This article is contributed by Jason Dirkham

As a society, we tend to separate the personal and the professional. We tend to divide our lives into “professional time” and time to ourselves. In many ways, this is an effective approach to segmenting our lives. It helps us to create professional and personal personas and also helps us to divide our time according to things we need to do and things that we do for pleasure. But it’s important to remember that, at the end of the day, the person who heads to work is the same person we are at the end of the day when we go home. As small business owners, self-improvement on a personal level can have a profound impact on our business’ success. So, it’s important that we are constantly working on ourselves as individuals, ensuring that we can bring more to the plate for our companies. Here are just a few areas of personal improvement that you might want to focus on!

Engage in Self-Criticism

Of course, you have strengths and these should be celebrated. After all, they’re what’s got you so far in your professional journey. But there’s always room for improvement and in order to improve yourself as a business owner and a business leader, you are going to have to engage in a little self-criticism every once in a while. Being able to step back and take a look at some of your weaknesses will help you to identify areas for improvement. This, in turn, will allow you to create a plan that will iron out potential issues and see your business move forward at a better pace. You’ll experience more success in next to no time.

Education

We always have a whole lot to learn in life. But this rings particularly true in matters of business. When you’re running a small business, you’re going to have to become a bit of a Jack of all trades. This will allow you a basic understanding of all of the different areas of your business that you need to focus on. While you can bring others in to focus on these areas on your behalf as you begin to grow and expand, you’re going to need to understand each area in order to be able to hire the right people for the job and to track and monitor their progress. There are plenty of short courses, blog posts, and tutorials out there that can help you to achieve a good understanding of various different areas. These could include:

However, it’s also a good idea to further your knowledge in other areas that can prove profitable to your company too. If you’re working within a specific field, study it. It’s all good and well filling a gap in the market, but if you truly understand the market, you’ll be able to sell your product even more effectively. If you’re selling computers and software, consider something like a WLU Computer Science Masters. If you’re selling cosmetics, consider a course in dermatology. A true and deep understanding of your field will give you a serious edge over your competition!

Strike the Right Work-Life Balance

Where many of us fall short as business leaders is our time-management. Sure, you might have good time management in the office. You may meet deadlines and have projects complete as and when expected. But many of us will work extremely long hours to achieve this. Believe it or not, striking the right work-life balance is just as important. If you overwork yourself, you’ll quickly burn out. So, give yourself your evenings off. Enjoy your weekends. Take annual leave, just as your employees would!

Taking Time to Settle Personal Problems

We tend to beat ourselves up for letting personal problems intervene with our working life. But you need to remember that you need to look after yourself and ensure you are as comfortable and stress-free as possible to really excel in your professional position. If you need to take time off to deal with personal problems, take it. This goes for your physical health, your mental health, and your emotional health. Make sure you attend doctors appointments. Fit in time for your regular dental check ups, eye tests, and auditory tests. If you need to settle arguments and disputes in your personal life, take the time to do this – then they won’t be playing on your mind throughout the day when you should be dedicating all of your attention to the work at hand.

These, of course, are just a few different areas to start out focusing on. There are plenty more out there – after all, there’s a never ending variety of means of improving ourselves as individuals! One word of advice: go easy on yourself and don’t throw yourself in the deep end. Focus on one area at a time to avoid overwhelming yourself and to ensure that you do justice to each given step!

This article is contributed by Jason Dirkham