Uncommon Freedom

Self-Care Strategies for Long-Term Success as an Entrepreneur

• Kevin Tinter

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Maintaining your drive and passion as an entrepreneur is crucial for long-term success. But how do you keep that entrepreneurial fire burning while avoiding burnout? 

In today's episode, we sit down and dive deep into practical self-care strategies that will help you sustain your entrepreneurial spirit.

Drawing from our experiences and insights, we share four key tactics for nurturing your entrepreneurial drive:

  1. Setting clear personal and professional goals
  2. Identifying your "big why" for building wealth
  3. Establishing daily habits and routines for success
  4. Engaging in motivational activities and celebrating milestones

We discuss the importance of creating a strong sense of purpose beyond financial gain, how to draft a family mission statement, and ways to incorporate productivity-boosting habits into your daily life. We also explore the power of surrounding yourself with motivated peers and creating a reward system for achieving your goals.

Whether you're a seasoned entrepreneur or just starting out, this episode offers valuable insights on how to care for your most important asset – yourself. Join us to learn how to cultivate a self-care routine that will keep you energized, motivated, and thriving on your entrepreneurial journey!

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Speaker 1:

Hey Freedom Fighters. As entrepreneurs, it's easy to get caught up in the grind and neglect our own well-being. But what if we told you that prioritizing self-care is actually key to sustaining your entrepreneurial spirit?

Speaker 2:

In today's episode, we're diving into practical strategies to help you cultivate a self-care routine that will help you energize. Be energized, motivated and thriving as you pursue your entrepreneurial dreams.

Speaker 1:

So caring for your entrepreneurial spirit is dynamic and extremely intertwined with personal well-being. Here are four tactics and action steps that we think are fantastic for tending to the spirit so it can grow with you.

Speaker 2:

Okay. So tactic one is to set clear personal and professional goals to maintain direction and purpose. Wow, if that's not true, right?

Speaker 1:

It is yeah.

Speaker 2:

Sometimes we have people just kind of shooting from the hip. I think it's human nature and you know. When that happens, it's like you can get to a week or a month or a year and you could just circle something on your life and say it was a bullseye. But the truth is, if you're not actually tracking it, if you're not setting intention, then how do you know you've really moved the dial forward?

Speaker 1:

Yeah, we talk about having goals for every spoke on the wheel of life and going from memory some of of the spokes and there's different versions of this out here, but physical is a huge part of it Spiritual, financial relationships, specifically marriage and family, parenting, things like that. You've got the social community aspects. Those are some of the different spokes on the wheel of life and what we've experienced is that, you know, on the wheel of life and what we've experienced is that, you know, really for most of our life we didn't have specific goals until we, you know, found the right community. That really challenged us to be better and to be more intentional about every area of our life. But one of the other things, when you think about the spokes on the wheel of life, if you are flat in any one of those areas, if you know anything about like a flat tire, especially if it's a solid tire.

Speaker 2:

I don't know anything.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, but if you have a solid tire, something that is like an older solid rubber tire, if there's a flat spot on it, you know you can drive around and then every time you hit that flat spot it's a thump and it makes for a very bumpy ride. And it makes for a very bumpy ride and it's a great analogy that what we want to do is be as even as possible. You know, if you think about on a scale of one to 10, where you're at in these different spokes, the goal is to gradually work your way out to a 10 in all those areas, versus being a 10 physically but a one financially those areas, versus being a 10 physically but a one financially. If you can be a five or six or seven and gradually work your way out to being an eight, nine or 10 in all areas, you're going to have a much more enjoyable life, a lot less conflict and, as the analogy shows you, a lot fewer bumps in your life.

Speaker 2:

Well said and where focus goes, energy flows. So I think it's really easy for us to say like I'm working on all my health goals right now and we neglect time with our family, potentially, or our business, or I'm so driven on business and being present for my kids that I've let my health go, and so we want to really encourage all of us to live an integrated life. It'll never be perfectly balanced, but what we are looking is that we can counterbalance certain areas and just keep everything in perspective, because to lose a family relationship because of building a business, or to lose your health just to be a parent, none of those things are going to equal themselves out at the end of your life, I think, or make you feel fulfilled or have well-being or really allow you to maximize your potential and make an impact out there. So the goal is that we won't ever be perfect in all of those areas, but to work with them harmoniously, because we're conscious of it and we're setting these intentions.

Speaker 1:

Yeah. So action step write down your personal mission statement and your business objectives. And a strong sense of purpose beyond financial gain fuels resilience and drive. So tactic two is to identify your big why for building wealth and articulate your desired impact.

Speaker 2:

Boy. This one is something we've really grown into, because I would say, initially, you know what did big wealth mean to us? You know, how did we kind of dream beyond our immediate needs? And what's fun is, when you write this down and you track it and you share it, especially with your spouse, then you actually have a track record of it. You have a history to go back to. So for us, you know, when I started our coaching business back in 2011,. You know I was thinking about things like you know, could we put our kids in a private school someday? Our kids were three, two and two months old, so we weren't really into schooling yet, but it was just like what, if I wanted to put them in a Christian school, could I pay for that at some point?

Speaker 1:

And when we look back, if we hadn't generated some additional income, we could not have done it.

Speaker 2:

No, not at that season of our life where you were a police officer and I was mostly a stay-at-home mom, and then there were things that were like what kinds of things did we want to give to? Obviously having goals for upgrades we wanted to make in our home and we knew we wanted to entertain and have people around.

Speaker 1:

Upgrades are good.

Speaker 2:

Upgrades are good. We wanted spaces to do those things, we wanted time to do those things, and so now I would say we dream much more on the level of how can we help other people win the way that we have been able to succeed financially and relationally and in business and in life. So we want to give that away and we also want to continue to create income because we have some really important big dreams and goals that are far beyond just serving our own selves and our own family.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, yeah, we do. We have ministries that we're passionate about. They've shared their vision with us. We believe in the vision, and the reality is that most of the visions and the goals that nonprofits and ministries have require money, and some of the goals that they have require some significant amounts of money, and we want to be a part of that, and so that's actually one of the things that absolutely drives us to to not be complacent, but to continue to grow so we can have a bigger and bigger impact. So your second action step is to draft a family mission statement, that is, if you haven't done it since we talked about this just a few weeks ago. That captures your shared purpose, and I think husband and wife will probably be the driving factors in this, but it's also fun to get your kids' intake on this.

Speaker 2:

We should have had ours pulled up so we could share it. So maybe we could share it in the show notes, because we have one that has recently been drafted.

Speaker 1:

Yes.

Speaker 2:

Listen, guys, daily habits and routines are crucial for cultivating an entrepreneurial mindset. So tactic number three is to develop a consistent morning routine that includes goal setting and planning. What about you? Do you do this in the morning? I do a lot of things like this at night, actually planning. What about you? Do you do this in the morning? I do a lot of things like this at night, actually, because I like to set myself up before I go to sleep with kind of like what my day is going to look like the next day.

Speaker 1:

But are you more of a morning goal setter? No, I prefer to. This is like my end of evening routine, planning out my day for the next day, and the reality is most of my goals are done on a monthly basis. Like thinking about what I want to accomplish for a year, break it down into monthly. I redo, kind of my daily tracker for the month, typically on the last day of every month or the first of the month, and there's not a whole lot of variety in it, a lot of routine and but then obviously there's the main things I need to get done every single day. But uh, for the most part my goals are, you know, in in month long chunks and I just chip away at them.

Speaker 2:

Obviously. I think that's probably helpful because I think if you're changing your goals every single morning, you know you're going to have a really tough time moving the dial forward. But also, as goals become more automatic and they become habits, then it takes a lot less emotional and mental energy. That's why it's important Like Atomic Habits is such a great book because it talks about habit stacking. So when you're building in a new habit, you're trying to create a new neural pathway. Find something you already do whether it's stretching in the morning, reading your Bible, drinking coffee, brushing your teeth and stack something new that you want to do with that habit, so it becomes easier.

Speaker 2:

So with our clients, a lot of it is like hey, how about reading some of your habits of health? Because that's going to take your mind along on your health journey. And if you can't find time to do that or you don't feel like you have time, how about you do it while you read your brush your teeth? You know you're brushing your teeth for two or three minutes and you read one page in your life book or something along those lines.

Speaker 2:

So learning to stack new habits now what you and I have developed over the last man probably a decade, but even the last five years is we've become creatures of habit in a lot of ways. So we both have a morning routine. They're not the same, but they have some similarities and we almost always do the same things every morning. We always listen to our Darren Daly, we listen to our Bible app, we spend some time with God. You stretch consistently, we take our vitamins. These are things that have just become part of our success habits and so they don't take us almost any mental energy, because I know that when I've left my bathroom at the end of 30 minutes or whatever, I've done almost all of the things that I normally do.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, and one of the things we learned is that every decision takes energy, and what we want to do is minimize the number of decisions that we have to make and we want to save our decision making for the more important things. So if you don't have to decide if you're going to work out, you've already decided I'm going to work out and you've also decided when you're going to work out Then you've just saved yourself several decisions and you're saving, you're conserving that energy for more impactful, more important decisions that you'll need to make during the day. So that's a really good thing to do.

Speaker 2:

Correct.

Speaker 2:

And then when you set your habits up to support your decisions, your structure up to support your decisions, then it makes it even easier to follow through, right?

Speaker 2:

So what I will do often is I'll book my workouts the night before, set my alarm so I know when I'm getting up, and even though I can afford the cancellation fee, I don't really want to pay that on a regular basis. It's a waste of money and I put my shoes out if I need to, or my outfit out that I'm going to wear, and I know when I get up in the morning when I'm working out that day. I rarely walk into a day thinking I just wonder when I'll get a workout in today, because I know myself. Honestly, for me, if it doesn't happen around by 9 am at the latest, it doesn't really happen. You have an amazing habit of doing it at 9 pm or 10 pm if needed, but what I'm doing is I'm reducing the drag that it takes to make a decision and commit to something and follow through, because it's very valuable to me. So I've already made the decision ahead of time.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, and the there's two things I mean. I know Darren Hardy actually talks about the fact that, um, he does not a fan of morning workouts. Like like doing your main walk workout during the morning because for most people, that's their, that's their prime creativity time, or create, create creative time. Uh, however, if that's the only time you're going to get it in, then get your workout in in the morning and that's just kind of where you're at, because you play, you know, a different role with the kids and by the afternoon things are very tend to always make dinner.

Speaker 2:

Yeah so far, you haven't volunteered to be the ongoing dinner maker, which happens so much better at it.

Speaker 1:

We work in our strengths right.

Speaker 2:

We fully agree on that absolutely. And the other thing is I am willing, even though I don't enjoy it, to get up very early, and I'm not if it means to get my workout in, because for me I I just know that and I'm also a woman it takes longer to get ready, you know so. But I don't want to go halfway through my day kind of put together, then get sweaty and dirty, have to start all over again. I just want to get it out of the way. So, so for me, I'm very, very consistent. Because it's the morning, that's great.

Speaker 2:

So your action step is actually to incorporate habits that promote productivity and wellbeing, like exercise and healthy eating. So when we're talking about habits, we're not talking about habits of, you know, watching TV, habits of eating crappy food for your body, you know, habits of spending time with people that are not going to help you become the best version of yourself. We're talking about positive, healthy, life-giving habits, because those are the ones we want to add, and then the other ones naturally self-select out most of the time. When we make enough of the right habits, that's good Enough of the right decisions.

Speaker 1:

So we want to encourage you to engage in motivational activities and self-rewarding milestones that will sustain your drive and self-rewarding milestones that will sustain your drive. So tactic four is to regularly consume inspirational content and connect with motivated peers. So this is something. Once again, this is a drastic shift for you and I. In the last 13 years. I did not, you know, I didn't listen to podcasts. I joked that really I hardly I read books. You know I didn't listen to podcasts. I joked that really I hardly I read books, jerry Right, ones without pictures, right?

Speaker 2:

Yeah.

Speaker 1:

Seinfeld reference for those of you who are either too young or too slow on the uptake there.

Speaker 1:

But I just didn't read books. I mean, I could probably count on one hand the number of books at least nonfiction books that I read from the time that I was 18 until we started our business and then it just became this massive consumer of, and hopefully practitioner of, personal development, where it's books, it's audio books, it's podcasts, it's seminars, but it's just constant, this constant flow of, of positivity into our life. And one of the biggest things, like I remember, is when I was a police officer, I would listen to talk radio and everything that was being said. Maybe it was true, maybe it was helpful, but it wasn't positive.

Speaker 1:

And I remember that within 30 days, within weeks of me leaving law enforcement and just taking myself out of that environment, I also made a conscious decision that I'm done watching news. I didn't watch much at all, but I was like I'm just so sick of the negativity because I was just like in this bath of negativity as a police officer, so sick of the negativity because I was just like in this bath of negativity as a police officer and getting rid of the, even though I agreed with the talk radio getting rid of it. I just remember having this epiphany of oh my gosh, I'm happy. And then making the shift towards just all this positive input. It was a game changer. It was a game changer.

Speaker 2:

And what we're not suggesting, I would say, is that you just need to consume massive amounts of personal development content, because for some people, they become personal content. You know personal productivity junkies and they intake and intake, and intake and intake, but they don't do anything with it. And we've been, I would say, potentially, down this road where, like in small group and things, it would be like how many books are we going to read this year? And we've made, I would say, potentially down this road where, like in small group and things, it would be like how many books are we going to read this year? And we've made our own commitment.

Speaker 2:

And what I learned a few years ago is yes, I do want to start and finish. I want to finish most of the books. I start and I want to learn things from them. But instead of just saying I read 24 books in a year, I want to know that the books I'm reading or listening to which is my preferred method I'm actually remembering and pulling content out and I want to go back to some really good ones that I know I needed the information from, and maybe I don't remember it or there was just some new nuggets for me.

Speaker 2:

So I think it's a balance of putting yourself in the right environment, having a list of books and podcasts and things that you can listen to that are going to drive your mindset towards growth, your physical body towards growth, your relationships towards growth, and then also having people to do life with. So, again, we are incredibly blessed because we do life with mostly growth-minded people. We've really upgraded our circle. It comes so much in our business environment, the type of coaching business that we have, the people we do life with. But even in our church environment and the close friends that we keep, most of them are growth-minded and a lot of it is. We attract who we are, not who we want to be, and we have a much lower tolerance for just people who are frivolous or just don't have a desire to grow. You know we're obviously our humor is immature, but we take very seriously the things in life about how we steward the life we've been given.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I think you said we attract who we are. The key is to seek out who you want to be, so to intentionally put yourself around the types of people that you want to be Did.

Speaker 2:

I say that wrong, when I was saying that.

Speaker 1:

No, you did, you said, but we attract. So my point is that we, we attract who we are, but also we want to intentionally put ourselves around like I'm. I'm a much better person today than I was 10 years ago, but I also I'm not willing, and I'm surrounded myself with people who are kind of a similar train of thought. But I don't want to stop there. I want to intentionally put myself in rooms with people that are even better than maybe where I'm at right now and by me getting better, I'm going to help my peers get better.

Speaker 1:

But this whole motivated peer thing, the power, influence running with lions, is such a profound concept. I mean, I've talked about the Eagles group that I have. You know, yesterday it was what six of us that met together and we meet typically twice a month. I mean it's such a soul-filling time versus, you know, some of the other groups that I've hung out with in the past where it's just gossip, negativity, maybe, just talking about work, but we spend an hour together talking about how can we be better, how can we develop and steward our gifts, and we encourage each other and you can't put a price tag on that and I encourage everyone to really be very intentional about that.

Speaker 2:

So look for those groups of people surround yourself in those groups intentionally, choose them, become the type of person that other people want to invite into a group like that and or form your own group and we think it's going to be massively rewarding for the type of life that you get to build. So action step is to set up a reward system for achieving milestones, from small treats to significant experiences. So this is an interesting one because obviously, as humans, you know, we're motivated both intrinsically and extrinsically. We would say, you know, just based on business acumen and serving our clients, that extrinsic rewards have, you know, a short shelf life. Intrinsic motivation is a much better place to come from. Intrinsic motivation is a much better place to come from.

Speaker 2:

But it can also be really fun to set yourself up for just some milestones to celebrate and really again have radical celebrations within your own business and health life. So, whether that's and we like to encourage non-food related, you know, milestones in a health journey. So it might be getting a pedicure, it might be getting a massage, it might be scheduling coffee with a friend or something like that, or buying yourself a new book that you want to read, but just finding ways to celebrate. Why do you have a smirk on your face? I don't. Oh, I feel like I know what you're thinking, but since it's not your turn to talk, do you want to share what your rewards are for yourself when you well hit certain milestones?

Speaker 1:

women are welcome to give all kinds of rewards to us husbands.

Speaker 2:

When lingerie is purchased. That is more of a reward for you than it is a reward for me.

Speaker 1:

But that's a way to get your husband to do just about anything True, true.

Speaker 1:

You want him to lose 100 pounds. That's how you do it right there. But the rewards are great. It's good to have something to work towards and it's also good to have those micro rewards, instead of saying you know, when I become a millionaire I'm going to buy myself a Corvette, maybe it's you know what, when we save $100,000 towards a down payment on a house or something like that, we're going to go celebrate with you know, on a house or something like that, we're going to go celebrate with, um you know, movie night or something like like I mean, that's, that's kind of a weird example. But the point is don't go from zero to a hundred, like look for those 10 degree steps along the way you have to save a hundred thousand dollars before you can go to a movie.

Speaker 1:

We might need to be talking finances again well, true I I know you need a lot more than 100,000 to get a house these days.

Speaker 2:

That's true.

Speaker 1:

Yeah.

Speaker 2:

Yes, the idea is to celebrate along the way. It partially just makes the journey fun, and sometimes goal setting can feel dry. It can feel like something everyone talks about and no one ever finishes. So the thing is, you do want to celebrate yourself along the way and you do want to have milestones because it's a lot easier to get to the well we would say there's never really a finish line, but it's a lot easier to go from milestone to milestone.

Speaker 2:

And so again in the book that we coach, a lot of the things that we talk about are the frames of reality. Like you go too far into reality and say I'm going to do something in five years but you don't reward yourself, you don't measure your milestones. Five years, it's going to feel like forever. And sometimes we also say say like, hey, I did one good thing today, so I deserve a reward, instead of giving ourselves time to be consistent over time and prove it to ourselves. So we're too close of a frame of reality. We would suggest that you go to a medium frame of reality, which is I know what I want to accomplish. I'm breaking it down by a year, by a quarter, by a month, and then I'm working weekly and daily to meet those goals.

Speaker 1:

And that's really important when it comes to parenting and being age appropriate, Because obviously you know we have a six-year-old, and a seven-year-old Timeframes for her are very different than they are for some of her older children.

Speaker 2:

We're checking boxes twice a day right now on her chore list to really keep her motivated for doing her chores.

Speaker 2:

She's doing so much better at it than she was when it was like wait till the end of the day. Oh, catch up from a couple days ago. It's just too far back in her memory, and so you know, sometimes just setting those closer time frames for yourself also help you to be more successful in the long run, because the habits get created, the neural pathways are developed and all of a sudden your brain is telling you it's a reward, mostly because you proved to yourself that you're going to do what you said you were going to do. So think about it that way Even just the extrinsic rewards tell your brain that you're still winning, and lots of times those wins add up to becoming the type of person that you want to be, much sooner or faster. So, all right. As an entrepreneur, self-care isn't a luxury. It is a necessity. By setting clear goals connecting with your purpose, establishing empowering routines and celebrating your wins, you're investing in your most valuable asset, which is yourself.

Speaker 1:

So we challenge you to pick one self-care strategy from today's episode and commit to it for the next week. Maybe it's drafting your personal mission statement or developing a morning routine that sets you up for success.

Speaker 2:

Remember your entrepreneurial journey is a marathon. You up for success. Remember your entrepreneurial journey is a marathon, not a sprint. By prioritizing self-care, you're ensuring you have the same stamina and resilience to go the distance.

Speaker 1:

So we'd love to hear how you're weaving self-care into your entrepreneurial lifestyle. Share your experiences and any topics you'd like us to cover in future episodes in your comments.

Speaker 2:

Until next time, keep fighting for uncommon freedom and taking exceptional care of your entrepreneurial spirit.