Practices for a Peace-Filled Business

In the last week alone, I’ve heard these statements from business owners:

* I feel like a 1/2 ton of rocks are piled on my head by day's end. I need an intervention.
* My customers act like their hair is on fire and it’s my job to put it out.
* I have a million excuses for why I’m not taking action.
* I’m constantly dodging bullets.
* I've been all twisted up lately.

I don’t know about you, but at one time or another I’ve definitely felt similar things.

You feel like burying your head in the sand and telling everyone to go away. If you were a tad more bold and profitable, you’d book a flight to Fiji and stay there for a month or two.

Before you go deeper into the muck, let’s just take a step back from the craziness of your business. I know you may feel that you have no control or can’t pinpoint an ideal solution, but it may be even simpler than you think to find some peace.

Back in 1998, I created my very first product, The Art of Practice. It’s a simple, but powerful life changer. A practice is anything that you do over and over. It’s such a deep-seated pattern you may not even see it as a pattern but “just the way it is”.

High achievers and entrepreneurs have a tendency to blame their team, economy, lack of knowledge, time and/or money for the problems they experience in their business. You never do that, right? I’m going to assert that you will change the entire mode of your business operation if you adjust your practices.

I recently worked with a client who felt like his head was going to blow off due to the lack of competent people on his team, long hours and no time to work on the business and make adjustments.

We came up with two solutions. One was a short action list to eliminate a few of the immediate problems. The other was a Peaceful Practice List. This is a common solution for almost every powerful client I’ve ever had. In fact, it seems like the more they achieve, the less happy they become because their practices revolve around getting more stuff done and never being present in the moment.

Save your health, sanity and relationships by creating your own Peace Rules. If you knew that you were going to literally die in the next year if you didn’t redesign the way you do business, what would be your new practices?

Here are some examples:

* Exercise before going to the office
* Hire ideal team members or don’t hire at all
* Leave white space on your calendar
* Increase the money you put in your savings monthly or bi-weekly
* Take no appointments on Monday, Friday or both
* Set regular business hours and honor them
* Create daily goals based on your yearly business plan
* Create daily goals the night before
* Take a lunch break
* Check email no more than 2–3 times a day
* Close your office door for periods of time with no phone calls, emails, or texts
* Clean your desk daily or weekly
* Do a daily appreciation journal or Speed Dial the Universe Journal
* Never lower your rates or prices
* Only accept ideal clients who are thrilled to work with you

Creating peaceful practices in your life will support your business. There is no way you can create more profits and life balance if your practices support chaos.

Clarifying new peaceful practices won’t be difficult. But you may struggle with the implementation. The things you must do for peace might seem counterintuitive for success. They’re not. It’s the only way to real success.

"Having it all" means that you get to have flow, efficiency, fun, joy and profits. Don’t settle for anything less. Ever.