I’ve been a self-employed entrepreneur for nearly my entire life. It hasn’t been easy to maintain my work-life balance. On the contrary, it’s been downright challenging. If you want to keep your marriage intact and create a successful business, listen up. It takes work. It takes setting boundaries. It takes love. My name is Puja Shah, I am a relationship Healing Coach. I help individuals unhappy in their marriage to have a fulfilled harmonious marriage without suffering in silence by my “MEND IT DO NOT END IT” Program.
Let's get straight to the point
Here are the five key lessons that I have learnt over a period of years. I am, a mother, a wife, a daughter, a daughter in law and business partner with my husband. I have been through the ups and downs of business and life just like any other women. And hereby is my attempt to share my experience from my journey of life after marriage and partnering with my husband for our family-based business.
Here are five key lessons I learned over the years
1. Don’t take out your work anger on your partner.
There would be times when you might feel that what your spouse has done is silly and you will be tempted to take out all of your work anger and stress on them.
In such a situation, you want to keep things simple and set clear boundaries between your work and home. You do not bring work at home and vice versa. Make sure you are available fully i.e., mentally and physically when you
are at home. This maintaining of boundaries becomes even more important especially if you and your spouse are working as business partners. It is very important to maintain your cool as we sometimes tend to take our spouse for granted just because we know that they are going to be with us; they become a very convenient medium for us to spill our anger and stress on them.
Make sure that you treat each other with the utmost importance and respect. If you do not and have quarrels amongst each other, your business will reflect the same. Working together you must respect each other more than anything else. You could have a difference of opinion on business matters and both could be right. The solution is to treat each other’s opinions with respect and figure out a way to get on to a common platform.
Remember that starting your own business is not going to be easy but given that your spouse is by your side it does have its plus points as well. To have someone with you go through exactly what you are going through gives a bonus to couples to share an amazing bond.
But relies on an individual’s perspective. You will manifest what you believe in. If you believe that this process is painful, it will be and alternatively, if you see it as an opportunity to understand and bond better, you will.
2. Time management is of utmost importance.
You must always plan your day every night. I would like to share here what particularly has worked well for me so far. I like to make a list of 3 things that I need to do the next day in terms of business priorities. And the next day my goal is to finish the task as quickly as possible because then you already feel like a winner and you can then do other routine tasks that need to be done anyway. I like to set myself a reminder at a given time and location as it is easy to forget in the busy schedule.
This is very important to stay ahead of your game. Also, I like to make use of productive apps or sticky notes to keep me posted on my targeted 3 important tasks of the day.
I call it POWER OF 3
If you are a business partner with your spouse you can hold each other accountable for the work. But you want to make sure that you don’t irritate each other by doing so. It’s very important to be on the same page when you are holding each other accountable. To be on the same frequency it’s important to talk and share about the goals and intentions that you hold for the sake of relationship and business, also on how you intend to achieve it.
Only then it will work but if one of the partners takes it as a nagging then this is not going to work out. Time management needs to be done in other areas of life as well. You want to make sure that you have a record of what takes up most of your time apart from the business side. Learn to save time, automate things wherever possible.
For example batch cooking saves time. Chilling with friends and partying should be timed as well. Because that might take up the time which you could utilize in resting or working on your business growth.
Sometimes when we are working so hard to start a new business, we tend to think that we have worked so well and now I will party hard. I am not against parties, you should celebrate but you should also play within the time frame. Celebrations should be in proportion to the success you have achieved. Don’t forget to involve your spouse, as they have been patient with you in the process. I always think of better ways in which I can use my time rather than chit-chatting with friends.
Stay away from time wasters. Take time for yourself. Take time for your spouse and talk about things you like, challenges you facing, your dreams, and visions. Time needs to be managed in all areas of life and not just business. Remember to treat work as family and family as work.
3. Commit more
To create and grow the impactful and profitable business of your dreams, you must be willing to commit. Remember you are running a business and not a hobby For anything that you want to achieve in life, you will have days where you feel like this does not work and you feel you want to quit. But that’s exactly when you need to commit more. This is when if you are business partners as well then you can help each other to become the pillar of support for each other.
Motivate each other. Give them hope. And then work towards your common goals. Because nothing can be accomplished without you being fully committed. Any business and relationships come with their own unique set of challenges. But you can overcome the challenges by committing and working towards it. With your partner being at your side you will have an added advantage of feeling supported, cared, and loved at all times. No matter what happens never give up on your dreams. Commit to your relationship as well. If things are not right, commit more. If the business is not going the way you want to commit more. That’s the only way to get to where you want to be.
There are a few things that I suggest to commit more
- Have a reason behind your business endeavour apart from financial gains.
- Seek out, like-minded entrepreneurs.
- Set clear and reasonable expectations for yourself.
- Get comfortable with highs and lows.
- Acknowledge that slow growth is healthy.
- The longer you stay in your business the easier it becomes.
4. Keep things simple and separate
Talk to any couple who run a business together and this will be their first piece of advice: keep your work and your home life separate. They’ll tell you that there have to be boundaries that should be adhered to. You need to find a routine that works for you and, to the best of your abilities, stick to it. By all means, put in long hours. But have a cut off time, set aside time to be a couple and, every now-and-again, stop talking business! Remember you are life partners first, business partners second, and you need to give each relationship the attention it deserves.
5. Take the pressure off the relationship by seeking outside help.
Going into business with your spouse needs discipline. There will be times when the personal and professional combine to double the pressure on you both. It’s important, then, that you know how you deal with this – and you’d be wise to put some effort into preparing for such events – as, no matter how tight your relationship is, it will be tested heavily at times. Bringing in help from outside can mitigate this risk. For some, it might be a family member to step in and take care of the kids, for others a cleaner to keep on top of domestic duties while you’ve both got your noses to the grindstone. A business coach, mentor, or professional adviser will be invaluable too; an objective third-party will provide you with a perspective that could save both your business and your marriage. A Big Thank you to Think startup conference for allowing me to share my journey with you beautiful souls. I would like to take this opportunity and thank all my readers for taking the time to read this guide. I know it's not always easy building your relationship alongside the business and being around people that truly care about you is the next step to really helping you get what you want.
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