As a business owner or leader, the tendency to prioritise everything else over your personal needs is natural. Work, employees, and monthly strategic meetings tend to consume your time. However, at The Alternative Board (TAB), we believe that prioritizing you, as a business owner and individual, is equally, if not more, important.
That's why we advocate for the essential role that TAB’s business coaching and mentoring can play in your personal development. Unlike a business consultant who might solely focus on your business plan, a business coach and mentor will also consider your personal and emotional needs. Here are four key reasons why this is beneficial.
There are many things that a business coach does. But good business coaches are trained in active listening. This means more than sitting quietly while you voice your concerns – it means asking thoughtful questions, offering feedback and “listening between the lines” for what’s really going on with you personally. This overview of personal challenges that strike entrepreneurs might also resonate with you.
What’s more, a business coach offers a confidential space. This gives you the freedom to discuss sensitive matters, professional or personal, with someone who is distanced from the situation. They may give you a fresh perspective, or having them listen can take the load off for you emotionally.
A business coach and mentor will help you to uncover some personal insights. They will help you understand your strengths and work on your weaknesses to become a better businessperson. The benefits that business coaching provides then become innumerable, as when you’re a better business leader, you will become more strategically focused on the effective growth of your business. Why not read more about strategic business leadership?
A business coach and mentor will help you identify your personal vision of success.
A Personal Vision Statement is a long-range vision of what you want your life to be like. It will drive every decision - personal and professional. Your personal vision is, in fact, both the beginning and the desired end-state of your strategic plan for success.
The unique vision an individual business owner has may not include maximising profits or potential selling prices. Their desires may involve such things as family benefits, their image in the community, the flexibility of time away from the office, and many other items that are not profit-orientated. Through coaching sessions and lots of confidential discussions, a business coach can help you identify your vision of success and how to start living it out. When you’re living your personal vision, it will do bundles for you psychologically.
Once coaching and mentoring have enabled you to talk about your emotional needs and helped you identify your personal vision, you will be much happier. TAB has been providing business support for over 30 years, and we have seen how coaching has helped many owners fall back in love with their businesses.
An outside perspective allows you to make the right decisions, making your business more successful. Not only that, but a business coach can show you how to limit the time spent on your business. This might be through delegating tasks or stopping doing the wrong things. Then, your work/life balance will improve.
You will have more time for yourself, your family and doing what you love.