How many hours are you putting into your business weekly? 40? 50? 60? 70-hour weeks? Sometimes even 80-hour weeks don’t feel like they’re enough to tackle the enormous to-do list you’re facing.
There’s a quote that says, “Entrepreneurship is living a few years of your life like most people won’t so you can spend the rest of your life like most people can’t”. Put simply, put the hard yards in now and reap the rewards later.
Here’s something I tell my clients and more importantly my staff …. “Take a holiday”.
You’re probably thinking the same thing they do. “What? But I’m busy enough as it is – things will fall over if I go away. How will I get stuff done? What will my clients do without me?”
I’m not saying you need to go during your busiest period, or that it needs to be six months in the Greek Islands. But trust me when I tell you that a week or so away from the business can actually improve it.
Here are a couple of reasons to take a holiday
1. You get the space to think, the pie-in-the-sky, the big picture, all that will improve your business – and ‘that’ needs a bit of head room. Where do you want your business to be in 5 years? 10? How are you going to get it there? What steps and direction do you need to take?
2.You get time to read, be inspired by the stories of other people’s success, get some perspective. What’s your biggest problem in business right now? Are your overheads out of control? How is your team morale? Are your sales growing like predicted? Sometimes in business you need to get out of the forest to see the trees.
3.Brings out the creative side of you. Escape from routine, new sights, smells, experiences, and culture can all instigate change. It boils up to a new perspective, which brings new ideas, creative solutions and innovations.
4.It recharges your batteries. Your body may keep going, but you won’t be operating at the top of your game, you need to be refreshed on your return from holiday in order to implement all the amazing business ideas you’ve had.
On holidays you can remove yourself from everyday life and give yourself some time to think. You may find answers, you may find inspiration, but above all you may just come back bigger and better than before you left!
To all those who support a hard working accountant taking holidays, I say to them “as you slide down the banister of life my friend, may the splinters never point in the wrong direction”
Photo from here
