This holiday season marks my 3-year anniversary in the
Internet Marketing business. Of course, on such
anniversaries we all ask ourselves: Am I better off now then
when I started? My enthusiastic answer is: By far :-) That
automatically raises another anniversary question: Am I
where I want to be? My answer, thoughtful but still
enthusiastic, is: Not quite ;-)
Sound familiar? Or maybe you haven't gotten to the "better
off" part yet. Regardless of how you answer these two
introspective questions, my piece of advice to you this
holiday season is the same: Take some time off. Relax,
enjoy your family, regroup your thoughts and goals and
decide what is really important to you, your personal life,
and the lives of those most important to you.
This piece of advice, like most advice I give, comes from
personal experience. I have been running around like crazy
for the past three years growing this Internet business.
Granted, it has paid off well, in many visible ways, but at
what personal price?
My children miss their mommy, my husband feels the pressure
of his long hours at work, compared to all the work here at
home (which I can't always attend to because of my own
business time and focus requirements), and I can feel my
good health slowly diminishing.
Many organizers and time management specialists will tell
you that if your life, as a whole, is not running smoothly
then your neglected areas will suffer. And how true that is!
If the kids ain't happy, nobody in the house is going to be
happy. If your spouse isn't happy, then how can you truly be
happy? If all the ongoing work and resultant unhappiness in
the family cause you to be unhappy, how effectively do you
think you will perform your job? Not well at all!
And what do you, as owner-operator of your own web business,
think happens when your health fails? Not much! Most jobs
in the "real world" include someone who is there to take
your place while you are out sick. But when you run your
own business, nobody is hovering in the wings, ready to take
up the slack and keep the operation humming.
I have personally been putting off having my wisdom teeth
extracted for over a year. I haven't seen my gynecologist
since my daughter was born three years ago, and my
once-religious exercise routine has ceased to exist as
pounds keep getting measured by my unforgiving, depressingly
honest bathroom scale. All in the name of entrepreneurship.
Some people would call that extreme dedication, laziness or
even a unique late-twentieth century form of mental illness!
I'm not even sure what I consider it anymore. What I have
realized is that taking time off can be like recharging dead
(but rechargeable) batteries. Accomplishing even the
simplest of tasks with dead batteries can be a chorenearly
impossible. But take time to recognize the problem, put in a
fresh set and you can get three times the work done
effortlessly.
This past Thanksgiving weekend I spent a glorious three
nights at the Wilderness Resort Lodge in the Wisconsin
Dells. Just my husband and I and our children, enjoying the
water park, horseback riding and getting away from the
stress with other activities we found open in the
off-season. It was great!
Am I totally refreshed? No, not yet. But I plan to be as I
am not going to come back fully from vacation until after
the new year. One thing this mini-vacation made me realize
is that I am not happy if I miss out on what I normally view
as the "important stuff." I say normally view because when I
have my entrepreneur mindset on I experience complete tunnel
vision. I don't even realize what I'm missing because all I
have my eyes on are all the opportunities to grow my
business on the little glowing electronic screen in front of
me.
But I don't want to miss Christmas with the kids this year.
I want to truly experience the holidays this season, not
just try to plan them around my busy work schedule. I don't
even want to miss the upcoming, once in a lifetime "turn of
the century".
Now, what does this mean to my business? Does it hurt my
growth? Probably in the short run. Revenues won't be up but
they certainly won't dip down low enough to really worry me.
This, by the way, is one of the nicest things about an
Internet business :-)
But how will this reaffirmation that I am something more
than a slave to Internet possibilities eventually help my
business? Easy... when I do come back to full time work my
health will be improved, I'll feel better about myself and
my family, and I'll have a clear head. I'll most likely
return to accomplish tasks that I have struggled with
previously in record time, just because of my recharged,
revitalized mental state.
So how can you apply this advice in your own life?
If you have already burnt yourself out and feel that you are
spinning your wheels, force yourself to take a break. You
don't have to push and push and push yourself in order to
prove you can be successful. It will come eventually, and
when it finally does march into your life, you should want
to be able to handle it. Wouldn't it be a shame if success
finally knocked on your door but you were too tired and
mentally exhausted to remember your early dreams, and be in
a condition to take advantage of that success? Of course it
would be.
History is full of sad examples of people who started out
with a dream, pursued that dream relentlessly, and used all
their talents and time. Somehow, when they arrived at the
end of the rainbow, they were either too tired, or too
bogged down by worries that they were going to lose it, that
they couldn’t even enjoy the colors, much less the contents
of that allegorical kettle. You probably have worked for
people like that. So you know it’s not an uncommon
phenomenon. Just don't let it happen to you.
If you haven't yet fully launched your Internet business,
and you're feeling burnt out just from the pre-launch phase,
then I say enjoy this last holiday of the millennium with
gusto. There will be plenty of other sacrifices ahead in
your first few years of business.
If you haven't already gotten in on this year’s Christmas
Ecommerce train it is almost too late to do much anyway.
Christmas shoppers will be making their online purchases
over the next couple of weeks. After that they will turn to
the safety of the retail stores for any last-minute gifts.
So if you haven't launched by now, chances are the smart
thing to do is just relax and enjoy this last 1999 holiday.
We receive mixed messages in many of the publications we
regularly read. Some writers say stop procrastinating and
make sacrifices or you'll get nowhere. Then you have writers
like me who encourage you to stop and smell the roses
occasionally. Ultimately, of course, you have to do what you
feel is right for you and your particular circumstances.
I just know that for me and a few other well-known marketers
I've talked to, taking some time off provides us with a
much-needed renewal of our entrepreneurial batteries.
About the Author
Lisa Schmeckpeper of LRS Marketing
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