Is Your Business Detrimental To or Harming Your Relationships?
I have just spent a number of hours formulating a detailed Business plan for the coming year. I’ve looked at all the ways in which I am going to promote, market, nurture and build my business. I have set myself goals to help me achieve this, and I have given myself a specific timeframe within which to do it. I know I will closely monitor how I am achieving my goals, consulting my plan often, if not every day. I will expect a certain level of commitment from myself, a certain thoughtfulness and discipline. It’s hard work nurturing a business, as you all know.
This led me to consider how your relationship with your partner, kids and family needs as much work as your business. It needs steady input, commitment and forward thinking. But not many of us factor this into our Business Plan do we?
As it is with a business, it is also hard work nurturing a relationship. If you spend all your energy on your business, what personal resources have you left to spend on your relationships?
I want you to use this article to highlight how your relationships may be suffering due to your commitment to your business. I am certainly not passing judgement, or asking that you do the same.
This article will question who you identify as being important to you in your life. It will help you identify the scaffold that supports you, who is in your support team, and examine how you how nurture your relationships at present, and how you can nurture these relationships from now on.
Answering the questions in this article will be a means for you to evaluate areas that are causing problems or difficulties, or areas you need to focus more or less on. The questions will identify what will be important for you to focus on in order to nurture healthy relationships. You can’t fix what you don’t know isn’t broken.
You are a dedicated business person, and that is to be commended. So the time and effort you put into your business can be divided – perhaps not equally but divided all the same - between your business and your relationships.
My last article: ‘Time Off – A Sound Business Investment’ highlighted that if you didn’t care for and look after the foundation of your business – Yourself – your business would suffer.
Now I won’t exactly say the same about the relationships in your life, there are a lot of business people out there with few personal relationships and their businesses are doing fine. But your life will be happier and easier if you avoid the difficulties, stress and strain that can crop up in relationships when the relationship is neglected.
We have many different relationships. Our primary one is with ourselves. Is your business affecting how you feel about yourself? Are you feeling guilt, worry, anxiety, fear, fatigue? I have dealt with this topic in the article I just mentioned, ‘Time Off A Sound Business Investment’ which is also on this website. It might be good for you to read that article in conjunction with this one.
What main relationships do you have in your life?
I want you to get a pen and pencil to answer this next question.
On a scale of one to ten, (1 being least, 10 being most) who do you spend your time with – partner (husband, wife, lover), kids, extended family, friends, business partner, your business! golf partner, doctor…………..
Whoever it is, be truthful, as you are not benefiting yourself or your loved ones by hiding your head in the sand.
The main relationships I am going to examine are your relationships with your Partner (husband, wife, lover) and your Children.
As I mentioned earlier, when an entrepreneur makes out a business plan, this plan is detailed, precise, forward thinking, covers all areas of the business, the projected highs and lows and strategies for growth, development and profit making.
Relationship with your partner:
I can not dispute the fact that running your own business means a lot of personal investment. The tricky part is allowing yourself the time to, in effect, business plan your relationships. For in your relationship with your partner the following difficulties can occur if you both have not been forward thinking, nor developed strategies for dealing with areas of concern.
Get a pen and paper and answer these questions.
Rate your level of stress from 1 to 10 (10 being most stressed)
Rate your level of fatigue from 1 to 10 (10 being most fatigued)
Do you find yourself and your partner having a lot of arguments and what do you argue about?
Do you have a tendency to go to sleep without resolving an argument?
Stress and Fatigue experienced by one or both people within a relationship hinders decision making abilities, hinders the support you can give each other, and also your capacity for Fun, Laughter and Romance.
Resentment can occur because you feel you are working so hard and not being appreciated, and/or your partner may resent the fact that you are never at home, but always working.
Again answer these questions.
Do you go on many business trips? How many a month?
What kind of hours do you work? What time do you start and finish work each day?
Do you eat any meals with your partner, and or children?
Do you spend your time off checking your email, or doing work related tasks?
Which do you prioritise – spending time on your business or spending time with your partner and children?
How do you know which to prioritise?
When is the last time you and your partner spent quality time together as a couple?
When is the last time you and your partner spent 30 minutes just idly chatting about nothing of great importance?
When is the last time you held your partner’s hand?
When did you last spend a whole hour just kissing like teenagers?
Business trips for example put a strain on a relationship. We have many different relationships with people but it is only our partner that we go to bed with, are intimate with. The simple fact of having your body close to or holding your partner’s in rest and sleep is one of the main ways for bonding and nurturing. If you are away on business trips more than in your own bed, it is important to look at other ways to foster intimacy and nurturing.
Not having enough time for the relationship puts enormous pressure on a couple. Most couples report that the longer they are a couple, the harder it is to keep romance alive. Romance, fun, laughter? How do you do this when you have a busy schedule I hear you ask?
Well what is stopping you?
If it is time – that can be amended. Just as you plan activities necessary for your business, you can also plan specific times with your partner. If you think all you can spare is 10 minutes, well use those ten minutes. It’s better than no time at all. Be specific about what time, where and when you will spend time together as this will mean you are more likely to achieve it. Mark it in your diary and plan around it. Remember if it’s only ten minutes the business meeting can start ten minutes later can’t it.
How much time do you spend with your partner?
Quiet times on a Sunday morning together sharing a coffee, a meal shared, doing the gardening together, going for a 20 minute walk, sharing a bath, playing a board game, these are all activities any couple can do, and they don’t take that long!
It doesn’t have to be champagne and roses all the time!
So how feasible is it to go out to lunch during the week, even meet up for half an hour for a coffee. Could you ask a neighbour to mind the children for that half hour?
Have breakfast with your partner before you go to work. Instead of reading at bedtime, spend 10 minutes chatting.
When the children are in bed, make a special dinner, turn off the TV and sit at the dinner table and enjoy each others company.
Go to the cinema, go walking together, bring your partner along on a business trip.
Talk about the children, what is going on for them, what you both think needs to happen, and how you can get there.
It is very easy if you just look at how you ARE NOT spending time with your partner, and then look at how you can factor in a few minutes extra time with your partner. You regularly evaluate your business. You can evaluate your relationship too.
Now to look at children, if you have any.
How much time do you spend with your children?
How are they are doing in school?
How much time do you spend helping them with their home work?
How often do you do fun activities together?
Do you and your partner make joint discipline decisions?
When was the last time you talked with your children?
What are the qualities in your children that you love?
What do you want to teach your children?
What would you like your children to be able to say about you?
Answering these questions will help you realise how in touch (or not) you are with your children, how much (or how little) time you are spending with them, and what is important to you about having your children.
Like your responsibilities in your business, you also have responsibilities to your children, and not just financial responsibilities. You are already aware of this, but sometimes you might just get side-tracked, as you get caught up with making your business a success.
One partner parenting alone is a common problem in today’s society. One partner is out earning while the other raises the children but practically does this alone because of the hours worked by their partner. The stay at home parent (even if they are also working but spend marginally more time with the children) tends to do most if not all of the disciplining, feeding, bathing and all the other tasks that come with raising children. This sort of setup is difficult on both parents, especially if their ideas of child rearing are different.
Is your partner parenting alone?
If you are not parenting together, your children may be receiving mixed messages. One of you may be the disciplinarian, while the other the ‘softy’.
Both parents may have different priorities and values. Do you know what your own values and priorities are when it comes to your children? Do you know your partner’s opinion on this?
If you are not spending a lot of time together, how can you communicate these priorities and values. What often happens is that the priorities and opinions come out the wrong way in arguments.
Arguments are never the healthiest way for discussion.
And where is the time for the family to simply have fun and be a family together, enjoying the unity that a family allows.
Are your children growing up but you are not there to enjoy it? Do you spoil them because of your feelings of guilt because you are not with them often? Do you use money as a substitute for your time and attention?
So how can you approach this/tackle this?
If you are feeling stressed from work and are in the habit of taking this out on your family, when you arrive home, before you even get out of the car, write down in a note book all the things that are making you frustrated, get it out of your system before you go into your partner and children and take it out on them.
Spend half an hour when you come in from work with your children, or even just read them a bed time story if they are young enough.
Try and have at least one meal with them a day. If you can’t commit to everyday, try every second day.
Listen to your children talk, even if they are rambling on about the spider on the wall and how big it is. Children grow and flourish with positive attention from their parents. You don’t always have to teach them something. Let them learn and figure it out for themselves by letting them talk it out by talking to you. Give them a hug or a kiss and tell them you love them.
They are your creation. Create them.
Talk to your partner about what is going on for your children, any difficulties they are having. Talk about what you want for your children and how you want to do this, ask your partner this question and see if you are both singing off the same hymn sheet.
This has been a very quick look at the importance of nurturing the relationships that we have in life to nurture us.
These are all practical things you can do to nurture your relationships, and it is important to do this and prioritise this. You’d prioritise any maintenance or investment needed in your business.
You have to make a conscious effort to work at your relationships. Answering the questions above will help you identify what areas you need to focus on and then some ideas on how to address them.
Review your business plan and under Investment and Ploughing Back Profit, put in a few strategies to nourish your relationships, and watch your relationships and your business grow.
Have you Factored your Relationships into your Business plan? - To learn more about this author, visit Sharon Swords's Website.
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