“I’m ready to grow my business, but I’m stuck with too much on my plate already.”

“I can’t take a vacation. My business will fall apart
without me.”

“It’s either time with family or a flourishing business. I can’t have both.”

Pete Linforth/Pixabay

Most business owners can identify with at least one, if not all, of these statements, and often aren’t sure how to get past feeling stuck in the day-to-day.

There are countless coaches and programs that promise to help grow your business and fulfill your dreams and goals. What most of these programs are missing is the concept of having an enviable life while growing your business. What if you could enjoy the journey and not feel burned out while achieving your goals?

It’s easier than you think. You simply need to set your vision, stay true to your priorities and take action. The life of your dreams will begin to fall into place.

Define your dream
To achieve your dream, you must first have a clear vision of what it is. Can you close your eyes and clearly see yourself doing exactly what you want to be doing in 10 years? If not, spend some time daydreaming about it.

No two dreams are the same, but if you are going to achieve your dream, you have to be able to see it, feel it, taste it and experience it in detail in your mind. If your goals aren’t specific, they will be hard to achieve.

Once you have a clear vision, write it down, create a visual and keep it somewhere obvious. You want it in front of your face every day. Include a due date for your dream; otherwise, it will always be “someday” and never reality.

Establish your priorities
The next step toward a more enjoyable life is prioritization. Some common priorities are family, faith – even wealth. Maybe you want to enjoy life while you are still young.
What are your top three priorities? Write them down. Now.

When you have a clear vision and your priorities are defined, decision-making becomes almost effortless. Say yes to opportunities that fall in line with your vision and priorities and let other opportunities pass.

Enjoy the journey
Now, let’s get back to how you can avoid burnout and stop delaying happiness.

Does this sound familiar?:
“I’ll have more time for my family when this project is done.”
“If I can just hit that next goal, I’ll finally be happy.”

Nope, and nope. There is freedom in working to live rather than living to work. Delaying happiness now in the pursuit of a dream leads to burnout and dread of the day-to-day.

Systemize your business
Take the following action steps to start systemizing your business so you have time to enjoy your life outside of work.

Set boundaries. Time and physical boundaries are important to a balanced life. Try setting your own work hours and sticking to them. Fill your non-work hours with your personal priorities – family, health, hobbies, etc.
Delegate and outsource. Create a plan to delegate or outsource anything you aren’t good at, anything you are good at but don’t love and anything that takes you away from working on your business instead of in it.

Try this exercise: Have a central place where you write down every single task you do for your business over the next month. Track the hours it takes to do these tasks. As you can afford to delegate or outsource, you know how much you can off-load because you know the time requirement of the task.

Capture videos of your processes. There are services like Loom that allow you to store screen-capture videos to the cloud. Start capturing videos of your regular tasks on your computer that you can use as a training tool to easily delegate tasks “only you know how to do.” This leaves more time for you to do the more important tasks and strategize for business growth.

Megan Townsend is co-founder and chief operating officer of Altitude Arborist LLC, a five-year TCIA member company based in Broomfield, Colorado. She also offers coaching services to entrepreneurs in the green industry, and is a member of TCIA’s Board of Directors.

This article was based on a presentation on the same topic she made at TCI EXPO ’23 in St Louis, Missouri. It first appeared in the September/October 2023 issue of Colorado Green, the print magazine of the Associated Landscape Contractors of Colorado (ALCC) for the Rocky Mountain-region green industry.