by Matt Weik
We are pulled in many directions these days. Many of us (especially if you’re reading this) focus on our overall health and fitness and make it a priority. If you are married and have a family, there’s another box you need to check as a priority. Lastly, you worked hard for several years to move ahead with your career or business so your overall financial situation needs to be a focus as well. The combination of these things becomes quite the balancing act.
If you put more time into one, the others tend to suffer. If you put your focus on all of them there tends to be somewhat of a give and take which can cause some to not progress – which can be a bad thing. This balancing act is a fine line and for that reason, you truly need to plan ahead.
Juggling Your Life
With the things mentioned above, you need to be a good juggler so that everything stays up in the air without crashing to the ground. To keep all of these areas of your life up in the air and managing this balancing act can only be accomplished if all three areas are of equal importance. What do I mean by this?
Fitness will help you stay healthy and allow longevity in your life. The better shape you are in and the more you take care of your body, the longer it will help take care of you which can result in allowing for a longer and better quality of life. With this, you will be able to spend more time with those you love and will put yourself in a position to see your kids grow up and grow old with your spouse.
The family side of things is your ultimate love. These are the people you surround yourself with each and every day and who should be your main priority in this world. The happiness of your family should be something you take extremely seriously and making time to spend with them should mean everything to you. Kids will grow up quickly. And quite frankly, we aren’t getting any younger either.
The last ball we have up in the air is our finances (money). Money obviously doesn’t create happiness but it sure makes life a little easier. To go hand-in-hand with finances is obviously our profession or business. They say to work smarter, not harder, but sometimes more time working results in a better financial future – especially if you’re in sales. Regardless of the business you run or place of employment, we all want to make more money to help support our family and provide for them and yourself all of the things you want in life. While not everyone can afford a Lambo or 10,000 square foot home, many wish to one day be financially free and out of debt.
How to Make it All Work
Look, I’m not a life coach and I don’t pretend to be. I don’t have all the answers and can’t solve all of the world’s problems. But owning a business, being in the fitness industry, and having a family has taught me a lot. Therefore, some of my experiences probably overlap and mirror your situation(s) as well.
My health means a lot to me and that means maximizing my time during the day to allow me to be present with my family, work on growing my business, all while staying fit and healthy. This means making some sacrifices. Many times, I will use my lunch break as my time to exercise. I’m lucky enough to have a training studio in my home so I can literally walk out of my office during the day and directly into the gym to train. I fit in an intense 60-minute workout and head back into the office. On days I can’t fit in a workout over lunch, I try to get it in at night after I put my kids to bed and my wife is working on her own projects for work.
When it comes to my business, I maximize every second of my day to get as much done for my clients as possible so I have my evenings free to spend with my family. Some people say I work too much and they’re probably right. And I agree that sometimes my work/life balance is a little skewed. However, my heart is in the right place and I know that even if I do need to put in some extra hours in the office that in the long-term it is because I want what’s best for my family’s future. I try to make up lost hours with the family other days or on the weekends if that is the case. Sometimes I’m even lucky enough to have my son work with me in the office. While he’s pretty much just playing, he feels involved and enjoys spending time “working” with dad. He is old enough to understand that I own a business and he thinks it’s pretty cool and smiles every time he sees “Weik Fitness” anywhere.
Family time is family time and full disclosure, I need to do a better job of turning off the switch in my brain to stop thinking about business and answering emails at night and on the weekends. Owning your own business is not easy, especially as a solopreneur trying to grow their own business by themselves. I get flack from my family about checking my phone and zoning out thinking about business and I totally deserve it.
However, I never miss anything that my kids are involved in or appointments they have. Even if my wife is going to the appointment, I’ll also put it in my schedule to be present. Putting things in my calendar is something that has helped me stay on top of business and family life. If it’s not in my calendar, it’s probably not going to get done nor will I remember to do or be certain places. I highly recommend all of you use the calendar in your phone to put in everything that means something to you. If you want to focus on your fitness, schedule your workouts in your calendar. If you want to be at your kid’s sporting events, put it in your calendar. We all get busy and if things are scheduled we tend to completely forget about them.
I’m by no means perfect – I don’t know anyone who is. But I do know that I try my best to be a positive influence on my kids and family. I want them to grow up not only knowing their dad loves them but instilling in them good work ethic while trying to balance everything life throws at us.
Hopefully, this article made you sit back and think about things a little. I’m not saying behaviors will change overnight but the better you can get at managing this balancing act the happier you will be in the long run. Do you feel you’re already doing a good job balancing everything or do you have room for improvement? Let me know in the comments.
