Are you living to work or working to live?

I use that phrase a lot, it's something my Dad says to me a lot and has done since I was a young woman entering the rat race. Charly, are you living to work or working to live.

It was a reminder that whilst getting money through the door is important, it's not as important as actually living. As a business person, I find that question an important one to ask each and every day.

Are you finding yourself getting up in the morning, starting work, working ALLLLLL day (in your business and for your family), heading to bed and repeating the same thing the next day and the next day and the next day? And .... you're just barely making ends meet, if at all?

Has this pattern gone on for more than a couple of weeks? Is there any sign that this pattern is going to stop in the near future?

If the answer to those questions is yes (and I think I might be hearing some of you saying "ohhhh yes. So this..." Then you're probably living to work.

When this happens, it's hard to break the cycle. But break the cycle you have to. If you don't, you'll find yourself like I found myslef a few years ago. Burned out, unhappy, unhealthy and wondering if anything was worth doing at all.

How do you break the pattern? You need to keep the dollars rolling so you can pay your bills, so you NEED to work. You can't afford to spend anything to get any help ....

Or can you? It's here that I'm going to recommend that you take a break for a day, maybe two. The first thing I found worked for me was to get out - walk bare foot in the grass (maybe not in the Southern states of Australia right now), walk at the beach, go for a cuppa ... just do something that isn't what you usually do. Let your brain and your body remember what it's like to just .... not work.

Then, I'm going to recommend you find someone to coach or mentor you. Someone who can ask you the really hard questions and ... eventually ... get you to the answers.

Now, finding a coach or mentor could take time. In the meantime, sit down and write out ALL the things you do. Make that laundry list of things that you spend your time in your business.

Take that laundry list and prioritise. Be BRUTALLY honest with yourself - what things on that list are really bringing the dollars through the door? Those are your pririority. The others, well, we'll get to those.

Now with that priority list - which ones can you do quickly and bring the majority of your income. Which ones still need doing but you struggle to do?

Finally, which of priority tasks do you enjoy doing and which are the ones that have you finding the mismatched socks to match up?

The ones that you can do quickly are the ones you keep yourself to do in the shortterm. These are your good ROI, return on investment, tasks.

The other ones, I'm going to recommend you find someone that can do them more quickly than you can and get them to do them.

It seems counter intuitive, I know. Paying someone to do something you can do yourself but sometimes, just paying someone to get those 'ugh' tasks done to let you focus on what you do best AND give you a little bit of time back FOR YOURSELF will change your life around.

You might also find getting an accountability buddy helps as well. Another business owner that you sit down with once a week, have a cuppa (or a wine >.>) and go through all these things. Someone who will 'call you out' if you start slipping, someone that you get to call out too, but someone who can understand the struggle as well.

There's so much to delve into on this topic that todays podcast is just skimming the surface of it all. However, you may find employing just these few things makes life a little more .... enjoyable for you.