Don't Be The Life Coach With No Life

In your quest to succeed as a coach, it's easy to fail as a human being.

This is a common trap for full-time coaches to fall into. They make the leap because they want the freedom of running their own business...and instead their business ends up running them.

Some coaches don’t realize this until it’s too late. They wake up one day tired, unfulfilled, and trapped in a constant state of anxiety. And they don't have the energy left to do anything about it.

I don't want this to happen to you.

As a coach, you're supposed to be helping people live a good life. And it's hard to do that if you don't have much of a life yourself.

How to Build Your Business Around the Life You Want

As Jonathan Fields says, “Entrepreneurship is not about building a great business, it’s about building a great life.”

If you agree with that statement, here are three steps I'd recommend taking ASAP:

1. Decide what your priorities are

There are lots of different ways to build a business. So if you don't know what's important to you, you're constantly going to feel pulled in different directions.

Personally, the reason I started my business was to help people unleash their potential. I wanted to make great money, on my terms, without sacrificing my integrity. I really value personal connection and results so I stick to more intimate, high end offerings.

How about you? Why did you want to be a coach in the first place?

2. Decide when to stop working

The next step to building a business around the life you want is to set some parameters around your working hours. Nobody is going to do this for you so you have to do it yourself.

For example, I stop working by 6pm on weekdays and, as a general rule, take Saturdays off.

You may say that you'll step back from your business once it's making six figures (or seven figures, etc.). But hold up...if you’re not willing to prioritize your life over your business when it's small, how on earth are you going to have the discipline to step back when it’s growing?

The truth is that if you can’t take time off from your business, you’re being driven by fear. If you were really committed to serving people, you would commit to filling up your own gas tank first.

Which brings us to step three...

3. Connect with the people you love (not just clients)

A few years ago I became obsessed with positive psychology. In all of the research that I’ve seen, one key finding stands out: true happiness comes from your relationships, not from your accomplishments.

If you’re like most high-performers, you have a core belief deep down that you’re not enough. That you need to “do” more in order to be worthy of love. And so you work your ass off trying to achieve more and more and more.

The irony of all this hustle is that it often isolates us from the very people we want to be loved by. Those people love us for who we are, not for what we do. All they want is to spend some quality time with us.

The Bottom Line

It’s easy to think that we have to be rugged individualists and do everything ourselves. But no one does this entrepreneurship thing in isolation. The support systems around you are some of the most important components of your business success.

So take this weekend totally off. Go on a vacation. Stop working after dinner and watch a movie with your partner.

Whatever you do, don't forget what really matters: the people who will show up at your funeral and the things they will say about you.