Why BUSINESS is not about BUSYNESS

June 9, 2021. Harry Welby-Cooke

One of the biggest problems for business owners is that we convince ourselves that being busy is what business is all about and that as long as we are giving our all, then there is not much else that we can do. While we all know that we need to work smarter rather than harder, the reality is that life always throws us curve balls and we end up reacting to the environment we find ourselves in and going back to our old ways.

The reason for this stems from why we got into business in the first place. When you are starting a business there is a real buzz from getting things off the ground, everything is new and exciting and the dreams that you set off with are still clear in your mind. At this stage you have to work hard, because there is nobody else to do the work and if you don’t do it, it doesn't get done. Unfortunately, herein lies the root of our future problems.

When we are busy like this we usually end up running on high amounts of adrenaline. Pumped up, working long hours and overcoming great challenges and with every win we have we make imprints in our subconscious mind, linking working hard with success and becoming a workaholic.

So if you are a workaholic, what do you do?

Once you are aware that there’s a problem you then have to take ownership of the situation. There is no point in blaming anybody apart from yourself. You can’t blame your team, the bank, the government, the economy or your customers.

So when you are clear that you are in control and can act differently and get a different result what can you actually do to help you wean yourself off your workaholism. The first thing is to be really clear what sort of life you want to lead: how many hours per week, days per year you want to work, what will your team do for you and what would you rather be doing instead of working all the time?

This is really important because if you don’t have something you like better, you will always end up doing what you are doing now, even if deep down you hate it. Now you know what you want, decide the time scale you want this to happen and plan out what needs to happen each quarter in order for you to get there.

Remember, it takes 21 times to create a good habit and the longer you have been a workaholic, the longer is will take you to change your many bad habits. Finally, be honest with yourself and admit it when you need help and embrace it, other people will see you fall back into your old busyness habits far sooner than you do.

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