Do you keep going, or keep growing?

Do you ever feel that you will never tick off everything on your to do list, never reply or even open all those emails? I think more and more people are starting to feel like that. Me included! No matter what business, industry or level you work at, we all have more work than we can possibly do.

Most of my working week is spent at Virgin HQ, growing and developing a new Virgin business. I’m part of a small team of very passionate, talented and extremely busy people. In this state of hyper-busyness I see a real divide between people who let their work consume them, making personal and professional sacrifices day in and day out, and people who make time for other things that are important to them. For me, it’s the difference between people who keep going and people who keep growing.

Once you accept the fact that you’ll never have less work and if anything, you’re going to have even more in the future, you realise it’s just not sustainable to have a happy career where you’re constantly making personal and professional sacrifices.

You have to create the time in your life to do those things that are important to you. Of course it’s not always easy, but as a normal person who squeezes in a job, a business, an MBA and my family, I promise you it is possible!

There are 3 things I have found helpful in making time to grow:

Make a commitment, stick to it: whether it’s leaving at 4 to do exercise, spending a few hours a week in a meeting room doing a skillshare course or taking a day or 2 a month to go ‘back to school’, if it’s important to you, put it in your diary. Let your team and manager know what you’re doing and treat that time as sacrosanct. As hard as it seems, this is in your control. If your manager isn’t supportive, explain to them how it will improve your input and how you can make sure any impact is mitigated. If they are still not supportive, I would encourage you to escalate it. Happy employees are more productive and less likely to leave. That makes commercial sense to businesses!

Don’t apologise for it: A mentor once told me that she used to repeatedly apologise for leaving the office at 4pm to spend time with her children before working again after they had gone to bed. Her manager told her that constantly apologising for this made her look under-confident and not in control. It’s always stuck with me and I think it’s true. By apologising for taking the time to do something that is important to you, you send the wrong message to other people. Be confident about your priorities and other people will be more supportive and accepting of your decisions.

Share back: A great way to show others the value you get from taking the time to grow, is to share back with them. If you’re taking the time out to learn, then share what you’ve learnt in your team meeting. If exercise or meditation helps you to reflect and relax, inspire them with what you’ve done differently as a result. Your aim is to put value back into the business and create an environment that is supportive of your continuing development.

Your career is going to be long and you’re going to have a lot of different jobs along the way. Your commitment to your personal growth and development is one constant that you are in control of. Work out what is interesting, inspiring and motivating for you and make sure you make time for it.

We’ll be writing a blog post soon on our favourite sources of online learning, so come back next week if you’re not sure where to start!

Good luck,

Helen