Whether you are a new business owner or a seasoned entrepreneur, you probably have your own ideas about maintaining a healthy work-life balance. But navigating your professional life, personal goals, marriage, kids, social obligations, and home life can be challenging. If you are struggling to reach a happy medium, here are 5 tips for achieving a good work-life balance.
Cambridge Dictionary defines work-life balance as “the amount of time you spend doing your job compared with the amount of time you spend with your family and doing things you enjoy.” In essence, finding this symmetry means you have your professional life and personal life in perfect balance.
This has been a hot topic, particularly in light of the COVID-19 pandemic, when the lines between work and personal life were blurred. Now in a post-COVID workforce, we are finding a new normal and learning to balance our work and personal lives once again—perhaps even better than before.
If you have kids, a romantic partner, friends, and a business, you can often put yourself last on your list of priorities. That’s why it is essential to create a routine for self-care—some rest and relaxation time that is just for you.
Whether it’s a morning cup of coffee and meditation or walking around the block in the evening before bed, you need to set aside a time that is dedicated to restoring you.
Find a group of fellow business owners who can understand your journey into entrepreneurship. Cultivating a group of peers with whom you can openly discuss your struggles is a great way to learn tips and tricks from folks who understand exactly what you are going through.
Make sure you have someone to hold you accountable to maintain your work-life balance principles. Whether this person is a romantic partner, business partner, friend, or family member, find someone who knows you well enough to tell if you’re not taking enough care of yourself.
You might have your professional calendar organized to a tee, with your meetings and work time all perfectly scheduled. However having an organized calendar for your personal life can help alleviate unneeded chaos or stress.
Write out the dates for important personal items like doctor appointments, any school or extracurricular commitments with your kids, date nights, and vacations. Display the calendar in your home and even get the kids involved; maybe even make it a fun family project.
This could fall under “me-time” but your physical health is a very specific part of your personal life. The bottom line is that if you don’t have your health, you have nothing.
Prioritizing this aspect of your life is essential not only for your own health but also for the health of your business. You want to bring your best self to work, but you can’t do that if you are not physically or mentally healthy.
It is also important that your staff members see you achieve this balance so they can feel inspired to follow suit. Establish good eating habits, a consistent exercise routine, and time for prayer or meditation. Investing this time in yourself will be returned to you through your successful business!
Now, we know that this perfect work-life balance isn’t always possible. Sometimes work takes precedence and dominates your life, or your personal life will bleed into your work life.
However, implementing these work-life balance tips can help you navigate any turbulent periods of your personal or professional life. Sometimes scales tip one way or the other, but with hard work and dedication, balance can be restored!
To hear more about work-life balance from energyhill’s co-founders Ryan and Gloria Lowe, check out our podcast recording on Youtube.
Achieving a healthy balance as a business owner can be incredibly challenging. But relying on design and marketing experts can not only simplify the process but also save you time, money, and effort.
And after a decade of providing expert design and marketing services to our clients, energyhill is just getting started! Contact us to learn how our award-winning marketing and design team can help your business grow.
At Energyhill, we’re passionate about helping organizations of all sizes achieve their goals. Recognizing that growing a business from a small startup to a large corporation is challenging, we strive to be there every step of the way, assisting with design, advertising, video, and more. Additionally, we provide consulting help to ensure you’re taking your company in the right direction. Read on to learn our tips for managing business growth in a way that’s effective and affordable.
Trying to grow your business the right away? It helps to set goals that you can achieve in a reasonable amount of time. With that in mind, we recommend that companies use the SMARTER method for business growth. In other words, make sure your objectives are Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic, and Time-framed. Lastly, commit to Evaluating your progress every quarter to ensure you’re moving in the right direction and then consider a Re-do, or adjustment, if your tactics aren’t bringing about the desired outcome.
It’s impossible to achieve successful business growth if you don’t truly know your market. Before putting money into hiring new employees or exploring different revenue streams, take time to understand the customers you already have. Learn what they want and how they act in order to assess your ideal market niche.
You’ve probably heard that your business is only as strong as the people it employs. Give yourself the best shot at success by hiring the right workers from the outset. Remember to look beyond skills and qualifications on a resume to find individuals who fit well with the company culture. After all, it’s a lot easier to teach someone how to use WordPress than to educate them on the importance of community-mindedness. Once you’ve located these superstar employees, make an effort to keep them around by providing regular feedback (including praise) and offering opportunities for advancement.
Looking for sales training or business planning? Maybe you need help rebranding your business to accommodate a change in leadership. Whatever your business goals, the team at Energyhill can help. Using both quantitative and qualitative methods, we help organizations set and achieve their objectives. To learn more about business consulting services, call today or contact us online.
Social media has rapidly become an integral tool for most businesses. Due to its unprecedented reach and its amazing growth, it is easy for small business owners - and even some larger business owners - to be overwhelmed by all the options. Plus, even if you choose the one or two platforms you think are the best fit for your brand, how do you approach them? Below are the top four social media guidelines for business owners.
Remember, people post their best in personal profiles - the latest selfie that looks particularly dashing or the most recent family portrait. However, just as you shouldn't compare your family to someone else's, don't compare your business either. There is always going to be an organization that is better, older, younger, smarter, better looking, etc.
This is a pitfall you must avoid. You don't get any points for comparison. Avoid letting doubts creep in and overwhelm your brain. Just because company X does one thing, doesn't mean it's right for you. And that's okay.
Most of all, remember why you started your business. Be confident in what you do.
Social networks need to be managed - post and pray isn't going to get you far. Managing your networks means replying to and giving feedback to people, removing inappropriate comments, setting ground rules, answering questions, generating leads and more. This is where the 'social' in social networking comes in.
A big question that people ask about managing social networks is whether to reply to everything, even negative comments. Chloe, our SEO and Advertising Lead, wrote a great article on our blog about the “BEST 7 WAYS TO DEAL WITH NEGATIVE CUSTOMERS”. Click the link to find out more about handling less than positive feedback. Here are the two main takeaways:
Remember, saying “I hear you” does not admit fault, you are just being proactive.
As an agency, we suggest using the following networks: Facebook, Google+, Twitter, LinkedIn and Instagram.
When building your organization's social networks remember to put time into them. Don't feel like you need to do all of them at once. In addition, it's important to only select the networks you can think you can handle. Your social networks sites (SNS) should be managed or monitored to make them most effective.
It might also benefit your business to consider a mix of first, second and third tier networks. Each requires its own amount of attention and strategy.
First Tier Social Networking Sites
Second Tier Social Networking Sites
Third Tier Social Networking Sites
There are a handful of other tertiary social media networks that are worth mentioning. However, none of them has the traffic yet to provide significant impact to your social media strategy.
Find your biggest, loudest, best fans and ask them to write a testimonial on your social networks. Think of testimonials as digital word of mouth - still one of the most effective forms of advertising. If used correctly, testimonials illustrate someone's personal experience working with you and their brand.
When you are asking for a testimonial, make it easy. Give customers a link to where you want them to write about you whether it's your website, product detail page or one of your social networking sites. Also, check out these tips on customer testimonials.
To find out more about social media guidelines and how to best manage it for your business, we invite you to contact Energyhill today. Also, follow us online. Our handle is @energyhill. And, if you follow us on Instagram during the months of October, November and December, Energyhill with give you $100 in Google Ads credit.
