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GO IT ALONE!

seems so common among entrepreneurs. If you are working hard and not realizing your objectives, you either are trying to do too much or haven’t established the appropriate systems to leverage your core skills. In either case, the answer is not to keep slogging on; it is to rethink your systems.

Indeed, success requires ongoing focus and innovation. These vital creative activities cannot be sustained if you suffer from burnout. As a consequence, it is imperative that any signs of imminent burnout be viewed as a symptom of a problem that requires you to change the way you have structured your business.

Hard work is unquestionably a virtue, and a necessity in any start-up. Nonetheless, there is a tendency in American business culture to admire those who work too hard. In a go-it-alone business, it’s critical that you not fall into this trap. When you are on your own, there is no boss who watches whether you are working 10 hours a week or 100. It’s essential to measure progress by what you have accomplished, not by how hard you have worked at it. Moreover, for you and your business to prosper, you must establish a sustainable routine in which you can do your best work and flourish over the long-term.

Consider Your Personal Energy Level

Jim Loehr and Tony Schwartz, the authors of The Power of Full Engagement: Managing Energy, Not Time, Is the Key to High Performance and Personal Renewal, make a point that is particularly important in this discussion: It is not simply creating time for focus that is critical—it is also the ability to manage your energy. In establishing your business system, keep in mind that you don’t realize any objective if you create time for yourself but don’t set up the system so that you also have the energy to use that time well. The value of extreme outsourcing is that it frees you from handling the vast majority of activities that eat away at both your energy and your time.

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Terms of Use GO IT ALONE! Copyright 2004 by Bruce Judson. Reprinted by permission of HarperCollins Publishers. All rights reserved.