![]() Owning a business is hard. And it’s an even more difficult task when you have children and trying to achieve a family work life balance. Workdays can be ongoing, often stretching to 16 hours, 7 days a week. Oftentimes, you’ll be missing out on quality time with your children, one of the biggest disadvantages in the early days of entrepreneurship. But if you stay the course, you can be rewarded with freedom and more time with your family as the end result. In the meantime, here are some great ways to reduce family work friction and teach your children the value of entrepreneurship and all that it has to offer.
Being around the family business can help kids become more successful in life. Entrepreneurship introduced early into a child’s life can help them develop social emotional skills like drive, mental toughness, communication, and negotiation skills that they may could not have learned elsewhere. How can you help your children develop these life-long skills? Try the following 5 ways and watch your children increase their initiative, grit, and business skills, naturally. 1. Teach Them Fiscal Fitness Teaching your kids financial literacy enables them to develop delayed gratification and can set them up for life.
2. Set Goals Together Setting goals can help your child develop a hard work ethic and grit. My favorite medium to use to develop goals is a vision board. This can be done as a family event wherein everyone creates one. Following up a vision board with written goals can help cement them into the subconscious. Goals can be broken down into 3 components:
3. Allow Them to Fail “Every failure carries with it a seed of equal or greater benefit, ” states Napoleon Hill in Think and Grow Rich. When we allow our children to fail, we encourage them to learn from their past mistakes and to think of different ways in which to accomplish their goals. As a result, they become more mentally tough. It’s important to have a discussion about what was learned from the mistake so that they can adjust the course of action. Once they’ve realized what they’ve learned from this failure, give them the support that only a parent can provide by listening and encouraging them to not give up even when the odds seem insurmountable. 4. Cultivate Grit and a Hard Work Ethic “How you do anything is how you do everything” is about having a proactive mindset. As far as entrepreneurial skills, the phrase says a lot:
The main point to keep in mind is that even the seemingly insignificant stuff counts in business. Consider a few of these:
5. Instill Passion in All That They Choose to Do Parents can play a huge influence in determining a child’s work ethic and habits. This means that how you talk about your work and job, including your happiness or lack thereof with it, helps to shape the ideas about work that your children will likely adopt. You want them to know that it is possible to love what you do because when you make your passion your work, it really doesn’t feel like work. To do this, talk about what you’re learning and why it matters to you. Lead by example and demonstrate the importance of continual education by living it. Allow your kids to see you reading books, doing research, listening to podcasts in the car, and taking courses. You can involve them in it by explaining what skills you’re looking to improve and sharing your goals. Instilling passion also involves allowing them to try things that interest them. Providing them space to follow their hearts opens up opportunities for real passions to develop. The point isn’t necessarily to encourage your kids to become entrepreneurs themselves. It’s to teach them the values that enable it and help them in any industry they choose to go into. In any career, you have an advantage when you embody hard work, grit, and, above all, passion.
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