Many people believe that one of the keys to success in business is to work really, really hard. There is a compelling idea that if you put in the hours, you’ll be successful. However, in my experience of working with hundreds of businesses, this simply isn’t true. If we judge business success by my idea that running a business should make good money, and be lots of fun, working long and hard does not seem to correlate at all to the amount of money you make, and it certainly doesn’t make it fun.

Where does this myth come from?

The idea of hard work and long hours is deeply embedded in our culture. It seems to come from a mixture of Protestantism (you can debate for yourself whether the Protestant religion has been better or worse historically than other religions at making people believe that it’s okay to be exploited) and a historical culture where you had to work incredibly hard just to survive, usually because you were a wage slave in an industry which paid very poorly.

But this is the 21st century now, in the West. We don’t have to get up at 6am to go down the pit, or milk the cows - despite all the talk of recession, we still live in a land of plenty where the economy is expanding.

What does the myth of hard work do to us?

In many ways, working hard can be very detrimental to a business. Working too much means that you don’t question your strategy for the business, and you just carry on doing the same thing over and over again. I see many businesses where the phrase "flogging a dead horse" comes to mind - people are caught in a hamster wheel of sending out the same old special offers, discounting, or even worse, not doing any proactive marketing because they’re too busy looking after the customers who aren’t paying them enough money.

How to have your cake and eat it

When I see a successful business, I see one where the business owner is not doing excessive hours. I see a business where the business owner has a clear picture in their head of where they want to be, and I see someone who is very focussed on what needs to happen, day by day, in order to get the business to the next stage. I also tend to see people who are quite relaxed, who have enough time to go networking (and therefore be open to new opportunities) and who can wear the responsibilities of the business lightly.

In a successful business, the business owner is quite happy to delegate big chunks of the work to other people, and sees their role as supporting others.

So don’t feel guilty about how many hours you’ve done, or haven’t done. Don’t take your work home with you this Friday, just make sure that your to do list for next week is written and prioritised. Then you can have some fun, and when you come to work on Monday, you’ll be focussed on the important things.

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