Are you unbalanced?
I shared in a previous blog I had been doing somework on identifying my core business values as being connection, cooperation and balance (you can read that blog here).
The third value that I chose was balance.
When I started to think about what that meant to me, I began to see quite how much that one value shapes so much of what I do within my coaching and my own business.
The first way in which it was important to me was within my own business and the workload. When I started running my own business I was keen not to replicate the mistake of allowing the business to take over my life. I wanted to be able to have the ability to choose my working days and hours and flex them if needed. My elderly Grandma had been diagnosed with dementia and I wanted to be able to help her by taking her to appointments and generally spend time with her.
Secondly, within my own business it was about the balance of time I spend on the different aspects of my coaching, training and other admin work. I know that if I do too much of one type in particular then it drains me and I don’t enjoy running my business as much.
But this is also exceptionally important to the work I do with clients.
When running a practice there are many different aspects to the service delivery for clients and also to managing the practice as a whole. This means that often there is a lack of balance between working in the practice (client-focused work) and on the practice (reviewing what is done and where things are going).
If left unaddressed then systems can become outdated, prices can fall too low and progress generally can slow.
Another area that is often out if balance is the time spent at work compared to the time spent with friends, family and on hobbies and soon.
I am an advocate of working flexibly and at times that suit your makeup, by that I mean if you are a night owl then start and finish work later in the day, of if you are awake at day break and are effective then do your work then and finish earlier.
For me working long hours, and or working weekends isn’t a problem if it is occasionally and/or a choice. It is where it feels that it is essential and the practice needs you to do it regularly that for me it becomes an issue.
The third aspect of balance I also touched on in my blog on cooperation (which you can read here), is that of getting the right balance in your team. Whether that is the right balance of different personalities and skills (DiSC profiling can help here), or the right number of people at the right level of qualification and experience in the practice.
Once you have a team then there’s also need for a balance in the type of communication you have with your employees. What I mean by that is that there needs to be a mix of professional and personal conversation take place. Personal communication builds trust and also connection, you can read my blog on connection here.
There also needs to be a balance between leading and managing your team as these are two distinctly different sides to the people side of your practice. I will write more about that in a future blog, but for now it is enough to say that there needs to be an effective balance between the two.
As I have shared, balance is a big word when it comes to running a practice which is why it features as one of my core values.
So ask yourself...
Where are you out of balance in your practice?
Do you spend enough time working on your own practice?
Are you successful in business but out of balance in other areas of your life? If you are not sure then download my coaching resource to double check.
Do you have the right balance in your team?
If you need help addressing any imbalance, then get in touch and let’s explore how my coaching programmes could support you.
