Start this year out on the right foot. Establish your priorities early and then stick to them. If you and your relationships aren’t top on your priority list you’re missing the boat. Donna helps you put things in the proper perspective. Read this article to have a long and happy life and business.

How to Maintain Your Business and Your Romantic Relationship without Losing Either

I’ll be the first to admit I’m the “Donna-come-lately” in this game of simultaneously managing a business and a romantic relationship. When I was married the first time around at age 26, I worked in higher education administration and was completely and totally devoted to my job — not necessarily to the exclusion of my marriage — but for many years my marriage and my relationship took a back seat to my job. Big mistake. That issue and a host of other reasons led to the dissolution of my marriage and the finalization of my divorce after almost 10 years of marriage in 1999.

I went for two full years without dating, as I needed to grieve the relationship and heal myself and come to terms with all of my issues surrounding my marriage and divorce before deciding to put my toe again into the dating pool and foist all of these hangups on some unsuspecting guy. This aspect of my healing went pretty well, although I’ll have to admit it took probably 3 years or so after my initial separation to fully work through all the anger I had about the relationship and the divorce.

I began dating again and vowed that things would be different this time. I discovered, however, that dating had changed dramatically in the 13 years or so that I’d been absent from the dating scene, and that I still had alot to learn about being a good partner in a romantic relationship, as well as in figuring out what I wanted in a romantic partner. I saw the good, bad, and ugly sides of men, kissed alot of frogs, and learned a great deal about myself and what I really wanted during my journey.

Synchronicity occurs when you’re ready and open to receive what you truly want. For me, that occurred last fall when I met the man I had been looking for all of my life, Eric. For me, it was love almost at first sight, but I knew by our second date that I had never had this degree of compatibility with anyone I had ever dated before — not even my ex-husband, and I had married him!

Our relationship is still in its infancy, although we both feel like we’ve been together and known each other forever. Perhaps we have in another life, if you believe in reincarnation…..

Here are some things I’ve learned through the school of hard knocks that’s helping me maintain this relationship, as well as run a business, without losing either:

1. Put your partner and the relationship first. Running a business can be a 24/7 job, but the old adage about “no one ever says on their deathbed that they wished they’d spent more time at the office” is true. Eric and I make time for each other during the day, despite working different schedules (he works many night and weekend shifts, and I run my business during the weekday business hours). If he’s at work, we manage to talk at least twice for short periods during his 12-hour shift, and if he’s home during the day when I’m working at home, we try and eat one meal together. At a minimum we drop into each other’s home offices for several quick smooches or hugs or quick “how are you doing” conversations.

In the past he’s expressed to me his concerns that our relationship is interfering with my business. I’ve told him that he’s right — it is — and that because he’s in my life, I’ve had to start thinking about my business differently and work in it differently than I did as a single person. I don’t work the long hours that I used to work before he came into my life. It takes me longer to get things done, but it’s a sacrifice that I’m willing to make. Businesses come and go, but finding a soulmate is VERY hard work.

2. Your partner needs to be your best friend. Eric is the one with whom I share everything. I may not always like what he says, but I respect his opinion. When I was married, I somehow got off track with my ex in terms of sharing my hopes and dreams and what I wanted in life, and shared those exclusively with my best female friend. My ex was left out of the loop, and I made many decisions about our relationship on my own, after talking about the issue with my best female friend, not my ex-husband. Having 3 people in a relationship (2 spouses and a best friend) is one too many. Sharing information with a best friend is fine, but don’t do it to the exclusion of your romantic partner, if you want your relationship to survive.

3. Create a calendar consisting of free days, business development days, and profit-generating days. I have mapped out on my calendar my free days (weekends, days off, holidays, and vacation days), my business development days (when I write, speak, conduct marketing activities or pursue strategic alliances) and profit-generating days (when I’m working directly with clients). This has been an exercise in extreme discipline for me, as the temptation is always there to do some type of work on my free days. However, in the last year, I’ve made myself keep my free days free, as I need that time to get away from my business and have fun and recharge.

Since Eric has come into my life, we’ve set aside some of that time for date nights or weekend vacations when he’s doesn’t have to work on a weekend. His impish side comes out on his days off during the week when he tries to lure me out of my office to go out and goof off with him. I’ve succumbed to his whims on occasion, but haven’t quite gotten my business to the point of of having it run successfully without me. That’s my next goal — to have more flexibility in my business so that it’s not so dependent on my presence in my office.

4. Share your business highs and lows with your partner. Every time I have a big business “win”, Eric is the first to hear about it. When something doesn’t go the way I’d hoped, I tell him first. My business is important to me, as is Eric’s job to him, so we both make it a point to ask how the day has gone for the other, and sit and listen patiently to the good and bad portions of each other’s day. As we’re both problem-solvers, it’s difficult for each of us to sometimes simply let the other one vent, as we’re already thinking of solutions to whatever situation is at hand. Sometimes one of us has to say, “Do you just want to vent and have me listen?” when one of us shifts into the unwanted problem-solving mode.

5. Make time for each other. When you have opposing work schedules, as Eric and I have, and add mandatory overtime that Eric has to work frequently during the year, we may see little of each other over the course of a week. We’ve both gotten good at sensing that we’re losing track of each other, and requesting a “date night” so we can talk and play and catch up.

6. Never go to bed angry. By far, this is the hardest lesson I’ve had to learn. When I was married, I would get angry at my ex and give him the silent treatment for days because I knew it drove him crazy. Usually by day 3 or so he would crack, and we’d make up. Now that I look back on this, I realize how immature and juvenile this way of fighting is, so the silent treatment is out as a way of fighting in my current relationship. Eric and I have had our share of spats and disagreements, and I’m almost always the first one to wave the white flag for a truce and an end to the argument, usually within the course of an hour or so. Life is just too short to continue to fight in stupid ways, and it’s hard to regroup in a relationship if you let something fester overnight.

7. Forgive each other for being human. It took me a long time to acknowledge that I’m not perfect, and even longer to figure out that no romantic relationship is perfect, either. Give up the notion of perfection and accept each other as you are. One of my great faults in romantic relationships has always been the need to “fix” my partner. I’d see the potential in a guy and stay in a relationship long after it was dead, under the guise of, “Well, if you’d only do this and this and this, you’d be so great, because you have so much potential.” Oprah said something along the lines of, “believe what they tell you the first time they tell it.” We all bring our quirks, our baggage, and our eccentricities into relationships, and do and say things that drive our partners completely nuts. Remember that forgiveness is divine, and that it’ll only be a matter of time before you need forgiveness.

8. Say “I love you” every day…and mean it. I feel so lucky and so fortunate to have finally met the man of my dreams. I always thought that often-quoted line, “You complete me,” that Renee Zellweger’s character says to Tom Cruise’s character in the movie, Jerry Maguire, was so hokey. However, now that I’ve found someone with whom I’m so compatible, I’ve discovered a whole new meaning and nuance to that line. I tell Eric that I love him at least once each and every day, and then go on to tell him some trait or some action he’s taken that makes me fall in love with him all over again.

Being in love and running a business don’t have to be mutually exclusive. Both endeavors are hard work, and if you forget that point, you can lose one or the other in a flash. Take time to nourish both your business and your romantic relationship, and discover how having both in your life will make your life all the richer.

Copyright 2006 Donna Gunter

Online Business Coach Donna Gunter helps self-employed professionals make more profit in less time online. To sign up for more FREE tips like these and claim your FREE ebook, TurboCharge Your Productivity: 50 + Tools To Help You Automate Your Business and Make More Profit in Less Time Online!, visit her site at http://www.OnlineBizCoachingCompany.com .

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By Dennis Whitlock
You’re looking for a new job; you’ve put together an outstanding resume and now it’s time to post online. You’ve highlighted your career experience and educational background and you’re just certain that when this puppy goes up there’s going to be a digital lineup of employers offering you your next dream job. WRONG! The purpose of a resume is not to get you a job, rather, to get you an interview.

But here’s the rub; you may have overlooked the most crucial point of the entire exercise and you’re not even aware of it! This is seldom taught or even mentioned in most business courses. There is a huge chance that a human, initially, won’t even look at your resume!

In this time of economic downturn, most positions garner hundreds of applicants. That’s hundreds of resumes coming in for each open slot. If you think that all these resumes are being viewed by human beings you’re in for a real shock. Gone are the days when an assistant scours through stacks of resumes to find that perfect applicant for the boss to call in for an interview. In this day and age most resumes are scanned looking for target keywords. Your resume needs to be optimized so that it can be seen by these scanners. Without doing so, you will likely remain as invisible as if you hadn’t submitted in the first place.

Employers scan resumes to transfer them from a paper format to an electronic format for easy storage and review. Unfortunately, scanning software is not perfect and is easily confused. This means that you need to produce electronic versions of your resume and any “hard copies” that may be scanned in a recognizable form.

Digital resumes and paper resumes differ in three crucial ways.
1) Font/Typesets
2) Format
3) Keywords

Remember these rules when composing your resume.
Font/Typesets

By Ronnie Nijmeh

There are very few aspects in life that require as much balance as juggling the nine to five work schedule plus your relationship, kids, home, and personal lives. Whether you are single, married with children, or married without children each of these situations has their own individual challenges when it comes to balancing the work-life load. Utilizing work-life balance affirmations will help you to master the demands of the work environment while still maintaining a healthy “play” life.

The Single Life
If you’re single, you may be making the erroneous conclusion that work is the definition of your life achievements. The argument for this conclusion is that you live alone, therefore there is no one to appreciate whether you make your bed in the morning, or pick up your dirty clothes. So, you may define your own worth in how successful you are in the work environment. This translates into long hours at the office, with your “play” time consisting of making contacts at after-hour business socials.

There is considerable wisdom in the old adage “All work and no play makes Jack – or Jill – a dull boy” (or girl, of course). We all must balance both our work and their play life with positive work-life balance affirmations. For example: “I enjoy spending quality time with myself apart from work.” or “My job reflects that I am an intelligent, passionate person.” or “I choose to invest time in the things I like to do.”

Married without Children
A working couple with no children may lead to many nights such as the following: A king size bed with two very intense individuals, each with a laptop and a myriad of paperwork scattered next to them, and one of the many late night shows playing in the background. These individuals need positive work-life balance affirmations in order for them not to lose focus on each other, nor themselves. For example: “I appreciate the fact that my spouse and I both have careers.” or “I appreciate the time we have as a family and I actively seek out more time for just us.” or “I am enriched by both my work and my play.”

Married with Children
Finally, there is the challenge of balancing work with a family with children. It is a balance of not only work and the life of the family; but also balancing their own personal time in the mix. Their positive work-life balance affirmations might be as follows: “I choose to set work aside and spend time with my family free from thoughts of work.” or “I cherish the quiet moments with the love of my life.” or “I appreciate the opportunity to be with my loving family.” or “I love spending my time off playing with my children.”

A list of positive affirmations to help you achieve your goal for work-life balance is below:

Ronnie Nijmeh is an accomplished author, speaker and coach. He is the president and founder of ACQYR.com, a inspirational resource where you can download free wallpapers (http://www.acqyr.com/Wallpapers/), read powerful affirmations, inspirational articles and much more. Learn more about ACQYR’s free affirmations (http://www.acqyr.com/Positive_Affirmations/).
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For more information and support for creating more time for yourself and what’s important to you, visit http://www.GalileoLS.com/consult.html for a free coaching consultation.

By Olena Gill

Do you feel stressed or overwhelmed in your life? Are you juggling many balls in the air, with many external demands on your time and energy? Do you feel burned out? Is your life out of control? If you answered yes to at least one of these questions, there’s a good chance that there is a need to examine and balance the priorities in your life.

Balance – now that’s easier said than done, especially in this fast-paced mode of living that most of us are in. Yet we crave that balance desperately. So just how do we create the work-life balance? Well, let’s try a simple exercise.

1. Think of your life as a wheel. On a sheet of paper draw a circle. You are in the center. Every area and aspect of your life is represented by a spoke, each which extend as a line radiating from that center. Name those areas – they can be any category in your life – e.g. relationships, finances, health, job or career, security, personal development, recreation, energy, family and friends.

2. Go around the wheel and rate each spoke from 1 to 10 (with 1 being low and 10 being great) based on how you feel at this moment about that particular area in your life.

3. Mark each spoke with a dot representing your rating, with 10 at the outer edge of the circle and 1 close to the center.

4. Now connect all the dots and take a close at the picture that emerges. How does your Wheel of Life actually look?

The first step to creating the balance is to ascertain which areas are lacking. Your completed picture will show you on which areas you focus versus those that are being neglected.

The second step is deciding what actions you could take towards strengthening those areas in need of attention. For example, if you rated yourself low on the Recreation aspect, what could you do to infuse more play-time and fun into your life? Perhaps it will involve scheduling non-negotiable time for yourself, for example, 30 minutes twice a week. Or perhaps it’s about taking a walk, or planning an outing with your children or friends – time devoted solely to fun and enjoyment.

Finally, it’s all a matter of applying your actions. The steps need not be huge. But just like your car’s gas tank, your inner energy reserve needs to be replenished. If it becomes depleted, you won’t function as well, and may burn out. Balancing your life provides this replenishment.

So, go ahead and implement the changes in your life. Seek support from others around you. And the result? A more balanced and effective you.

Olena Gill is a life and business coach and owner of Indigo-Crystal Coaching Services in Errington, BC. She assists people in re-balancing in both personal and business envioronments and is the author of several forthcoming books on personal development. You may contact her at http://www.indigocrystalcoach.com.
Copyright 2005
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For more information and support for creating more time for yourself and what’s important to you, visit http://www.GalileoLS.com/consult.html for a free coaching consultation.

By John Parks

Most people understand how difficult it can be to balance their work and home lives once they get married and have children. Somehow it seems that work life or home life is always encroaching on the other and causing problems at work, at home, and many times both. However the following five tips are great options to help with balancing work and home.

Make a Schedule
The best thing to do when trying to balance work and home is to make a schedule. Know how much time you have and schedule your work time and your home time. Then, you will know when you need to schedule work and home events. This will make your life significantly easier and you will know which activities fit into which time frame. Just make sure you stick to your schedule.

Share Responsibilities
Many times work and home responsibilities can become overwhelming because one spouse is handling more of the responsibilities than the other. So, learn to share responsibilities at home and each spouse can be responsible for their work. Also, older children should have some home responsibilities as well to help parents balance work and home.

Leave Work at Work
Balancing home and work can be difficult because it is so easy to take work home. If you really want to balance work and home then you will always leave work at work and keep home a sacred place for family and home activities.

Dedicate Weekends to Home Activities
A great way to keep home and work separate is to always focus on home activities during weekends, or at least on days off from work if you happen to work on weekends. When certain days are home days and other days are work days then it makes balancing work and home considerably easier.

Plan
The best way to balance work and home is to always make a plan. There are tons of tips that will help you, but there is nothing like making a plan and then following the plan to really balance work and home. It might be difficult, but if you have it planned out and follow the plan you will be surprised how easy you can find a balance.

SearchArticles.net features thousands of how-to articles and tips on working from home. For more work from home tips, visit http://www.searcharticles.net
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By Lee Down

A workaholic is someone who has no identity beyond their work. Life is about so much more than what you do. It is about the relationships you develop and nurture. It is about social impact in your community. It is about the growth and learning you experience. It is about living passionately.

We are creative by our very nature, it’s in our genes. Applied intelligence equals creativity. Intelligence takes on many forms. So this creates a new question:
Where is your definition of a workaholic more likely? One living in passion or one living in isolation and fear?

The True Entrepreneur is one that I witness their values, passion, and whole way of being aligned with what they do. In this way, the entrepreneur is just being. The business, the vocation, the passion, the purpose, the values, interests, etc. are all a part of who the individual is.

Externally, I don’t think anyone could casually observe a difference between a workaholic and this entrepreneur. However, the individual knows. Deep down inside, the answer is known and typically the individual will turn away from acknowledging that truth and rationalize sticking to their tried and true behavior. The tried and true is comfortable. To admit the truth requires change and change is uncomfortable.

Many people welcome change in their external environment and consider themselves capable and open to change. Unfortunately, for most the relationship to the inner self is one of fear; there’s a whole can of worms that gets opened when we start doing the inner work. Knowing this, on a gut level, our subconscious quickly reverts to the tried and true. It’s hard work to change.

The good news though, is that many entrepreneurs have the ability to see what is happening around them. This ability is what makes entrepreneurs visionary go-getters. However, this does not exempt entrepreneurs from getting caught-up in their business to the detriment of a well-balanced life.

A well-balanced life is more powerful than the hard work that you put into a business. A well-balanced life feeds the brain, the spirit, the emotions, and the body. In creating the space for relationship, recreation, and rest, the benefits experienced will offer stronger focus, greater creativity (beneficial for problem-solving and decision-making), greater self-esteem, and mental/emotional/physical health. Knowing this, choices are made.

If incorporating a well-balanced life would allow you to achieve the same amount of output in 60 hours versus the 80 hours of perseverance, which would you choose?

The other thing entrepreneurs have difficulty with is learning when to say, “No.” and when to say, “That’s enough.” Always after a new conquest, a new experience, a new peak, and new challenges, an entrepreneur can get all that energy too caught up in the business arena. This will lead to the very thing you fear. Instead, split this energy to have a well-balanced life. Achievement will be far richer in the relationship arena and the personal growth arena.

The experience of Life can be incredibly rich, just don’t get so caught up in riches that you neglect your Whole Life.

Lee Down is a professionally trained Coach committed to the awakening and development of the human spirit. One Man Can (http://www.onemancan.ca/) wants to inspire and empower your life, your relationships, and your world.
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For more information and support for creating more time for yourself and what’s important to you, visit http://www.GalileoLS.com/consult.html for a free coaching consultation.

Anth Quinn

Do you need to put off the things you enjoy in order to fit around the needs of others? Are you a busy parent? Do you have people who are relying on you, are you in a demanding job, working long hours to make ends meets? If so you’re not alone. I hear similar stories every week; “I’d love to (go back to school, go for a weekend away, find a relationship etc.) but I have to fit around other commitments.”

If this is you, my guess is that you’ll be surprised to find out that you need new glasses!

That’s right; you need new glasses because you are suffering from short sightedness when it comes to time.

What you need is a “looking glass” into the future – you might know it better as a calendar!

If I were to ask you to pull out YOUR calendar right now – how far ahead would you have scheduled the things that YOU want to do? I’m not talking your kid’s football fixtures, parents’ birthdays, society functions or any of the other things that are arranged for you. I’m talking about things that you want to do for YOU!

These other things are organised for you and may well be really important, the thing you may have missed is they also provide a clue as to how you can do more of what you want too.

If you have a lot of commitments and don’t have a calendar with things you want to do planned out into the future, I’d almost guarantee you’re dancing to someone else’s tune.

The answer to fitting in time to pursue your own dreams, hobbies and passions when your life is full of other commitments is to plan them way ahead of time.

For example if you would love a weekend away with your partner and you’re struggling to find time; throw it out in the future. Pick a weekend 6 months in the future and book it in as a fixed commitment and see what happens.

Your mind will naturally start to arrange your other priorities around this “fixed” commitment and as the time approaches you’ll find that other people just seem to fit in around your date.

6 months will pass before you know it and you can enjoy that weekend happy in the knowledge that you’ve already got another planned.

Beginning to stretch out your plans and thinking more strategically really is one of the core skills to fitting in your dreams while still meeting your daily commitments.

I’m not saying this is always easy; I still occasionally find myself going into weekends with no plan and reacting to other people’s plans. Not planning was fine when I was single and spending all my time climbing with a group of others with no commitments, for years we decided last minute and went anywhere. But as I got older, got married, got a responsible job and then began my own business, this became much tougher and it took me a while to learn the power of what I’m sharing today. If you too are struggling to fit your goals and dreams in around your other commitments then give this a go – you’ll be glad you did.

I’ve said it a lot before and I’m going to say it again now. If you don’t have your own plan then you’ll be living someone else’s plan and chances are they haven’t got much planned for you.

The question you I’d ask you now are:
Is living someone else’s plan OK with you?
If not grab your calendar and get planning!

Can you see how you’ll apply this? Do you think I’m talking rubbish or sense? Does all of this sit with you? Will you give it a go?

Anth.

Anth Quinn has been described as the best-kept secret in Personal Development; he is a straight talking champion of everyday people and despite developing a loyal following of over 10,000 readers he managed to avoid publicity.

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For more information and support for creating more time for yourself and what’s important to you, visit http://www.GalileoLS.com/consult.html for a free coaching consultation.

Kristen Lee Costa

Have you ever heard the expression “life is what happens when you are busy making plans”? Time passes ever-so-quickly, regardless of whether you are having fun or not. 2008 happens to be a leap year, granting each of us an “extra” day to carry out our lives. Most of us are likely to respond to the question “how are you doing?” by using the word “busy”. Try your own human behavior experiment over the next week and tally up the number of times you hear this yourself. Guaranteed survey says “busy” as the number one answer. The wild pace of our lives, which my Dad always calls “the rat race” leaves us unlikely to shift down and actually think (a novel concept, I know…) This makes our sense of time rather fraotic (my word for frazzled & chaotic) and limits the quality of our lives and relationships. My Mom lamented the other day “How has life gotten like this?”

Here are some questions to help you take inventory on how you are spending your time:

1. What would you do with an extra hour in your day if you had it?
2. How do you plan to divvy up the extra 24 hours you have been granted this year?
3. What things are you engaging in that reflect your values and personal mission?
4. What are the things and who are the people that drain your energy?
5. What can I cross off my calendar right now?

A healthy schedule should consist of time to be alone, and also time with those you love to be with. There is a lot of hype about quality time, these days. I believe it should not be an “either/or situation” (quality or quantity), but an “and” situation (quality and quantity). Let me explain: you need to spend a good quantity of time in order for it to lead to quality time moments. Quality time cannot be forced, although it often is. This can turn good intentions into frustration almost instantly. Don’t expect to carve out small slots of time to spend with your family or yourself and dub it as “quality” time. You may become disappointed if those windows of time do not deliver pure quality and measure up to the expectations you have set.

One practical thing I have done is to look ahead and write down the word “HOME” on my personal calendar a couple of times a month, as if it were a scheduled appointment. This is uncompromised, so regardless of what invitations come up, I have committed a relatively large stretch of time to spend at home doing accomplishing the important task of just being. Maybe you have noticed lately your pace has gone up, and the quality of your life has gone down. Perhaps you even feel as though you haven’t made today count. Now is your chance to start making wiser choices about how you spend your time and energy. Designating time to pursue “want to” instead of “have to” things is a step in the right direction. Time will pass one way or another, so make a point to slow down and enjoy moments.

Kristen Lee Costa, LICSW is the founder of Helping Helpers, dedicated to providing life-changing resources for professional and personal development. Visit http://www.helpinghelpers.com for access to innovative tools for therapists, teachers, nurses and those in helping professions. Kristen provides a clinical blog, called “Kristen’s clog” with everyday stress management guidance.

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For more information and support for creating more time for yourself and what’s important to you, visit http://www.GalileoLS.com/consult.html for a free coaching consultation.