Three Month Holiday, Anyone?

PSA: 9 - 5 is a societal construct; this is your permission slip to ditch it 🧾

9 - 5 is a societal construct. Imagine instead where you got to choose something different, like:

🌴 Working the first 6 months of each year, and spending the second half travelling or on ‘mini-retirements’;
🌴 Working 20-hours a week, 5 hours Monday to Thursday with three day weekends every week;
🌴 Taking a three month holiday from December to March every single year;
🌴 Working two weeks on, and two weeks off.
🌴 Or any other set up of your choosing.

Cliff notes: You can.

And, lots of people do — even if YOU don’t see them in your current circle.

It requires ditching the traditional notion of what ‘work’ should be — which, even if it sounds great in theory? Can be so difficult to do in practice, because the concept of ‘traditional work’ is so deeply ingrained.

Even when we start our businesses, we tend to follow the invisible rules.

We feel guilty if we aren’t working “traditional” hours.

And often, we end up working harder and longer than ever and think “sure, would be nice..” when we read something like this online.

Here’s the simple roadmap for designing a work schedule that DOESN’T involve swapping one gilded cage for another:

1. Develop a skill or take one you have;
2. Define your “revenue enough number”;
3. Reverse engineer a business model that allows you to achieve it working [you choose!] number of hours;
4. Decide what that set up will look like for you — shorter work weeks? Months off? Half-years?

Step 3 requires leverage; which means a model where your value is divorced from your time.

Examples:
➡️ 1:1 coaching with value-based pricing;
➡️ A systemised productised service;
➡️ A transformation-based group offer where you can work with more people without more time invested.

Here’s the kicker; and a common myth:

None of these need to be “infinitely scalable’.

But you DO need to ensure that they can generate the volume of business required to achieve your revenue enough number, WITHOUT exceeding the number of hours you want to work each year.

This is simple math.

Get the equation right, and you can design your days and years to suit YOU.

Three month annual summer holiday, anyone? 🌴