Lifestyle Freedom

There seems to be some confusion as to what constitutes real lifestyle freedom.

In fact, I would go so far to say that some folk are positively delusional about the lifestyle they have. This kills peoples chances of achieving their dream lifestyle and real freedom.

Let me explain:

What a lot of people are calling “having a lifestyle” isn’t a lifestyle at all.

They are referring to things such as a trophy home, numerous flashy holidays every year, spending shed loads of clothes each and every week and so on. What they are actually describing is consumerism not lifestyle.

Now, don’t get me wrong. I am not being the fun police here. I like nice clothes, holidays and nice stuff as much as the next person.

But to me a kick ass lifestyle is about having real freedom in all areas of your life. Freedom to only work when you want to, on your own terms. Freedom to have the family life you really want with work fitting in around it. Freedom to have enough time to nurture and keep important relationships healthy. The list could go on and on.

Here is the point I am making:

Many people are so busy chasing consumerism (and calling it lifestyle) that it is actually costing them true lifestyle freedom.

The reason for this is they have to strap themselves to their business hamster wheel and pedal damn hard to feed their consumerism habit.

Things to Consider

• Are you confusing consumerism with lifestyle?
• Are you having to flog your guts out in your business to feed consumerism habits?
• If so, what is that costing you in relation to lifestyle freedom? (and I don’t mean just financially!)

There is a lot of focus these days on how work life impacts quality of life, families and lifestyle. And rightly so.

But if you are genuinely looking to create REAL lifestyle freedom you also need to take a long hard look at what impact the choices you are making in your personal life is having on how many hours you have to work, the level your business has to perform at, your family life and so on.

Is your business life feeding your ideal lifestyle or consumerism?

So, I invite you to take a step back and take a good long hard at all the choices you are making in your personal life. Which are keeping you a slave to working longer and harder? Which are really moving your towards true lifestyle freedom and a business life on your own terms? Is it time to make some changes?

What is your take on this? Do you agree, disagree, have an alternative perspective? Please share your views.

The Obstacle That Will Kill Your Ideal Lifestyle is a post from: Ali Davies Small Business Success & Lifestyle Freedom

Is the dynamic between your work life and school holidays exactly as you would like it to be? (and I mean your absolute ideal)

Do you believe it is possible to work only when you want to during school holidays without your business suffering?

These are important questions to consider if you want to create your ideal lifestyle.

Managing Your Business and School Holidays

In the previous post 7 Tips to Manage your Home Business during School Holidays we looked at things you can do to manage the dynamic between your home business and family life during school holidays.

Those things will help you manage your current situation. But, if your current situation isn’t your ideal, you need to know the answers to the questions above to get on a path to something better.

How do you go about getting your work life, school holidays and family life to be ideal?

Here are some suggestions to get you started on designing future school summer holidays to be ideal:

1. Believe it is possible to create your ideal. If you don’t then you are not going to be in the mindset that will allow you to create what you really want.
2. Stop thinking balance. Start thinking design. Many parents are so focussed on balancing everything that it stops them from designing things how they really want them to be. For more information on this read The Curse of Work Life Balance and Why work-life balance is misleading.
3. Work out what ideal means to you – forget any perceived limitations and write down, in the present tense what you, your kids, your work life and lifestyle is like during school holidays when it is ideal. Start taking action to turn this into reality.
4. Include family life & lifestyle in your business planning – many people review and make business plans and decisions in isolation from the rest of their life. Big mistake. Look for creative ways to re-design how your business operates and earns revenue around your family life. Do this at least monthly.
5. Keep focussed on the end game – design your actions plans, schedule and what you spend your time on around your big picture.

The main point I am making here is this:

If you are not happy with the dymanic between your business, family life and school holidays, then start designing it so that you are.

It is 100% possible. And the rewards, well, they are priceless.

But it is essential to remember this – don’t wait. Start working on how you want the dynamic between your business and school holidays to be for future summers NOW. Get busy designing, then put action plans in place to make it so.

What challenges do you face during school holidays? Do you have any suggestions to add to this list?

In the next post we will look at one of the main obstacles that keep people from creating their ideal lifestyle.

How to design Work Life around School Holidays is a post from: Ali Davies Small Business Success & Lifestyle Freedom

So, here we are again – school summer holidays time.

How are you feeling about it?

- Are you are delighted at the opportunity to spend quality time with your little cherubs?

- Are you feeling guilty because you feel you have to spend all summer keeping the business going so  you don’t have much time for the kids?

- Are you not enjoying the time with your kids because you are worrying the business is being neglected?

- Are you feeling so frazzled about the whole thing that you aren’t enjoying work or family life?

Regardless of which of these categories you fall into, there are always ways to improve the dynamic between your home business, family life and your lifestyle.

7 Tips to Manage your Home Biz During School Holidays

1. Set clear, strong boundaries between work and family life and implement them.
2. Don’t mix work and family time – this doesn’t work for anyone. Keep them separate.
3. Create a schedule of what you are doing when – this will help with point 2.
4. Prioritise hard - look for stuff that can wait until September. Read Time Management – the REAL reason you don’t have enough time for ideas to help with this one.
5. Avoid Lone Ranger Syndrome – look for where you can enlist some help e.g. family, friends. To find out more read Is Lone Ranger Syndrome Killing Your Business?
6. Delegate – what can you delegate out? Doing everything yourself won’t lead to success whether it is school holiday or not. Don’t use “I can’t afford help” as an excuse. Get creative. For example, students looking for a few hours work experience could be an option, there are people you can hire on an hourly basis etc. What other creative ideas can you come up with?
7. Form a support group with other parents who run their business from home – set up a rota for play dates to give each other work time without distractions.

The point is this:

Your kids grow up very fast. Once each year is gone, it is gone for good. I speak to many parents of grown up kids who say “I wish I had spent more time with them when they were younger”. Haven’t heard one yet say “I wish I had spent more time at work while the kids were younger”.

So, I invite you to get creative and look for what things you can put in place to enjoy your home biz and the school holidays with your kids without feeling stressed, guilty and frazzled.

In the next post we will look at how you can design your business to operate around school holidays and family life moving forward. In the meantime, what tips would you add to the list above? Please share your thoughts to help other parents.

7 Tips to Manage your Home Business during School Holidays is a post from: Ali Davies Small Business Success & Lifestyle Freedom

Have you noticed how many people place great importance on the ability to multi task?

It seems to me that it is viewed almost as a badge of honour to strive for and achieve. It seems to be viewed as the answer to the overload of tasks so many people seem to be trying to juggle.

But here’s the thing:

Multi tasking isn’t the most effective way to manage many tasks and can actually be counter productive

3 Myths of Multi tasking

Myth 1 – You get more done if you multi task. Not true. Your productivity actually reduces the more you multi task. You are also likely to make more mistakes. Tasks actually take longer when you are trying to complete them at the same time as other tasks.

Myth 2 – You will feel more in control of all your tasks and responsibilities. Not true. It actually increases stress levels. The more you are trying to do at any one time, the more your stress levels go up. Not good for your health. Also, it isn’t attractive to others if you are constantly a little cloud of stress hanging round them!

Myth 3 – You can get stuff done while being with your family. Not true. It detrimentally impacts family life. One of the most important things our kids need from us is our time and undivided attention when we are with them. It sends a very negative message to our kids if when we are spending time with them we are also juggling lots of other stuff, especially work.

The Alternative to Multi Tasking

So, here’s the good news. It is OK to stop multi tasking. There are far more effective ways to get things done. Here are a few suggestions to play with:

• Organise your tasks for the day into priority order and give them time slots.
• Focus on each task totally, giving you full attention until it is done.
• Remove distractions and temptations before you start each task.

The alternatives to multi tasking are much more enjoyable, effective and healthy. It will enhance your productivity levels and the quality of what you are going. All areas of your business will benefit. And most important of all, your kids will love you for it because they will feel more important to you than your work because you are protecting and enhancing family life.

Now that we have busted some myths surrounding multi tasking, is it time for you to evaluate how you manage your business tasks and family life?

3 Myths of Multi Tasking is a post from: Ali Davies Small Business Success & Lifestyle Freedom

Do you ever have those days when despite how much you have to do you feel you just don’t want to do anything? I had one of those days yesterday. This isn’t something that happens often for me so I felt really uncomfortable with it.

Here’s what happened:

I got up early to get some work done. I love that time of day. I can get quite a bit done before my son gets up for school. So there I was, sat in my office ready to do some work when this huge wave of resistance to doing anything washed over me.

At first I was quite irritated with myself. After all, I pride myself on being a kick ass action gal and now it had deserted me. I was all ready to give myself a severe kick up the ass but I suddenly stopped.

“Hold on there girl” I told myself. I continued “Before any ass kicking goes on, what is really going on here?” I pondered on this a while. Then I realised what it was. My husband is going into hospital in three days time to have a fairly big operation. It’s been a big weight on my mind for some time and now that the time is here, it is a real brain time consumer.

You see the person sat at my desk yesterday morning wasn’t Ali the Business Owner. It was Ali the wife. The woman that loves her husband and family more than anything in the world.

The point is this:

We all have many roles in life. It is inevitable that there will be times that one role steps into the space of another role. When this happens it is easy to slip into beating yourself up and being hard on yourself for not being some sort of superhero able to have perfect demarcation between all our roles. But that is totally unrealistic.

What to do when roles collide.

Stop. It is counter intuitive, as the natural urge is to push on regardless but just stop. Allow yourself time to step back from the situation. Assess what is really going on.

Ask what is most important right now? Look for what you can put in place to be in the role that is most important at that time. Re-arrange things to protect what is most important.

Drop some balls. Forget the pressure to juggle everything. It’s a flawed concept. Sometimes it is OK to drop balls. The trick is to chose which balls to drop rather than waiting for one to drop randomly.

Treat yourself with compassion. Beating yourself up serves no purpose whatsoever. Stop it.

So, take a look at what you do when your roles collide. Is it time to make some changes?

Are You Trying to be a Superhero? is a post from: Ali Davies Small Business Success & Lifestyle Freedom

The Curse of Work Life Balance

The whole work life balance movement has been around for a fair amount of years. Yet there is still a significant amount of people who feel that they are struggling with juggling all the balls of life and the things they value most are suffering.

It seems to me that something with the whole work life balance thing isn’t working or surely after all these years we would have the situation nailed.

So it begs the question – what is going wrong?

What is Going Wrong with Work Life Balance?

The problem is what we are focussing on – balancing work with life. The two aren’t separate things. There is only one thing – your life. Everything else is a label for an activity you are doing within your life. So what is going wrong is that we are focussing on the wrong things – balance, and seeing work as separate to our life. This focus is resulting in sacrificing what we value most and our ideal life.

The Curse of Work Life Balance

The curse that work life balance creates is that it just gives you more of the same. You are still juggling. It doesn’t actually remove the problem totally. It doesn’t lead to you living your ideal life on your own terms.

Here is something to think about:

Do you really want to balance and juggle the things you value most with less important things that cost how you REALLY want things to be?
OR
Do you want to live a life built on the things you value most with the less important things fitting in around them?

If it’s the first option, keep focussing on work life balance. If it’s the second option, then kick focussing on work life balance into touch. Instead, make a decision right now that you are going to build the life your really want for yourself and your family.

Here are a few tips:

• Make sure you have a crystal clear picture of what your ideal life would look like. Define what constitutes a successful life for you including all aspects of your life as one.
• Is that worth fighting for? If so, start thinking “designing life” NOT balancing life.
• What would need to happen for your ideal to become a reality?
• Don’t wait, start now – even if you don’t know how you will make it all happen. Think baby steps.
• You can find more detailed tips and ideas in this 3 part mini series – Part 1 Why work-life balance is misleading. Part 2 The Alternative To Work-Life Balance Part 3 Goodbye work life balance! Hello success by design!

End the curse of work life balance for yourself. Eradicate mediocrity. Choose really living your ideal life on your terms. The freedom and fulfillment it gives is worth fighting for.

Do you have challenges with work life balance? What are your views on the whole work life balance movement?

The Curse of Work Life Balance is a post from: Ali Davies Small Business Success & Lifestyle Freedom

One of the most common issues I hear from self employed parents is that they would like to work less hours to be with their kids, improve the quality of their family life and to be the parent they want to be.

Even though they don’t have a boss dictating their working hours to them, they often feel unable to reduce their hours because of the demands of the business.

The first step to reverse this situation is to stop blaming the business. The business operates the way it was set up. So with the risk of over simplifying the task, it is a matter of setting the business up to operate a different way and for you as the business owner to operate differently.

It isn’t about working hard, it’s about working smart.

How to work less hours

Now, I am not suggesting you wake up tomorrow and decide you are working 50% less hours and just do it and to hell with the consequences. What I am suggesting is that if managed correctly, reducing working hours is possible.

Here are some points that will infuence how many hours you work:

1. Get clear on what you really want. Exactly how many hours a week and weeks per year would you ideally like to work? (Forget, “should” “must” and “ought to” – what is your ideal?).

2. How much revenue would you need to bring in each week if you only worked your ideal number of weeks?

3. Review your business model and revenue streams. Once you have the answers to question 1 and 2 brainstorm what changes you can make that will allow you to generate revenue more effectively to meet your ideal working hours. Get creative.

4. Increase your personal effectiveness. This factor is a significant contributor in reducing working hours so you can’t afford to ignore this area. Look for ways to upgrade the areas that directly impact your personal effectiveness.

5. Review your business processes and procedures. I know this subject bores the pants off many people, but like point 4, it is one of the keys to your ability to reduce your working hours. A great resource on this subject is a book called “The E Myth Revisited” by Michael Gerber. You can also find useful articles and resources on their website and blog http://www.e-myth.com/

There are many more things you can do to get on the path to reducing your working hours but I hope these few points will provoke some thought and help you get the ball rolling.

If you have any tips and/or challenges around reducing working hours, please share them in the comments section below.

How to work less hours is a post from: Ali Davies Small Business Success & Lifestyle Freedom

There is one question that, if you asked it, you can pretty much guarantee the answer. It is this:

What is most important to you, your business or your kids?

Maybe some of you are thinking it is a stupid question because, of course, parents value their kids more than their business. I don’t actually ask this question because it is a no brainer. However, it does raise an area of significant challenge for many parents. Although parents value their kids over their business, protecting family life from the impact of their business can often feel like a battle they are losing.

Here are three tips that you can implement immediately that will support you in protecting your family life:

1. Forget balance, think design. So many parents are striving for work life balance that they end up juggling everything, burnt out and the most important things to them are still being adversely affected. Forget work life balance and concentrate on designing how you want things to be based on your core values. For more on why I say “forget work life balance” read  Why work-life balance is misleading.

2. Put in rock solid boundaries. Boundaries are those things that you create to protect your family life. For example, I have a boundary that I only work with clients during school hours. Having clear boundaries and enforcing them protects what is most important to you. It also gets you to look for different ways to achieve results. What boundaries do you need to put in place?

3. Change the way you make decisions. Many business owners make business decisions whilst only looking at the business implications. Big mistake. Always evaluate the impact a business decision will have on your family as well as your business before you make the final decision. Stop looking at your business and family life separately.

Do you have any tips you would add to this list?

Related posts:

Why work-life balance is misleading.

The Alternative To Work-Life Balance

Goodbye work life balance! Hello success by design!

3 Tips to Manage Impact of Business on Family Life is a post from: Ali Davies Small Business Success & Lifestyle Freedom

Do you feel that your business is sucking the life out of you? If so, what you have on your hands is the business equivalent of a vampire.

Tell tale signs that your Business is a Vampire:

• Working longer hours than you want to
• Feel like you are peddling really hard but not moving forward
• Struggling to generate the income levels you desire
• Personal and family life is being adversely affected
• You feel like your role as a parent, spouse/partner and other relationships are suffering
• You can’t see the light at the end of the tunnel
• You feel like your business is sucking the life out of you

If you can identify with any of these points then you have a business vampire.

Stopping your business sucking the life out of you.

So, what are you going to do about it? You can try and blame any number of other factors for your business vampire but as the business owner the buck stops with you. The harsh reality is that what you are experiencing is what you have created.

The first step to killing the vampire

Awareness is the first step to any change. If you have awareness you can decide to make things different. And that is the first step. Make the decision right now that you are going to kill the vampire. Decide that you are going to create something better starting now.

Just make the decision and commitment to yourself to find a way to make change happen.

The “how” comes after you make the decision so don’t worry about that at this stage.

In the next few blog posts I am going to share with you step by step, tangible actions you can take to eliminate your business vampire and put you on the path to creating Business Success and Lifestyle Freedom on you terms – by design.

To make sure you don’t miss any of the posts in this upcoming series of blog posts you can subscribe to the blog posts via the RSS connect button in the sidebar.

Related posts:

• Have work life and business become a disease?

• Is working for yourself really the key to freedom?

• Why work-life balance is misleading.

Is your Business a Vampire? is a post from: Ali Davies Small Business Success & Lifestyle Freedom

This question is one really close to my heart. First of all, let me share where I stand on this:

I absolutely believe that working for yourself is not just the key to freedom but the ONLY way to real freedom. Let me explain where I am coming from on this:

Being an employee

Even if you love your job, earn buckets of money and wouldn’t want to work for yourself, being an employee means you will never have true freedom. Here’s why – you are always dancing to someone else’s tune. Someone else dictates when and how long you work, what hours you are free for your family, how many days holiday you can have, and so on. That isn’t real freedom.

Working for yourself

So, if being employed isn’t the route to real freedom, is working for yourself? Well, as I have already indicated the answer for me is a huge yes. Working for yourself gives you the opportunity to have real freedom because you call the shots. You get to set things up exactly the way they suit you – work and lifestyle on your terms – real freedom.

Now, whether small businesses and home based business owners actually turn being self employed into true freedom is a different matter altogether.

So what is the reality?

Whilst working for yourself can, and should, be the route to real freedom the sad reality is that many people are peddling the hamster wheel of work life as fast and as hard as their employed counterparts.

Why is this?

The reasons for this can be many and complex. However, there is a common theme in many cases – the business owner isn’t behaving, acting or operating in the way that successful business owners do. The point is this:

If you are working for yourself and you don’t have the Business Success and Lifestyle Freedom you want there is only one reason – YOU!

Sound harsh? Maybe it is. But remember this:

It is you who have created how your business operates and performs. If it isn’t delivering what you want, it is up to you to make change so that it does.

Related posts:

Have work life and business become a disease?

Why work-life balance is misleading.

Is working for yourself really the key to freedom? is a post from: Ali Davies Small Business Success & Lifestyle Freedom