Professional, professional, professional.
All my post up until this point, have dealt with informing you on the professional side of business. What to expect, how to cope, what to do and where to find more information. However, professionalism isn’t the only thing businesses encompasses, there's another important half. I am talking about a personal life.😱
See when working on any professional career, you want to ensure that you are doing everything right, devote time and money to your profession and try to completely submerse yourself into your occupation.
But. You still have to maintain … or try to maintain a personal life. Checking up on family, going out, seeing your friends, maybe having a significant other; you need to learn how to balance it all.
I must have overlooked this because I have no personal life, in fact my professional life is my personal life. I almost completely abandoned hanging out with friends, calling family and just being social. My personal life had summed up to listening to podcasts while getting ready in the morning😬. I know, pathetic.
Being a woman, as well, I began to think about long term cost of being an entrepreneur. Right now, I just don’t go out as much and prefer to spend my weekends glued to my laptop creating content. But what about my future?
I created a “Life Plan”, a set of goals I wanted to accomplish within the next decade. It was for an entrepreneurship class and it took me a long to time to create it. It was perfect. I created the perfect plan, lifestyle and goals that were relatively easy to accomplish with hard work, obviously.
It wasn’t until I began hearing my classmates “Life Plans” that I really began to question mine.
“…and then I will take a break to start a family and get married…”
“… I will probably take off from work during this time to raise my kids…”
“… it is very important to me to have the option to work at home so I can be with my wife and kids...”
“… me and my boyfriend want to have a kid hopefully after I get into my career…”
My Life Plan didn’t include a family, or kids, or a husband, or a boyfriend or fun for that matter. It was all work. Yikes.
As I became distant from my friends and family, my only crutch is my business. When I am stressed, I work on my business. When I am tired, I work on business. When I am hungry, I eat then work on my business. I developed the habit of working on my business no matter what I was feeling. This sounds beneficial, but in retrospect, it’s not.
As humans we need that emotional connection with others, it satisfies us in more than one way. We can empathize with others over our commonalities, we can receive happiness when others encourage and uplift us and most importantly you can talk to others about dumb things and just laugh.😂
Although I was missing that for a while, I found some ways to connect. Even on when I was exhausted from class, my job and this start-up, I would make it a priority to go out or text my friends. It is important to let the people who love you know that they are significant members of your life.
While connecting with your family and friends is imperative for your functioning, some people aren’t. Being a business owner and a goal oriented person differs you from the rest. Especially when you are a start-up. You are on call 24/7. Whatever happens or doesn’t happen to your business is on you.
With this you need to surround yourself with people who not only understand the demand of being an entrepreneur but can deal with it. This is where the “friend-cuts✂️” or removing people from your life begin happening.
Some people who are needy, dependent or desperate for your attention are not the kind of friends or significant others that you need. They will never be satisfied with the ratio of your work life and their relationship with you unless you are giving them more (in my personal opinion.)
For me, the friend-cut, cut deep with me losing my best friend of 7 years. I could not devote the amount of time I used to on him and I honestly didn’t want to. I was creating my dream, and he knew it. I tried to give him the same attention I did before, but the frequency and alertness I once had, I could not give anymore. It was hard.
I wanted to be able to work on business 60% and devote 40% of my other time to everything else, this did not suffice for him and so we had to part. The only advice I can give is to be smart and to know yourself. You know your habits, you know things you are willing to change and things you don’t want to change. Evaluate all the relationships in your life and decide whether or not it is a good one.
This means thinking about how the person makes you feel, the types of conversations you have, do they believe and understand your vision, are you both willing to compromise, can they compromise? Really think about who you are around and if they able to withstand the test of being in a relationship with a visionary.
Some of your friends may not be and that is okay. Other friends are on board and will give you full support. It also got me thinking about the person I would (in the very distant future) marry or date. I have to strategically choose a person who is ready for the hectic life I chose to be living.
Side Note: Launching in 9 days😅
Personal life is essentially and crucial to you as a person. Choose wisely and do not be afraid of losing someone☝🏾.
P.S. Hopefully the “emojis” I used, helped you understand my emotional state.
Song- I’m Alright (Cudelsac)
“… and my friends come and ask me if it’s worth it, I tell them that it better be I did this thing on purpose. The worst is being worthless, now a girl is priceless...”
- Childish Gambino
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