This post originally appeared on VentureBent – a blog syndicate I’m part of.
Its so important to finish in everything you do – especially as an entrepreneur. When you’re doing startups there is never enough time in the day. You’re forced to pick and choose your battles and devote less time to certain things you care about. A hierarchy results where some things get more time and attention than others. I’ve found this segmentation to be fine, but when you start cutting it short on things it can be a slippery slope.
Three things that have been consistently important to me throughout my entrepreneurial journey are my professional goals, fitness, and diet. Early on, I decided that my diet and fitness regimen were going to take a backseat to me trying to kick the door down as an entrepreneur. I opted to go to the gym 3 days a week vs. my former 5 and eat out more because its quicker than preparing your meals – more time for work.
As the nights got longer there’d be mornings where I just didn’t feel like going to the gym. At weeks end I’d have hit the gym 1-2 times instead of my target 3. It was always easy for me to justify skipping because I was spending those hours catching up on sleep from working late. I’d tell myself those extra hours would allow me to be more productive at work…after all getting ahead professionally was at the top of my pyramid.
Over time I began to notice failure to accomplish goals outside the professional realm were taking a serious toll on my discipline. I’d feel urges to make excuses not to do something I needed to do at work. I’d find ways to stay busy instead of really focusing on things I needed to, but didn’t want to.
I had thought I was doing myself a favor by pushing aside other things like the gym and my diet for work…but one day it hit me. Cutting it in short in those areas had caused a bad habit and it was carrying over to all aspects of my life – especially work. Pretty ironic since I thought that I was actually doing myself a favor for awhile there.
The greatest lesson I learned is its fine to make sacrifices in certain areas of your life as an entrepreneur, but make sure you finish what you set out to do in every area of your life. You’ll be far better off, even if that means setting less ambitious goals at first. Just make sure your finish.
