Entrepreneurship and work-life balance

“There is no such thing as work-life balance. Everything worth fighting for unbalances your life.” 

Alain de Botton

Entrepreneurs are not regular employees with fixed schedules and 9 to 5 working hours. It is much more difficult for them to find the golden middle of their workload. Basically any work-life balance advice that can be given to a regular employee is not going to work for entrepreneurs.  “Work smart AND hard” is probably the best advice we can give to them.

Startup founders rare fall in some other business model pattern besides the one of entrepreneurship. This is the reason why we have to take a closer look at the sensitive matter of work-life balance and try to explore it through the eyes of an entrepreneur. To avoid any extreme consequences still there are some things that entrepreneurs need to pay attention to even though there is no such a thing as complete work-life balance for ambitious and especially for beginner entrepreneurs.

Avoid complete burnout

In order to play all the key major roles at the startup often entrepreneurs overload themselves with some extreme work hours and busy schedules. Sometimes the hard work is not productive and often leads to scary outcomes as complete burnout and physical and mental inability to continue. Try to see when enough work and sleepless hours are enough, take care of your health and avoid the possibility of complete burnout.

Prioritize

Entrepreneurship is a life mission and not everyone is ready to succeed in this venture. Be ready to make sacrifices and organize your priorities. You are more likely to miss many social occasions, but be smart and choose which ones are acceptable to be missed. Good prioritizing and strong judgment of what is important can help you balance much better your life as entrepreneur.

Listen to your inner voice

One thing often stays unnoticed when we talk about work-life balance in the entrepreneurship world and this is the factor of passion and ambition. Entrepreneurs cannot just go away from their companies and give themselves complete break especially when the startup is in beginning stage. Entrepreneurs often think as “time off” the time spent out of office, but still their “free” time is devoted to the business sphere of their startup. Attending meetings, seminars, networking events can seem as time to recharge but be careful and make sure that your body and brain are really relaxed and refreshed. Entrepreneurs feel strong connection with their startups and this is what makes them special and often successful.

Ask for support

Friends and family are very important for every person. As an entrepreneur you probably don’t have enough time for your loved ones. Make sure that they know how much they mean to you and ask for their support. Now they have an entrepreneur in their lives and even being hard they must accept and support your venture, because it is part of who you are as a person.