A Cottage Copy confession: I’ve compromised my goals

by Laura on June 2, 2010

I’m going to say something about running a small business that is fairly much a given but still not said enough: It is hard.

It’s a half hour to midnight. Which is when I honestly find myself writing these posts because:

A)

B)

C)

I have a growing pile of laundry that hasn’t seen my washer in weeks, yet they are only a few feet apart.

My bed has not been made for close to the same amount of time. Actually, I think I just washed the sheets late one night, dragged them back on the bed and just curled up under them.

My travel suitcase, from when I got back home in early March is still not fully unpacked, and I’m leaving again at the end of June.

There are little paper mountain shapes slowly carving its own terrain across my desk that I’m pretty sure weren’t there a few weeks ago.

I haven’t touched my novel in a month (or kept up with my industry blogs), yet my co-author’s been plowing away at it, even when I haven’t been helping.

I have slowly stopped going to the gym. Stopped cooking. Stopped shopping for groceries. Stopped showing up at my writing group. Stopped doing my stretches for my chiropractic therapy. Stopped because I am dead tired and I don’t have time.

You run your own business. You hustle, you follow up on leads, you go to meetings (Skype or in person), you manage your clients, you do everything you possibly can to make sure that paycheck hits your bank account before your next bill is due that you can let a lot of other things fall to the wayside. You start seeing dollar signs attached to tasks in your daily life and if it says $0 or a negative number, you’re very tempted not to deem it important enough to do. At least not yet. Not until this thing is done, or that email is answered. This pitch sent out.

But do you really stop? Have the discipline to tell yourself no when you know there’s a giant to-do list still waiting for you to plow through? Reminding you that you’re not caught up yet and taunting you that you’ll never be caught up?

Now, if you started your own business because you wanted to have more time with your family, said family might remind you pointedly to get off your ass and spend some time with them. They might know that sometimes, you cross that line and push too hard, and you have to be bodily dragged back to being a normal human being for a few hours. That line in the sand of when enough is enough can be drawn by someone else. And sometimes, it’s nice to be pulled away like that. To be protected from yourself. For that one decision (out of many that’s already constantly on your shoulders) to be out of your hands.

But if you’re like me, who doesn’t always have that kind of safety catch that isn’t susceptible to self sabotage, making yourself stop can be as hard as scaling a mountain without rock climbing equipment.

I constantly struggle with balancing a life and a business. Because I specifically got into business for myself so I could have a life. The career I was in before wouldn’t allow me to have that. And I swore that I would find a way to travel, to be with the people I love, to write my novel, and have money. And I wouldn’t compromise that goal, for anything.

I’m finding keeping to that promise is a lot more difficult.

I’m finding I’m compromising in little ways that are slowly adding up, wearing on me. I’ve assigned zero value to a lot of other activities in my life, not realizing that those activities maintain my health and my sanity. Have greater value not measured in dollars.

But it’s very easy to choose the task that’ll stop the money anxiety monster from eating you at night. Especially if you convince yourself you’re only doing it for a little while.

Some days it really doesn’t feel like I have much choice on what I have to do. And I know I’m not alone in this. For every triumph we have as a small business, there’s a million failures that aren’t said. That are never spoken.

Well, tonight I’m speaking mine. And I confess, I don’t have an answer to it yet.