State Your Own Balance

Yes! That’s a great one! It shows so much – how you’ve invested in making time for other things outside of work, how you take breaks when you can, and how well your business is going. A well done statement!

Amber:

You know after all these years, I still sometimes feel like people are judging me for being lazy when they say things like this, so I’ve had to come up with defaults so I don’t take offense, and take it the wrong way.

Sabine:

I explained something similar to Adrienne a while back. In German we have the word “selbständig” meaning self-employed. It’s divisible into the words selbst = self, and ständig = always. So there is this saying “Selbständig zu sein heißt selbst und ständig.” = “Being self-employed means yourself and always.”, expressing that you have to always work once you’re self-employed.

I don’t like that idea. Yes, being self-employed makes you automatically be in charge of everything and it might mean longer hours. But it doesn’t mean always. Come to think about it I guess it’s that missing boundary around the self-employment and the lack of balance between work and life that gets implied here that bothers me. I already had that in my corporate job, I don’t need it in my self-employment. And I truly believe that it is possible to be self-employed and have balance.

Hopefully a business owner loves what he or she does so he or she is willing to give the extra push when it’s needed, but to ALWAYS work on the business for me is a guaranteed way into burn-out. On the other hand there is this tiny part of me that wonders: “Does that attitude imply I’m lazy and only wanting a business because I don’t want to work?” But actually that is a ridiculous thought. There are much easier ways to not work than to start / have a business. And bottom line is I believe it’s not only possible to have balance between work and life (actually no matter whether being an employee or a business owner), but it’s the future way to live really!

So me, too, I think well done of you to express this boundary. It simply is a very healthy not a lazy thing to do! Especially once one is as successful as you are.

Amber:

Thank you Sabine. Exactly. I fully hear you. I have had many people do the ole “Must be nice.” I used to really take it personally as I am quite the opposite to lazy and immediately wanted people to understand how hard I work. Well the bottom line is that they won’t ever really understand as they haven’t been in my shoes so it’s up to me to be solid enough to not take things personally. These statements work so well. I’m having a bit of fun with it. Perhaps they aren’t even judging me. Maybe that’s my stuff. My interpretation of it. Funny how I automatically assume they are suggesting I’m lazy!