Why You Should Stop Listening To Business “Advice”

One of the things that happens when you start a new business is that anyone and everyone has advice to share… Even if they have never owned a business. Even if their business isn’t related to yours.

When I started my business, someone told me how important it was to take the weekends off and not to work late. Work-life balance felt extremely important, so I took this advice. I would stop work at 4 and never work on the weekends.

When you’re a business owner you naturally think about your business all the time, 24/7. So of course I’d spend my weekends thinking about my business which I’d then beat myself up about because I wasn’t really taking the time off.

What would happen is that during the week I would sometimes feel unmotivated until 3pm. I’d spend my morning taking hours to do a task that should’ve been done in 30 minutes, and then I’d work for one solid hour and be done. Even though I still wanted to work and had motivation, I forced myself to stop so that I would have “good work-life balance”. It was a shame spiral and extremely unproductive.

A few months ago one of my entrepreneur friends asked me if I’d ever considered just leaning into my motivation and desires. She suggested that I give it a shot.

So I tried it.

Well, I attempted it. I was still terrified of not having a healthy relationship with work so it took some time.

But slowly, I shifted my thought patterns from shame to inspiration.

And now, I work when I am inspired.

Two weeks ago I didn’t work very much. I didn’t have a lot to do anyway, and I took care of the most important client tasks. I spent the week relaxing and being creative.

Last week I was extremely productive. I would wake up early and work, run errands, make dinner, and relax. Then I’d usually get a spurt of inspiration and pick up work a bit more before going to bed. I did a few tasks on the weekend and got a ton done. I even got ahead and worked on some things for this week.

I’ve been following this inspiration/motivation-led schedule consistently for about a month now and it has been so incredible. The biggest shift is that when you let your body and your mind influence your work, you work when you’re inspired and the work turns out even better.

I will close on the final lesson of this which is that the business world likes to come up with routines, systems, and techniques for success. But what works for one person doesn’t work for someone else. The best thing you can do for yourself is to trust yourself and lean into what feels right, after all, no one runs a business like you do.

Subscribe To The Craig Chronicle

One email a week. No spam, I promise.

Read more on The Craig Chronicle…