Posted on: 03 December, 2001
Author: Lisa Schmeckpeper
This holiday season marks my 3-year anniversary in theInternet Marketing business. Of course, on suchanniversaries we all ask ourselves: Am I better off now thenwhen I started? My enthusiastic answer ... This holiday season marks my 3-year anniversary in theInternet Marketing business. Of course, on suchanniversaries we all ask ourselves: Am I better off now thenwhen I started? My enthusiastic answer is: By far :-) Thatautomatically raises another anniversary question: Am Iwhere I want to be? My answer, thoughtful but stillenthusiastic, is: Not quite ;-)Sound familiar? Or maybe you haven't gotten to the "betteroff" part yet. Regardless of how you answer these twointrospective questions, my piece of advice to you thisholiday season is the same: Take some time off. Relax,enjoy your family, regroup your thoughts and goals anddecide what is really important to you, your personal life,and the lives of those most important to you.This piece of advice, like most advice I give, comes frompersonal experience. I have been running around like crazyfor the past three years growing this Internet business.Granted, it has paid off well, in many visible ways, but atwhat personal price?My children miss their mommy, my husband feels the pressureof his long hours at work, compared to all the work here athome (which I can't always attend to because of my ownbusiness time and focus requirements), and I can feel mygood health slowly diminishing.Many organizers and time management specialists will tellyou that if your life, as a whole, is not running smoothlythen your neglected areas will suffer. And how true that is!If the kids ain't happy, nobody in the house is going to behappy. If your spouse isn't happy, then how can you truly behappy? If all the ongoing work and resultant unhappiness inthe family cause you to be unhappy, how effectively do youthink you will perform your job? Not well at all!And what do you, as owner-operator of your own web business,think happens when your health fails? Not much! Most jobsin the "real world" include someone who is there to takeyour place while you are out sick. But when you run yourown business, nobody is hovering in the wings, ready to takeup the slack and keep the operation humming.I have personally been putting off having my wisdom teethextracted for over a year. I haven't seen my gynecologistsince my daughter was born three years ago, and myonce-religious exercise routine has ceased to exist aspounds keep getting measured by my unforgiving, depressinglyhonest bathroom scale. All in the name of entrepreneurship.Some people would call that extreme dedication, laziness oreven a unique late-twentieth century form of mental illness!I'm not even sure what I consider it anymore. What I haverealized is that taking time off can be like recharging dead(but rechargeable) batteries. Accomplishing even thesimplest of tasks with dead batteries can be a chore--nearlyimpossible. But take time to recognize the problem, put in afresh set and you can get three times the work doneeffortlessly.This past Thanksgiving weekend I spent a glorious threenights at the Wilderness Resort Lodge in the WisconsinDells. Just my husband and I and our children, enjoying thewater park, horseback riding and getting away from thestress with other activities we found open in theoff-season. It was great!Am I totally refreshed? No, not yet. But I plan to be as Iam not going to come back fully from vacation until afterthe new year. One thing this mini-vacation made me realizeis that I am not happy if I miss out on what I normally viewas the "important stuff." I say normally view because when Ihave my entrepreneur mindset on I experience complete tunnelvision. I don't even realize what I'm missing because all Ihave my eyes on are all the opportunities to grow mybusiness on the little glowing electronic screen in front ofme.But I don't want to miss Christmas with the kids this year.I want to truly experience the holidays this season, notjust try to plan them around my busy work schedule. I don'teven want to miss the upcoming, once in a lifetime "turn ofthe century".Now, what does this mean to my business? Does it hurt mygrowth? Probably in the short run. Revenues won't be up butthey certainly won't dip down low enough to really worry me.This, by the way, is one of the nicest things about anInternet business :-)But how will this reaffirmation that I am something morethan a slave to Internet possibilities eventually help mybusiness? Easy... when I do come back to full time work myhealth will be improved, I'll feel better about myself andmy family, and I'll have a clear head. I'll most likelyreturn to accomplish tasks that I have struggled withpreviously in record time, just because of my recharged,revitalized mental state.So how can you apply this advice in your own life?If you have already burnt yourself out and feel that you arespinning your wheels, force yourself to take a break. Youdon't have to push and push and push yourself in order toprove you can be successful. It will come eventually, andwhen it finally does march into your life, you should wantto be able to handle it. Wouldn't it be a shame if successfinally knocked on your door but you were too tired andmentally exhausted to remember your early dreams, and be ina condition to take advantage of that success? Of course itwould be.History is full of sad examples of people who started outwith a dream, pursued that dream relentlessly, and used alltheir talents and time. Somehow, when they arrived at theend of the rainbow, they were either too tired, or toobogged down by worries that they were going to lose it, thatthey couldnt even enjoy the colors, much less the contentsof that allegorical kettle. You probably have worked forpeople like that. So you know its not an uncommonphenomenon. Just don't let it happen to you.If you haven't yet fully launched your Internet business,and you're feeling burnt out just from the pre-launch phase,then I say enjoy this last holiday of the millennium withgusto. There will be plenty of other sacrifices ahead inyour first few years of business.If you haven't already gotten in on this years ChristmasEcommerce train it is almost too late to do much anyway.Christmas shoppers will be making their online purchasesover the next couple of weeks. After that they will turn tothe safety of the retail stores for any last-minute gifts.So if you haven't launched by now, chances are the smartthing to do is just relax and enjoy this last 1999 holiday.We receive mixed messages in many of the publications weregularly read. Some writers say stop procrastinating andmake sacrifices or you'll get nowhere. Then you have writerslike me who encourage you to stop and smell the rosesoccasionally. Ultimately, of course, you have to do what youfeel is right for you and your particular circumstances.I just know that for me and a few other well-known marketersI've talked to, taking some time off provides us with amuch-needed renewal of our entrepreneurial batteries. Source: Free Articles from ArticlesFactory.com