If you don’t have anything to look forward to, you won’t get up for work.
And that includes your from-home business, too.
See, you can’t just say “I love my clients” and call it good; you have to actually LIKE those deep work flow states while you’re creating your next client’s web design, or feel re-energized by each group coaching pod call for your mastermind, or have some super-favorite coffee shop in mind for your biweekly “write all the LinkedIn posts” reminder….
Or else you’re going to burn out from your business life.
Because we don’t truly love our task lists.
We love the way that working in our zone of genius makes us FEEL.
So, quick gut check….
- How many hours during the day are ACTUALLY spent in this deep work zone?
- Which tasks really belong in “zone of excellence”?
- What about all those “zone of competence” line items (that you’ve been holding onto through the past 3 hires)?
You’ve got to STOP telling yourself “oh, I’ll just schedule the social posts again – it’d take almost as long to explain my content calendar to my contractor as it would if I just went and did it”….
Stop saying “it’ll take too long to train her to do it up to standard”….
And stop justifying another 6 months of “I’ll get along without an executive VA” because you feel so uncomfortable admitting to anyone that you’re hiring someone solely to handle YOUR personal schedule.
Listen – I already know you’ve hired SOME help. The top priority help. And you don’t know if the numbers REALLY justify getting another couple of part-time contractors (it’s just that your mental CEO load would be SO much lighter if you did).
But you’re trying to make the RIGHT decision – the sensible, money-informed decision – and so you’re talking yourself out of buying more support with that hoary old chestnut of “I can do this; I’m pretty good at it.”
(Or heaven forbid, “it’s not that bad!”)
When what you REALLY need to be paying attention to is the emotional “joy meter” of your work – like on a scale of 1 to 10, how much you look forward to cracking open the laptop tomorrow morning.
- What’s THAT measurement telling you about your business life?
- About what you ACTUALLY think about your current revenue model, or pivot (or lack thereof), or how you work with your typical clients?
See, THIS is the sort of data and reflection points that we actually need to make sure you’re truly loving your work-from-home life. And not in that trite way, but the actual soul-deep way.
Because every time you do the work – the real work, aka the reflection and processing work – so that you can make those necessary realignment changes, you set yourself up for an even BETTER business enjoyment level for next quarter.
Which then snowballs into next semester, and before you know it, the whole next year.
And you’re looking back, thinking to yourself how AMAZING 2026 was, and how finally everything went perfectly for you. ‘Cause you were ALWAYS able to adjust back and get on track whenever a kid or client tried to rock you off balance.
Case in point: like the time I was taking notes like crazy on the quarterly eval session with my coach, but NOT spinning out after she delivered a whole bunch of “work on this’s” to me!
I just gave myself time to process everything (on a walk later that day); kept THAT day’s schedule and to-do list the same so I wouldn’t be in rushing/reactive mode; ONLY put my number one top priority on tomorrow’s to-do list (and made sure I was still taking breaks, despite the slight bit of overtime needed to get that done); and created a REASONABLE plan for how to fit all the REST of the homework in, over the next 2 weeks – because “everything needs to be up and running at once” is just a story in my head.
- So for you, where can you lean into giving yourself PERMISSION to work fewer hours this next year? (It’s coming right up!)
- What’s your “axe list” of “not gonna do anymore” CEO tasks that you just realized COULD be outsourced – it just had to be to the right person?
- Do you need to hire the couple of team members that will LET you cut back your hours (from those zone of competence and excellence-type tasks)?
Journal on this a little – but only a little, ‘cause you already know what you need to do – and start making those tangible to-do list changes.
Because you’re worthy of working solely in your zone of genius, and loving every minute of your at-home workday.
So let’s get started – what’s the first SOP you’re deleting from your to-do list today?
