Mind if I get a little personal today?

Yesterday, I got back from a 3 week “sabbatical”.

In the 7 years since I started this business, it was the first time I took a real vacation (where I wasn’t checking on my team in Slack or looking through emails).

I’m not proud of this, but it’s what I was doing.

I had work on the brain all the time.

And it was stressing me out.

You think when you get bigger and make more money, you won’t be stressed out anymore… but I can tell you the stakes just get higher. :)

It took my doctor having to tell me I was too stressed out and needed to take a vacation for me to listen.

And if you’re feeling that tension, this is a conversation I want to have with you because it’s so relevant to what’s going on with me right now.

How can we “hustle” or work hard in a healthy way so that we’re making the most of the time that we’re dedicating to our work and then we can set aside work to rest and recharge? Here are some thoughts.

  1. If you’re hungry, stop and eat. If you’re someone who is feeling the burnout or you’ve gotten to the point, like I did, where you’re feeling the physical repercussions of your overworking tendencies… it’s time to stop. You can’t be creative when you’re in this state either. And it applies to daily work life as well as in general. Rick Warren has a great outlook on this called divert daily, withdraw weekly, and abandon annually. I love how he explains this.
  2. Understand what you want. What do you really want from your business or brand? If it’s more followers… you’re always going to want more followers. What do you want to do with those followers? A good way to start reflecting on this is to ask yourself if money were not an issue — how would you want to spend your days? What do you do from the time you wake up to when you go to sleep? Does meaningful work make you come alive? How much do you want to work? How much family time do you want? You can start think about this or jot some ideas down in a journal. But it’s get somewhere that you don’t know you’re going, so start thinking about it!
  3. Start. Don’t know what to do and find yourself procrastinating? Just start. Nothing builds confidence like action. Even if you feel really dumb at first… at least you did it and you get better every time you take action.
  4. Take risk. Invest in yourself! Invest in your business. We all need mentors and to learn from people. Your time, energy, and resources need to be invested in where you know you need investing, but you also need to take risks to know what you’re capable of. I love what Lennon, a fellow strategist on my team, shares about this on our podcast.
  5. LOVE what you do! Okay, so you won’t always love everything about what you do, but overall you really should be enjoying the work you’re doing. You don’t have to hate “the grind”. Don’t punish yourself. You can enjoy the process. Don’t just try to breeze past it.
  6. Examine what’s working. What’s resonating the most with your audience? Can you let go of some things that aren’t working or you’re not enjoying? Can you hire someone to take on what you’re not enjoying? Can you just say no to some things right now? Only you can make these decisions.

I can tell you post break that this is something I’m going to take a lot more seriously and establishing good boundaries with work and my personal life.

Is this something you are or have struggled with?

In the digital age, it’s hard to disconnect, but I think it’s so important to our health as creators.

Thanks for reading this one! I appreciate you.

Keep changing lives,

Tim

CREATOR SPOTLIGHT: Carlos Devis grew his channel from 40,000 subscribers to 250,000 subscribers in less than a year. He shares the main things that contributed to his growth in this episode. Check out his channel here: https://www.youtube.com/c/carlosdevis/

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