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Whether you’re working 40+ hours a week or building your own business, a good work-life balance is extremely important. Sure, having a lot of money is nice, but if you’re always tired and can never spend time with your friends and family, is it really worth it? While starting your own business is certainly a rewarding experience, not taking the time to enjoy yourself outside of work can take a huge toll on your physical, spiritual and mental health.
So if you find yourself constantly buried in your work, it’s important to take a step back and think about the areas of your personal life that you might be neglecting. Here’s how I was able to build a healthy social and dating life while growing my startup — and how you can do it, too.
Related: How To Be An businessroundups.org And Make A Life!
The importance of balance
In early 2020, I decided to put all my savings into starting a software startup in my parent’s basement. The best part was that I was 19 years old and had no startup experience.
All I cared about was the desire to succeed. To turn my idea into reality, I decided to go into grinding mode. Grind mode is a period of time when I don’t hang out with friends, go on dates, or travel anywhere. This period is specifically set to achieve a specific goal.
For building my software startup, six months was a perfect period to lay my head down and grind. During these six months I had no problems with mental health or boredom. All I thought about was the final product.
After the six month period, I did some light socializing here and there, but my personal life slowly began to drift downhill. I didn’t lose the passion for what I was doing. I loved working with trends and helping creators. But the constant work and lack of human interaction outside of work slowly broke me down. Then I realized I needed balance in my life.
Related: Science knows you need a life outside of work. This is how you do it.
How I built a social life
As far as my spiritual, physical and financial, they were all good at the time. The areas where I fell short were family, social, dating and my mental health. To improve my relationship with my family, I’ve made it mandatory to call my dad every Thursday at 5 p.m. and the rest of my family every Sunday via Zoom. Doing this consistently over the past year has strengthened my relationship with them.
To solve my social, dating and mental health issues (such as burnout), I decided to set a goal to meet two new people a day. I have already set many goals in my life, but this goal has had the biggest positive impact on my life. Everything in life is a trade-off. As you give more of something, you lose something elsewhere.
Here are the pros and cons I’ve noticed of taking time to socialize in the evening after the workday:
Cons:
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Business got a minor performance hit: I’m going to keep this 100% real. For several weeks/months I missed some of my business goals. It was very easy to get distracted by the thought of socializing/dating after I was done with the work day. As a result, I ended up procrastinating a bit more and putting things off for the next day. Solving this problem took a lot of discipline to make sure I stayed in my deep work mindset throughout the day.
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Easier to hide from trouble: Whenever there was a huge problem that I needed to address or solve and didn’t feel like it, I could temporarily hide from this pain by socializing/dating in the evenings. Along with the bullet point above, I postponed problems and avoided them that needed attention. I eventually dealt with these issues, but it was very easy to try and hide from reality by socializing at night.
Advantages:
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Improved Social/Dating Life: When I go out in the evening to socialize, I often like to go alone. The intention of going out alone is to relax and enjoy. If I meet some people along the way, that’s cool. Often some of the people I meet make the best of friends. I will also find people I am compatible with and ask them out from time to time. This is a great way to naturally build your social and dating life.
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Unexpected collaborations/business opportunities: When I meet people I’m compatible with, I sometimes discover that we’re in the same industry or in industries that complement each other. This mutual interest often opens doors for business opportunities and collaborations.
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Improved Sales/People Skills: An unexpected benefit of evening socializing was that my people and sales skills improved tremendously. As I met more people in the evenings, I quickly learned to deal with different personality types, hold an engaging conversation, and connect with people on a personal level. I have benefited exponentially from this within my company. It also helped me close more sales and connect with people who weren’t ready to buy.
Related: 7 keys to a perfect work-life balance
Building and managing a social/dating life while growing a startup will allow you to fulfill other aspects of your life besides finances. Filling these different areas of life such as social, dating, personal and family makes life more fun and helps with your overall mental health. Yes, there is a time and place to put 100% focus on your work, but you need to balance things from time to time. Your physical and mental health will thank you for it later.
