Are You Running Your Business or Is Your Business Running You?. The Truth About Smokers Relaxation Ruse.
Being a small or home-based business owner can be loads of fun and very rewarding.
You may have decided to go into business because of your need for personal freedom or to fully unleash your creative genius. You may also have decided to go into business to supplement your existing income, to make yourself available for young children or aging parents, or because the organization you were working for downsized, leaving you to fend for yourself.
There are hundreds of different reasons why we become business owners, but the results we aim to produce remain the same ...
- You want to be your own person, doing something you love.
- You want to generate a profit that will provide you with the lifestyle you desire.
- You want to be recognized, respected and acknowledged for your contributions.
- You want to help others solve problems or fulfill needs.
- You want to make your own decisions instead of having them dictated to you.
- You want to pick and choose whom you work with and how you work.
- You want to experience freedom ... freedom to travel, enjoy quality time with family, set your own agenda, eat when you want, sleep when you want, etc.
Running your own small or home-based business can be immensely rewarding, yet if you get too involved with the routine daily matters and finer details of each task, you can get pulled into the vicious cycle of working "in" your business instead of "on" it.
When this happens, you become misguided and stop focusing on the tasks necessary to move your business forward at an optimal pace.
Whether you are a solopreneur or have a small team working for you, it is important that you don't allow yourself to get caught up in every fine detail of your business operations.
This doesn't mean that you shouldn't be aware of what is going around you, but simply means you only have so many hours in a day and how you spend your time will determine the rate your business grows, the profits you earn, the quality of service your clients and customers receive, and your overall happiness and personal satisfaction.
Are you the only person working your business at this time? If anything were to happen to you, for example, if you were to become sick and unable to work for a month, would your business operations come to a grinding halt and would your cash flow be brought to a standstill?
Do you arrange your own appointments, handle your own e-mail, do your own word processing, create your own marketing materials, keep your own financial records, manage your own web site, provide customer service and enter all prospect and client data into your database? Do you package, label and ship your own products?
If you answered yes to several of these questions, you may want to take some time to sit back and think about what these responsibilities are costing you, particularly if you are still working full-time while trying to get a business off the ground.
If you have been in business for several years and if you are still performing all functions within your business, how might this be holding you back? Are you working a 40-50-60-hour week, seeing little of your loved ones, feeling exhausted, and neglecting your health and nutritional needs? Is the fun no longer there?
Evaluate your current situation and determine whether you are running your business or whether it is running you. If you are being run by your business, consider the options of automating, delegating, bartering, leveraging and creating multiple streams of income.
When thinking long term, how do you see your business serving you? What kind of results do you want to create?
If your current activities are not moving you towards these results at an optimum pace, change your actions so you can free yourself up to do what is necessary to move you in that direction in the most advantageous way possible.
Laurie Hayes works with small and home-based business owners who are struggling to maintain a healthy work/life balance. To receive valuable tips, strategies and techniques designed to grow a successful business without sacrificing quality of life, subscribe to her free bi-weekly newsletter at http://www.wheretheheartis-lifecoaching.com
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/
Smokers love excuses. They can't quit because .. (fill in the blank). I covered one of the favorite excuses in another article, the 'concentration con'.
Now here's another of the main - can't quit - excuses.
Smoking helps relaxation. Most smokers claim it helps them relax. But would you ever describe a smoker as relaxed ?
Their addiction (or habit) makes them nervous and jumpy. All things equal, a smoker will never relax as they once did before their drug.
Think about last time you ate in a restaurant. Isn't that a relaxing environment when you're eating your meal, in good company ? But that's not enough for the smoker. They're still not relaxed. They need a cigarette fix, even between courses, because they think that's what they need to relax.
Then they associate a temporary relaxation with the cigarette, rather than the environment and company. They don't even consider their non-smoker friends enjoyment might get ruined by smoking.
Let's look at the realities of the relaxation ruse. Nicotine is a stimulant, not a relaxant/depressant. A stimulant speeds up metabolism, not slows it down.
The 'smoking is relaxing' claim counts as yet another irrational excuse used by smokers who can't face up to quitting. The smoker genuinely feels a cigarette will relax him.
In reality it's the habit, expectation and association with relaxing situations that are the main reasons he feels relaxed. Sometimes it's even the deep breathing effect that helps relaxation.
Any sportsperson knows that deep breathing helps relax before an event. Difference is he's breathing fresh air, rather than poison ! Smokers actually credit their cigarette for a temporary benefit they get from deep breathing.
Most people agree stress and relaxation make two opposite conditions ? Many smokers think giving up will create more stress. They think their cigarettes are actually relieving stress.
Amazingly, cigarettes actually 'cause' the stress smokers think they're relieving ! Continual craving for another cigarette; guilt, helplessness at their inability to quit; low self-esteem... Any of this sound familiar ? At best, another cigarette temporarily reduces the stress caused by earlier cigarettes.
So we really should call the relaxation effect, the 'relaxation ruse'... an illusion favored by uninformed smokers who wrongly credit their cigarette with relaxation.
Quitting smoking means a return to relaxation. Quitting smoking means a return to a clear head... among many other benefits. Once you see through the relaxation ruse', you're much closer to finally quitting smoking once and for all.
Why can some people quit smoking permanently, while others just keep starting again ? Discover the NLP approach to quit smoking once and for all. Click ==> http://www.quitsmokingWithNLP.com/
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- by Neil Stelling B.Sc, MBA
© DigiLectual Inc. 2004
http://www.quitsmokingwithNLP.com/
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Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/
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