business. What you want to achieve in your business, to start with? Because what you’ll do is you’re wrapping a goal towards things in that weekly plan, which of the things are most important. If you don’t write those kind of bigger goals that you want to achieve throughout the week to get to your long term lifestyle goal then what you’ll do is you’ll just stick you head into the work, head down, bum up, work away for the week and another week just passes by. We all know time is flying.
Franziska: That’s right.
And because time is flying, I think one of the most important thing and the last tip for this video is to celebrate. You have to celebrate your milestones. You have to celebrate your successes. So, if you have achieved something amazing, make sure that you celebrate. Even saying no to a client is worth a little celebration, I reckon it is. So, make sure you celebrate. And celebration doesn’t just mean go and get drunk; it can be anything. A celebration can be going to the zoo.
Christo: Or pat in the back.
Franziska: Or pat in the back. Or for a woman, it could be buying yourself high heels that are maybe, you know, $500, and just don’t tell your husband. You know, celebration can be anything that is fun for you. You define how you want to celebrate.
Christo: Yes, I like it. So, what about you? Tell us about how you would define your ideal lifestyle. What’s your ideal day? Tell us about it, put posts and tips below. We’d love to hear from you.
Franziska: If you like this video, please share it on your social media networks. You can share it on Facebook, on Twitter, on Google Plus. You can even like the video below. And also, please leave us a comment below just so you help us spread the love, and share it with your friends and family. Thank you so much.
Christo: Yes, and if you would like more marketing tips and tricks for small business, go to BasicBananas.com and leave your name and e-mail address and we will definitely send you some cool stuff.