Invest in your business by investing in your health

​If you want to reach new heights in your company this year, invest in the one resource you cannot replace – YOU.

Make workplace wellness your business even if, or in particular if, you are the only person in the business.
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Here is how solopreneurs and micro business owners can improve the business bottom-line by improving your own health and wellness.

Every year we set off with renewed energy and big plans for our businesses.

We have beautifully laid out strategic plans and lists of New Year's resolutions. Our workspaces have been tidied up, paperwork sorted and our diaries ready to be filled with appointments.

I don't know about you, but even after all the years of running my massage practice, there is still this feeling of anticipation as I prepare for the first client of the new year.

And the night of my first day back at work, I sleep like a log, not being massage fit. Having spent the holidays sitting around reading, socialising, building puzzles takes its toll on the body even if it revives the soul.

But soon I will be back in the swing of things and before I know it, it is time to do the monthly statements for January.

Then February ... March... April ...

And if we don't watch out, we are back on the hamster wheel of work and sleep and merely existing.

The expectations and hope we felt at the beginning of the year has disappeared in our attempts to keep up, to carry on, to survive.

​A bit like Katie Melua’s slow train crawling up a hill.

Next thing we see December on the horizon and the train thunders downhill towards the end of year madness and then a few days rest.

Life can so easily develops an annual rhythm of anticipation, then coping and finally just hanging on for dear life, waiting for the holidays to recover from a fight for survival.

Sounds a bit like the life we wanted to leave behind when we chose to be self-employed, doesn’t it? It is definitely not what we signed up for.  

Unfortunately that is the pattern I so often see. As my wise business strategist and mentor, Albert van Niekerk of ABPlan always points out, too often business owners employ themselves rather than building a business. 

But I am here to tell you that there is something we can do about it.

The game changer, I believe, is adding one extra strategic objective to your plan for 2017.

If you want to invest in your company this year, invest in your health and wellness. Be as committed to your own wellbeing as you are to the financial aspects of your company. Make wellness your business.
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 in a fuzzy, I-have-good-intentions, when-I-have-the-time type of way.

No, make it a strategic goal, set measurable outcomes and be accountable to achieving those goals.
Make sure your decisions make the differnec you want it to make.

Why is this a game changer?

​Well, the fitter we are, the more effectively we manage stress, the more we are at peace with ourselves, the better we can manage the ups and downs of running a business.

​Improving our physical and psychological endurance and helps us perform at our peak throughout the year.  ​

And if the one resource without which your business cannot survive, functions optimally the rest is sure to follow.

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