What Are Your Personal Non-Negotiables in 2022?
Entrepreneurs are a different breed; we all know that. The longer we remain an entrepreneur, the more we relate to and strive for becoming a serial entrepreneur – and the more set in our entrepreneurial ways we get. We love building businesses, and the infectious energy of the startup environment is intoxicating. More is better, especially when we start to taste success in our ventures. Particularly when we taste success, because it’s validation, it’s proof that motivates and inspires us to turn our energy up another notch or two. Opportunity is everywhere, and we have to take full advantage of it! More is definitely better, and quickly.
The Rock group Kiss had a hit song titled Beth in the 1970’s. The lyrics included this:
“Beth, I hear you calling but I can’t come home right now, me and the boys are playing, and we just can’t find the sound, just a few more hours, and I’ll be right home to you…”
Have you told your significant other something similar yet? How many times? Have you missed one of your kid’s events at school, your son’s choir concert or your daughter’s softball game? Have you cancelled a scheduled dinner yet? How did that conversation go? Are your friends wondering if you moved to a different state? Are you working out enough or is work getting in the way of that too?
Let me be clear, I am not about to give you a lecture from Dr. Balance about work/life balance. I was, and am, as guilty in this area as many of you are. I am here to say that entrepreneurs tend to become very singularly focused on building our businesses, and it can easily happen at the expense of everything else in our lives, especially when we see success.
I will definitively say that if you are telling yourself it will get better in the future, you are most likely kidding yourself. I am 60-years old, a serial entrepreneur, and I fight the battle still today. It never ends, but it can get much better if you:
- Decide which aspects of your personal life are Non-Negotiable. Non-negotiable means it is not open for discussion, and you are not willing to compromise.
- Sit back after you finish reading this blog and make a list of everything in your life outside of work that is the most important to you – what you would consider a “must do”. Then highlight the areas you would consider to be non-negotiable moving forward in 2022. Non-negotiable does not mean I’m really going to try, I will try to improve in this area, or I know I should focus more on them. It means, “I will do it and I will commit,” and you prove it by making it non-negotiable.
I coached my boys in baseball from ages 7-15. This was non-negotiable. I did not travel on game days, ever. I scheduled their games and practices on the calendar, and they were off-limits for travel, for 8 years during baseball season.
Go conquer your next entrepreneurial challenge, I know you will. But before you do, schedule your non-negotiables…so what are they in your life for the next 12 months?
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