Taking care of yourself, what not to skip

By Fiona Boyd |

Most of the business people and entrepreneurs I know are really good at solving problems both for the world at large and for other people but aren’t that good at looking after themselves.

It’s been a long held belief of mine, not often put into practice I must admit, that you’re much more effective as a decisionmaker, leader, entrepreneur when you’re fit, healthy and feeling of sound mind.

In the initial rush to startup a new business and I think shrinking also under the weight of this enormous new path you have chosen, one of the first things you may find yourself throwing out the window is your usual exercise activity. If it’s running, gym, swimming whatever, in the throws of the new business you find yourself cutting your timelines very finely looking across every second of the week and dumping activities that aren’t immediately obvious as being useful to getting results right now.

If you can, try resist this urge to dump your exercise and wellbeing activities and see if you can find a way to maybe do things slightly more efficiently instead. Over the last 15 years in entrepreneurial businesses one clear truth has stuck out for me – and that is when you compromise your health and wellbeing you’re participating in a false economy.

Sometimes the urgent issue or lead, just isn’t that urgent and can wait a few hours while you do your workout at the gym or have your monthly massage. Usually it isn’t. In fact if you put your health and exercise first I’m pretty sure you’ll find that you make decisions and react to issues in your business with more of a level-head. Nothing helps get clarity around a tricky problem better than a long run along the beachfront.

Keep fresh in solving solutions - resist the temptation to stop excercising when business gets tough

If you’re finding yourself stuck under a load of business issues or as some friends of mine are at the moment, a bunch of code that must be written, then try something I do when I’m at my stalest and most overwhelmed. Pick your lowest point, when you’re feeling fearful that you won’t get through it – stop – give yourself an hour off and go for a walk, run or to the gym. Then come back, look at what you have to do and see where you can cut 10% of the time you were thinking was needed on this by maybe doing it a little differently, changing the sequence of how you do it, or some other innovation that will deliver you a time-saving. Refreshed from your run and with the challenge on your mind of making your way through your tasks more quickly, you’ll find interesting time-saving solutions that will pay you back for your time out taking care of your physical self.

We can make the journey that much harder by not looking after ourselves properly. As an entrepreneur my view is that your job is to find the exquisite way of doing things that uses time in the best way possible and is a really unique use of resources. It’s not about working yourself into the ground and suffering stress and physical breakdown – sometimes hard work is required and that may mean working through the night to finish a project, however once done, reward yourself with something that recharges the batteries and freshens up your outlook.

If you try go top speed in business all the time, pretty soon you’ll find yourself making the sorts of decisions that keep you working really hard and at pace to get the sorts of results that really aren’t worth the effort.

My advice to my fellow entrepreneurs and business people on this – don’t skip that walk, run, gym session, massage – keep up the routines that are good for you and they’ll repay you by keeping your mind, attitude and approach to all you do – fresh, engaged and ready to look for the really elegant and efficient solution.

Photo: 666isMoney

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