My Small Business Mantra
I’m not much for posters with inspirational messages, but I would make an exception for this one: Self-Control is Empathy With your Future Self. Hearing this quote from one of my clients was a big awakening moment for me as I traversed the reality of ‘being my own boss’.
As a consultant for small business owners, I am also an entrepreneur. I experience many of the same challenges that my clients face. Just like many of my clients, I wanted to be an entrepreneur, so I could be my own boss. I wanted to be in control, decide who I was going to work with, and the hours I was going to work. FREEDOM!
But the reality is - if you are bad at managing your freedom, you will pay the price quickly. Without self-control, you won’t get very much done. If you’re not getting much done, it’s unlikely that your business will succeed.
This was the state I found myself in last winter. Even though I was at my desk all day, I wasn’t accomplishing nearly enough. At best, I was spending lots of time doing easy, low value business tasks. At my worst, I was reading interesting articles, daydreaming about my ideal house, or googling removable wallpaper to decorate my new home office.
By not doing enough value-add work each day, and not reaching my goals, I started feeling a lot of anxiety and guilt. This drained me and made me less motivated to work; it was a vicious cycle. Then I heard the idea Self Control is Empathy for your Future Self, and I felt inspired. I was only hurting my future self when I allowed my current self to avoid work. I needed to create more discipline and get more done each day. Only by doing that could I be proud of what I accomplished and see progress in my business. To get ‘freedom from anxiety tomorrow’, I needed to do more work today.
Of course, everything didn’t suddenly change. It took about 3 months of reading, talking to other entrepreneurs, and exploring what works for me to create a deeper sense of self-control. Now I work from a fairly rigid schedule starting around 7:30 AM, but I actually spend fewer hours at my desk because I get more done when I’m there. I’m exercising regularly, and even meditating which is something I never had the focus to do in the past.
I don’t have the perfect formula to get you to your place of ‘self-control’. I think that’s a journey each entrepreneur needs to take themselves. You need to be willing to do the research, ask questions, and try different strategies to find what works for you. However, from one of the world’s greatest procrastinators (my mom says it’s genetic), I want to promise you that it is possible to create the self-control you need to reach your goals as an entrepreneur.
And here’s a little secret - Self-control is Freedom! It may seem counterintuitive, but when you finish what needs to be done, you feel great about yourself, have less anxiety, and will have more time to do the things you want to do. By giving up interesting articles and wallpaper searches, I now have time to go kayaking, meet friends for lunch, and I even take Friday’s off! For me, that’s exactly the freedom I was seeking when I became an entrepreneur.
If you would like some help on your journey toward self-control, Climb Book Club is here to help. I hope you will join our community and accelerate your journey toward entrepreneurial freedom!
