Last updated on February 24th, 2025 at 10:39 pm
There’s been a lot of discussion online about work-life balance.
However, most of it detaches from the reality of building a business.
Today, we want to share ten work-life balance tips every entrepreneur should know…
- #1: Get Clear On What You Want in Life. What are Your “Hall of Fame” Goals?
- #2: Don’t Try to do Everything at Once – Focus On Your “Super Bowl” Goal
- #3: Accept That it Will Probably Take You at Least a Decade to Build a Successful Business
- #4: Take Care of Your Health and Prioritize Sleep, Nutrition and Exercise
- #5: Get Your Spouse On Board With Your Vision
- #6: Get Your Kids On Board With Your Vision
- #7: Explain to Your Friends That You Won’t be as Available from Now On
- #8: Consciously Decide What Else You are Going to Sacrifice
- #9: Use a Calendar to Make the Most Out of Your Time
- #10: Gradually Extricate Yourself from the Day-to-Day of Running Your Business
#1: Get Clear On What You Want in Life. What are Your “Hall of Fame” Goals?
First, you need to get clear on what you want in life, not just in terms of entrepreneurial success but in general.
Imagine that you are on your deathbed, about to die from old age. What would you want to see when you look back on your life?
Do your best to tune out what you believe you “should” want and get in touch with your true desires.
Being a good person, raising a happy family, building generational wealth, pursuing your hobbies, learning languages, traveling the world, spending time in nature, engaging in spiritual practices…
All these things are what our co-founder Russell Brunson calls “Hall of Fame goals.” They aren’t about any particular achievement but about your life as a whole. What does “a life well-lived” mean to you?
It’s essential to start there because if you don’t have a clear vision, you might find yourself chasing goals that sound cool but aren’t meaningful to you, which is a recipe for accomplishing a lot but still feeling unfulfilled in the end!
#2: Don’t Try to Do Everything at Once – Focus On Your “Super Bowl” Goal
According to Russell, trying to pursue all your Hall of Fame goals simultaneously leads to chaos, stress, burnout, and mediocre results.
That’s why you must also have a “Super Bowl” goal – your main focus right now.
In order to achieve your Super Bowl goal, you will need to forget about “balance.” Russell argues that greatness comes through periods of radical imbalance.
If you want to build a successful business, make it your Super Bowl goal and put everything else on the back burner.
For example, when Russell and his co-founder Todd Dickerson launched ClickFunnels, there was nothing “balanced” about it – they worked crazy hours to get this company off the ground. It simply wouldn’t have been possible otherwise.
One caveat, though: if the radical imbalance needed to achieve your Super Bowl goal starts threatening your Hall of Fame goals, you should abandon it because it won’t be worth it.
Russell shared that if at any time while building ClickFunnels he felt that his marriage was in trouble, he would have left the company because his family was more important to him.
Entrepreneurial success indeed requires sacrifice, but it doesn’t mean you should be willing to sacrifice everything for it!
#3: Accept That it Will Probably Take You at Least a Decade to Build a Successful Business
If you don’t have any previous entrepreneurial experience, it will probably take you at least a decade to build a successful business.
You will almost certainly fail several times before you hit it big. After all, most successful entrepreneurs have a graveyard of failed businesses behind them.
Don’t be disheartened by this. Instead, see each failure as a stepping stone to success. Just limit financial risk – going out of business shouldn’t wreck your life.
Also, when thinking about radical imbalance, remember there’s an arduous journey ahead. This is a marathon, not a sprint, so you need to pace yourself. You don’t want to burn out mid-way!
#4: Take Care of Your Health and Prioritize Sleep, Nutrition and Exercise
Working full-time to pay the bills while building a business on the side may add up to more than 60 hours per week.
That will be tough, but it’s doable – a work schedule like that can be sustained for an extended period, provided that your sleep, nutrition, and exercise routine are on point.
However, if you are perpetually sleep-deprived, subsist on junk food and caffeine, and lead a sedentary lifestyle, attempting to work that much will almost certainly result in burnout.
If you are serious about building a business, you must prioritize your health above all else. If something isn’t mission-critical, don’t sacrifice sleep, proper meals, or gym time. Remember, on a long enough timeline, consistency always beats intensity.
Ultimately, it doesn’t matter if you get a particular task done today or tomorrow; what’s important is that you keep chipping away at your to-do list!
#5: Get Your Spouse On Board With Your Vision
If you are working a full-time job and building a business on the side, you won’t have much time left for anything else.
This means that your spouse will have to be okay with spending less time with you, holding down the fort at home, and potentially even putting their dreams on hold so that you could pursue yours. Needless to say, that’s a lot to ask of someone!
Explain to them what you want to accomplish, why it’s important to you, and how it will benefit not just you but also them and the kids. Listen to their concerns and address them. Be open to compromise and work out a plan you can agree on without either party feeling resentful.
#6: Get Your Kids On Board With Your Vision
If you want to build a business, you’ll have to spend less time with your spouse and your kids. That’s why getting them on board with your vision is also essential.
Have a similar conversation with your kids as you did with your spouse – explain what you want to accomplish, why it’s important to you, and how it will benefit you and them.
In addition to that, set clear boundaries regarding the time you have allocated for your business so that your kids would know when they shouldn’t disturb you.
Finally, establish a weekly routine where you do something fun as a family on the same day of the week, at the same time (e.g. Saturday morning). This will give your kids something to look forward to!
#7: Explain to Your Friends That You Won’t be as Available From Now On
You must put your social life on the back burner until you get your business. However, if you ghost your friends without warning, they will probably be upset about it – and understandably so!
Instead, be direct with them: tell them you want to focus on building a business and won’t be as available as you used to be. Because of time constraints, hanging out regularly is out of the question, but you can still show up for big events like birthdays, weddings, and so on.
This shouldn’t be a problem if your friends have a lot going on as well. However, suppose people in your social circle are just drifting through life and cannot relate to having a goal-oriented mindset. In that case, they might take your decision to prioritize building a business personally. In that case, you may need to reconsider those friendships.
#8: Consciously Decide What Else You Are Going to Sacrifice
We recommend making a list of everything that you are willing to sacrifice to build your business.
Here’s a good way to think about it: if it doesn’t directly contribute to your health, marriage, or relationships with your kids, you should probably give it up.
For example, if you enjoy spending time in nature, you can go hiking with your family on the weekends. But you should forego solo hiking trips for now.
Same with watching Netflix, playing computer games, going to events, and so on. Either do it with your spouse and/or kids or don’t do it at all.
If you have solitary interests like DIY projects, creative hobbies, learning languages, etc., take a break from them.
#9: Use a Calendar to Make the Most Out of Your Time
There are 168 hours in a week.
If you want to make the most of them, you must start living by your calendar.
That means scheduling everything: sleep, meals, gym, commute, working at your day job, working on your business, spending time with your family, doing household chores, and so on.
You can use Google Calendar, Apple Calendar, Notion, or similar apps for this. What matters is that you get into the habit of consciously allocating every hour of every day according to your priorities!
#10: Gradually Extricate Yourself From the Day-to-Day of Running Your Business
There’s an important distinction between working in your business and working on your business:
- Working in your business means handling its day-to-day operations. That includes building products, delivering services, marketing, sales, customer support, and administrative tasks.
- Working on your business means building systems that can run without you, such as workflows, sales funnels, organizational infrastructure, etc.
When you are just starting, you must hustle to keep the lights on, so you will inevitably spend most of your time working on your business.
However, once you get to the point where your company is financially stable and its revenue is consistently growing monthly, you should start spending more and more time working on your business.
You want to gradually extricate yourself from its day-to-day operations so it could eventually run without you. Not only will this enable you to have a better work-life balance, but it will also turn your business into a sellable asset!
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