Design Your Business Around Your Life

Are you living your life as a carbon copy of someone else? Is it time for you to be an original version of yourself and stop competing with other people? Are you ready to stop comparing yourself with others? Remember, you don’t need someone else’s approval of you. Approve of yourself and validate yourself. Run your own race. Stay in your lane.

Oprah once said, “The minute I stopped trying to be like Barbara Walters, I found my own authentic voice.” If you try to be like someone else, you will just be an imitation of that person. I have seen so many coaches just reuse another coaches material, then wonder why they aren’t having success. It’s because they are not speaking from their authentic voice. Yes, you will gain things from your mentors, friends, and coaches, but don’t try to be them. Be you.

One of the most important things you can do is to decide that this is your year to make whatever income you desire, gain back your time, live on purpose, and enjoy your life. You might say, “Wow that sounds good, but how do I do it?”

One of the greatest things I’ve learned is how to design my business around my life. Many of us miss the boat right here. For years, I designed my life around my business, fitting family and friends in where I could. I would always place my business before my relationship with God, myself, my spouse, and my children. I would work to exhaustion and have nothing left to give to my family. Often my husband would tell me that he felt like he got the leftovers from me. I would pour so much into my business that I didn’t have anything left to pour into my family.

I had to learn to design my business around my life. You have to decide what kind of life you want to live. Do you want to work three days a week, five days a week, twenty hours a week, forty hours a week? Do you want to work from home, in an office, or at Starbucks? Be clear about the life that you want to live and mold your business to fit your lifestyle. Once you are clear on what you want then you can set priorities and boundaries to ensure that you achieve your goals. Remember saying “no” to someone or something is often saying yes to yourself. Furthermore, no is a complete sentence.

When you are living your authentic life, there is no competition. Someone else may be doing what you are doing, but they won’t be doing it like you do it. You have your own experiences, knowledge, and personality that you bring to the table. Work on developing and cultivating your strengths. Hone the skills that you’re good at and unleash your own unique brilliance (“sweet spot”). Once you do that, you will find that you have more peace, happiness, abundance, and joy in your life.

I started my first business at age nineteen, on credit, with no business experience and no plan. I built a successful enterprise, but later went from driving a Mercedes and living in an 8,000 square foot home to being served with lawsuits and filing bankruptcy.

Now a reformed people pleaser, ex-perfectionist, and recovered workaholic, I love to empower busy women to fulfill their entrepreneurial dreams by creating a business that provides them with more success, money, and time.

T. Reneé Smith, President & CEO of iSuccess Consulting, is known as the “Business Scalability Expert.” She is a serial entrepreneur and corporate strategist who has directly developed small business suppliers for Delta Air Lines and other Fortune 500 corporations. T. Reneé has assisted small businesses in obtaining more than $30 million in traditional and non-traditional funding capital. She has been featured in various publications including Entrepreneur and Cosmopolitan. She serves on the Leadership Council for the National Small Business Association (NSBA).

To receive free online courses about scaling your buisness and quality of life visit www.theceo.life.