How to Escape the Business Owner Trap

When you look at most business owners, on the
surface they seem to have it all together, but looks can be very deceiving. A
lot of them are actually trapped by their jobs and are miserable. They spend so
much time on their businesses, their personal lives suffer, they have to
constantly work in order to bring in the money. It creates a dynamic where they
actually end up resenting the very thing they dedicated their lives to.

This is especially true for solopreneurs or
people who run very lean startups. A lot of these people create businesses
based on their own personalities, their own unique skills and abilities. While
this brings in a lot of business for them, and works well for them in the
beginning, as the business grows, it starts to eat into their quality of life.

How to
Know You’re Trapped By Your Business



If you’re not doing work, you
don’t make any money. You have no work-life balance, the
job rules your whole life and is destroying your relationships. You have no help in your business,
and you’re everything in your business from CEO to admin.You’re exhausted but you have to
keep going to sustain your business. 

So if you feel like you’re chained to your
business and there’s no way out, here are some steps you can take to make your
life easier.

Focus
on High Value Tasks 

Many people who run businesses don’t actually
have any help. They have no virtual assistant, no part-time assistant, no one
who lightens the load. As a result, they end up spending a lot of time on $10
an hour work, when they could be doing $1000 an hour work. This means you end
up entangled in work that isn’t really growing your business. If you want to
solve this, make a list of all the tasks you do. Mark the tasks that are the
most valuable use of your time and for everything else, hire a virtual
assistant, even a part-time one. You can find a reliable one on Upwork or
Fiverr without much cost to you.

Invest
in Systems

The reason most business owners fail to find any freedom in their business is that they lack systems. Everything they do isn’t predictable and repeatable, so any time they start working with someone new, it’s like starting from scratch. This will completely deplete your creative energy and make it hard for you to produce a consistent work product. To solve this, you have to start building systems. Start documenting the steps of everything you do from start to finish and refine it. Use that system over and over again until it’s your patented way of running the business. Systems allow you to scale yourself out of the work, hire a staff and keep your service consistent. Investing in such tools allows you to multiply your impact and effectiveness without increasing your working hours.

Automation

Technology is there to make your business more efficient, so use it. Find ways to automate the processes in your business so you can start saving yourself time. If you post on one social media platform, automate the process of posting it to other sites without you having to do it. If you handle a lot of contracts and manage them manually, invest in contract management software so you cut the amount of time you spend on those tasks. You would be surprised at how many hours you save by just making those tweaks and changes.

Choose
Whole Life Success

Success isn’t just achieving in business, it’s
also about your health, relationships and mental state. Try to make sure all
the other parts of your life are getting attention. Schedule time off, and
value your family time. When you’re at home be present there and don’t make
your loved ones feel like they are competing with the job. When you realize
that true success is about every aspect of your life, and not just business,
you will shift your priorities accordingly.

As an entrepreneur, you got into this business
for freedom, for you to be able to design the life you want. But when you have
absolutely no time for anything else and the job is frustrating you, that’s a
far cry from freedom. Ultimately, you’re the only person with control over this
and you can make a change to your life. Ultimately, you have to be willing to
make some changes to how you’re living now, so you can live better in your near
future.

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