Management in my own company

As a small business owner, I’ve come to the realisation that my biggest task is to manage myself. My emotions, motivation, time, boundaries and tasks.

The realisation has come time and time again in the past year running the business mostly due to failing at it. Not managing my time in an efficient way, or not saying no when it’s been well needed.

Since I’m heavily reliant on myself, on me doing the work that needs to be done, I need to entertain and maintain myself in a higher degree than I would had I been an employee. Mostly because there aren’t people around me taking that care of me otherwise.

I spoke to two friends, both working administration-heavy jobs in large organisations about this. They both laughed at how they could go to a boss if they had a hard case, someone bugging them or even if they have a bad day.

I can’t. I can be transparent with my customers telling them about a bad day. I can tell them about my boundaries. But at the end of the day, I’m at their service and mercy. I need to get hours in in order to get paid. That means sucking things up at times.

To be fair, it’s how I want things to be. I’d much rather be responsible in this way than to be able not to be.

It’s something I’m having to learn to cope with, over and over again. And I’m getting better at it all the time.