Hey Reader,
I don't really believe in "work-life balance."
I've talked about it before, but I've been thinking about it more and more lately.
Growing up, I heard it all the time. This mysterious "balance" we were supposed to find in life. Of course, it was supposed to be found some undisclosed amount of time after we worked really hard and "paid our dues" to whatever type of work we were in...but I digress.
The thing is, I never really understood what that "balance" should look like.
Does everything get the same amount of time and energy? Your family, your job, your health, your hobbies?
That definitely doesn't work, because a typical job snags at least 40 hours every week...and we also have to sleep at some point.
So I just never figured out how it all balances out.
At some point I realized it doesn't balance out.
And I think most people have figured this out as well, because "experts" have been giving us new ways to find balance for decades and it sure as heck seems like most of us still can't find it.
All this to say - I don't think balance exists.
BUT, I also don't think it should be the goal.
For a long time now I've preferred the idea of "harmony" instead.
Harmony doesn't mean everything gets the same share of your time, energy, effort, and attention. Instead, it means all those different parts work together to give your life meaning and happiness.
Sometimes one part needs more than usual. Other times, it needs less.
Think of it like a song: Sometimes the vocals lead, other times it's the rhythm section, and then sometimes we have that killer guitar solo.
The goal is to crate a song (a life) that creates the harmony (happiness) you want.
I've found this is a much better way to think about building my business and the role it plays in my life. My business is part of my life. It doesn't need to become my life in order to be successful. Yours is the same.
As we get into this world of trying to build something, we can quickly get caught up in questions like:
How do I get more followers?
How do I launch a course?
How do I start a podcast?
Should I create more content?
Should I hire a VA?
Should I launch another product?
The list can go on for days. And those are all good questions to ask.
But, I think we need to be asking a much more important question first:
What do I actually want this business to do for my life?
The reality is, you likely don't want the same things as I do.
Maybe you want an extra $500 a month. Or maybe you want to build a 7-figure business.
Maybe you want just enough to keep your side hustle afloat because it's a creative outlet. Or maybe you want some extra cash for vacations.
Maybe you want to keep it a side hustle forever. Or maybe you're hoping it becomes your full-time gig some day.
None of those potential wants are right or wrong. But they do lead to different answers to the other questions, because they lead to different businesses.
If we don't know what we're trying to build, and why, it's really easy to end up chasing someone else's definition of success.
If we let someone else answer those questions for us, we might end up building a "successful" business that we don't really get any happiness from.
So I've been working on something I call HARMONY.
Full transparency: I've been working on this for a LONG time. I've created a hundred different versions of it, put them to the side, came back and rearranged them, scrapped them, and started all over more times than I can remember.
But the current version, I've been working on for over a year now, and I'm feeling really good about it.
HARMONY is a framework that can help us answer "Does the business I'm building actually fit into the life I want to live?"
Over the next several weeks, I'm going to be sharing the 7 parts of this framework and breaking them down for you, because I think we spend a little too much time figuring out how to build a business...and not enough time deciding what kind of a business we actually want to build.
We'll get started next week with "Happiness."
Between now and then, I want you to think about this question:
What do you actually want your business to do for your life?
Don't worry about how much revenue you'll need to make or how big it needs to be. I just want you to think about what you want it to be able to do for your life.
Feel free to hit 'reply' and let me know your answer.
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~ Jeff
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I appreciate you.
Jeff Gargas
COO / Co-Founder, Teach Better Team
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P.S. When you're ready, here's how I can help:
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