Last week, I started a weekly Q&A video series where I’ll be answering your biggest questions on business, leadership, and life each Thursday. Today’s question came out of a conversation I had with Rory Vaden, author of Take the Stairs: 7 Steps to Achieving True Success
“To be successful in business…”
I responded with, “You have to understand that your business is what you do, not who you are.” This lesson comes up time and time again during my Business Coaching sessions and Strategic Planning events, and I wanted to share it with you. Watch the complete answer here, and check out CLo.TV to see last week’s Q&A series video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?=vTgbJ5LoUgk0
To see the music video that was in the clip, click here.
Question: How do you find balance between work & life?
“Discipline creates freedom.” – Rory Vaden
So true! When you’re working hard, concentrating on excellence, and pouring yourself into your work, it’s easy to mistakenly wrap your identity in your work. However, we need to find balance to our lives wholistically (Zig Zigler’s wheel of life), instead of letting our work define us. The great thing is, we’re created in the image of God. What did He do? He created the universe and rested from His labor. We were created to create and enjoy the fruit of our labor. That is one of the attributes He put in us to reflect His glory. The problem…? We can let creating/work become our purpose and identity instead of our letting our identity be found in glorifying Him in every area of our lives.
Amen Maxwell!! Well said!
Great answer Chris. I find it hard to balance work and life sometimes because I have a day job…after that I work on my business and my projects. Those are the things I LOVE doing, so it’s easy to fill every waking minute before and after work and on weekends with that–and neglect my family.
I think you just have to set boundaries. I have begun not working much at all on the weekends to make time for my wife and kids.
I’m far from perfect, but I have a good wife who reminds me to take time with her and the kids.
Thanks for the great, simple counsel!
It’s tough in the beginnings of a business. Sometimes you have to work a little harder to get it going, so you don’t have to lose as much time later on.
For me it’s easy to get absorbed into work because I do something I love and it fits my skills and passion. My day job and my business are very connected and it’s hard to decide when to pull the plug for the day. Life right now is off balance and I know this is the season of planting seeds. I am looking forward to shifting gears and spending more time growing my career and business rather than hustling to get them going.
My family time is limited and it revolves around the needs of my very young children. There are days when I know I’m spread quite thin. I don’t want to leave them and my husband behind. Rather than balancing, I’m juggling.
I’m sure I’ll replay this video frequently as a good reminder. Thanks, Chris!
Absolutely Lil!
Nice! Love it. I almost fell into this trap. I actually had to step back and take a Sabbatical to readjust and reorganize my priorities. And had to add some values and pillars to keep things in their place.
It happens to so many of us Ricardo! It did me.
I wonder if social media makes this harder for people? We create a business and put it out there in various ways via social media where we know people see it, and much of the time the lack of response is painful. And we take it personally. Hmmmm………
HAHAHA…so tempting to not respond to this. 🙂
Ditto. I had to leave that one alone. lol!
You are touching a delicate spot here! lol
Such great advice!
Thanks Tammy!
To be successful . . . yeah God first, Family second, Business third. Don’t let your business (or anything else for that matter) be a distraction to the first two.
Amen!!
So interesting to hear you say this Chris. Very impactful for me personally!
I’ve always taken my job so seriously and it has always been a big part of who I am. What a great reminder that there should be some separation there. Probably easier said than done.
Balance Daniel-sahn.
Thanks, Chris. It’s too easy to define ourselves by what we do. I’m constantly working to make a better balance. Working a job while building a business takes a lot of time and energy. I sometimes need little reminders like this.
Great Video Chris. Really hard as a business owner not to get out of balance. I need help in this the most as I usually push until I get burnt out and then back off. Thanks for the reminder.
Hey Chris. Great point about differentiating who you are from what you do and not over-personalizing it.
I would take it one step further (maybe in a future post) and make the distinction between communicating WHAT you do versus WHY you do it when it comes to your customers.
After all, according to Simon Sinek, the WHY you do what you do is the reason people buy, not the WHAT.