3 steps to achieving a work-life balance as a small business owner

I often get asked if I ever switch off. The answer is yes. I will happily be off work for a week and not check emails and not have any contact with the team at work. I hardly ever do any work at home and I take regular days off.

This didn't happen overnight, and many people can't ever envisage it happening for them. But if you dream of this being possible for you one day, here are 3 essential steps to getting there.

1) Stop thinking you're indispensable.

You're not. You're not magic. You're a human being with certain skills and knowledge and there are plenty of other human beings who can do what you do. Obviously we're all unique, and some have different skills than others. Some people in your team may need training and time to get up to scratch, but you have to embrace the fact that they can do it in order to move forward and for your business to stand on its own two feet rather than just crushing you under its weight.

2) Not everything will be done how you do it and that's ok.

Let go. There are two facets to this.

One is that mistakes will happen and the sooner we accept that the better. As long as your team gets your brand values and identity, they'll sort the mistakes out satisfactorily. (More on that bit about your team in a minute.) Too many business owners cannot deal with the idea of mistakes or things going wrong. The truth is we live in a very imperfect world, and we often learn the most from mistakes anyway. People need to be able to fall over to learn how to get back up again and do better.

The second is that some stuff will be done differently to how you do it and it will be done better. I suck at many parts of owning Three Little Birds. For example, I never order supplies on time because I hate spending money, which only causes us to do emergency ingredients runs and spend even more money. I'm currently handing over supplies ordering to another staff member who won't have this issue. I am one person in a team of diverse people with loads of experience between them. Do I really think I happen to actually do everything better than everyone else? Absolutely not. My favourite part about hiring is when you see the value someone brings to the company. This goes hand in hand with point one.

3) You have to be willing to have difficult conversations.

The problem about 1) and 2) is that often people can't let go or trust other people because they don't know how to feed back to them when things do go wrong. They would rather burn themselves out doing everything themselves than actually have the awkward chats with their team where you approach mistakes and talk about what needs to be done better next time. You have to cultivate a culture of trust in order to have these conversations, obviously. The team must know they are valued and treated with respect and have a voice within the business. You have to be open as a boss to take difficult feedback on yourself. Your team must be clear on what their mission, values and job descriptions are. And once those things are in place, then you achieve high levels of accountability and therefore high levels of productivity and success. But it all has to be underpinned by a team culture that encourages honest conversations, the admission of fault when need be, and a shared vision to become better together. Egos can't come into it.

I'm aware these are pretty abstract concepts and you may have been looking for a blog on how to write a to do list or hire a VA. I could talk all day about systems and processes and hiring and training - but the truth is, none of that will get you anywhere if you've not embraced the three points above.

If your business doesn't function without you, it's not a business - it's just a super stressful job.

Doesn't it sound amazing to be able to lie on a beach somewhere (maybe Skegness, let's be realistic, we're in a 20 year financial hellscape), and know that the money is still coming in, the stuff is still getting made and the customers are still being served?

If this sounds good and you'd like to know more about how to achieve it - get in touch with me for information about business coaching. The first step is a 10-minute free discovery call - you've got nothing to lose.