Unspoken risks associated with starting your own lifestyle business

People talk about the dangers of starting your own business.

But usually only in financial terms do we consider the risk.

I’ve been working for months alongside my brother to get our new WordPress service off the ground.

Countless hours a week at my desk creates a daily ritual of just working – not how lifestyle design was supposed to be.

Working on your own enterprise means you must do for yourself the things typical work schedules might have built-in. e.g.:

• Planning. Depending on your job, your day is already planned for you by your manager. Usually you plan your day around…
• Working hours – normally fairly standard. If you’re late into the office, you get a rap on the knuckles, so you’re not late again. This helps create a daily…
• Routine. Daily routine is critical to sustained productivity – you know when you work, and when you can be…
• Social.

The last of the 4 examples is one that I’ve certainly overlooked with regards lifestyle oriented business (irony?) and I’d argue it’s the most important .

Working for yourself is unsocial and unsustainable

That ‘hello’ you give/receive when you arrive to the office, and (depending on how friendly your colleagues are) that shared lunch break, smoke break, coffee break etc. are all important to your mental health.

We all need good human contact.

Your life kinda sucks ass without it.

I’ve fallen into the trap of just seeing the work in front of me and doing it. I want the product/service out, so I work silly hours without taking breaks, neglecting relationships and in general losing my perspective.

Let me tell you, that’s a shit place to be.

How to not start your own business

The work is important. Obviously. If you don’t work, you don’t get paid. So it’s gotta be done.

Word to the wise (and myself): Working for yourself is a complete waste of time when you don’t integrate the necessary human element into your life.

You must make the efforts socially as focusing solely on work will stunt growth of nearly all relationships.

You will lose your perspective, start making silly decisions, lose the plot over a girl, stop exercising, stop eating healthy, or all of the above.

Without “the humans”, it makes a mockery of the whole lifestyle design element of your work choice. If you don’t have people to share in your new-found lifestyle and freedom, you may as well have a 9-5 job – at least that way you’ll see other people.

This post is as much a reminder to myself as anyone who has cared to read this far. 🙂

If you’re working for yourself or considering it, remember to keep somewhere in the fore, that:

you quit your day job because you want the freedom of choice having your own business will create for you – just don’t choose the work.

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Tagged as: balance, lifestyle business