3 Ways To Prioritise Your Well-Being And Boss Your Business At The Same Time By Hayley Jenkins

You’re so passionate about the growth that you’ll work all the hours under the sun. Your business is your baby. Working on your business is NOT a chore for you, it’s your passion. You might not even remember the last hobby you had because your business has quickly taken the number one spot in your life.

That’s why it would be easy to see that your well-being can take a backseat in your life. Or, maybe no seat at all.

It doesn’t have to be one or the other. You don’t need to have an all or nothing attitude with your health OR your business. There are enough hours in the day for both, and no you don’t need to wake up at 4:30am like some insane articles might advise you to do (come on, be a realist!)

A good place to start is knowing that well-being is subjective, and you don’t need to measure your “well-being success” from any criteria, other than your own self-assessment and what well-being means to you. 

Here are some quotes of what well-being means to other people:

• “Good health, spread the love around, being unselfish!”

• “That you are fit and well and that all aspects of your life are looked at, physical health and mental health”

• “Looking well, feeling well, looking forward and never looking back. Not feeling neglected or invisible, not being patronised or marginalised”

• “Waking each morning, Good health, having good family and friends, having a place to live and good things to eat. Having just enough money to live on”

Notice how none of them has anything to do with working all the hours under the sun and drive yourself to burn-out?

Mental Health Charity, MIND, suggests that there are five ways to navigate your well-being:

• Connection with others

• To keep active

• Enhance your self-understanding

• Continued self-development and learning

• Help others when you can

Having looked at and understood a bit more what physical and mental well-being can look like, how can you implement these into your day without it feeling like too much of a chore?

As a business owner, you’re extremely busy. It’s important that you schedule time in your diary for YOU, as you’d schedule in a meeting. There is no reason at all to not schedule time in for yourself. Whether it’s a non-work-related catch-up call with a friend, or a 20-minute walk outside, schedule in time where you do something for YOU that has nothing to do with your work.

Set yourself challenges each week to complete and keep on top of them with an accountability checklist. You may or may not thrive off of setting challenges, but this is a brilliant way to make sure you’re not letting your well-being slack. If you challenge yourself to walk 35km this week (for example), chances are that you’re going to get out for a 5k walk each day – meaning, you get out the house and have some time to yourself, whilst ALSO getting some exercise in. It’s a win-win!

Do not make your mobile phone the first thing you look at in the morning or the last thing you look at before you go to sleep. I know how tempting it is to want to look at your phone first thing in the morning to catch up on any missed messages or emails through the night, but doing this doesn’t give you the best start to your day. Your focus has turned to work, rather than taking 30 minutes to yourself to get prepared mentally for the day ahead and to put yourself in the best frame of mind for the day. Instead, make a conscious effort to not check your phone until you’ve sat down to start your workday. Take the time for YOU, whether that be sitting in silence with a coffee for ten minutes, or whether that means getting in 15 minutes of yoga, it’s totally up to you.

Write down one thing in each area you want to improve on from the list MIND have suggested and started implementing the suggestions above to make sure you work toward positive changes for you. Small improvements are the ones most likely to drive lasting change in your life, so don’t get overwhelmed thinking you need to make masses of change to notice any benefits. Small changes, big rewards.

Hayley Jenkins is a qualified health and fitness coach, and creator of The WOW Transformation – A 16-Week Mind & Body Transformation Programme for women who want to put themselves first.