NBS #9: The Fallacy of Freedom: How Embracing Constraints Is The Key To Your Lifestyle Business Success

What would you say if I told you embracing constraints is the key to your success as a lifestyle entrepreneur?

Let me prove it to you: think of any sport. Sports have rules and boundaries. If they didn’t it would be little more than a bunch of people throwing balls all over the place… How long would people keep doing (or watching!) this?

Having constraints is exactly what makes sports fun and interesting.

The good news is we can embrace constraints –and even fabricate them– to make our life and business more enjoyable and successful.

The real reason why embracing constraints is the key to your lifestyle business success

Experts tend to shy away from constraints, specially when creating a lifestyle business, because we told ourselves we were building something where we wanted “freedom”. It took me a while to learn the freedom I was looking for was not from constraints or boundaries; it was from what to do, who to do it with, and when to do it.

As soon as I recognized embracing constraints is the key to be in control of what, who and when to do things, everything changed.

Here are the 3 constraints I want to share with you today:

1. Time constraint
2. Resource constraint
3. Outcome constraint

Constraint #1: Time

“Work expands to fill the time available for its completion.”

Parkinson’s Law

We’ve all experienced this… You have a project with a deadline that’s some time out into the future. How long is it going to take you? As long as you have available.

So how can you finish things faster? Give them a time constraint.

This is specially useful for projects (or ideas!) without a deadline. And that’s why most experts who dream of launching a lifestyle business never seem to get to it… 

Now, the best way to fabricate a time constraint is with a method popularized by Cal Newport in his book Deep Work, called time-blocking.

In time blocking you essentially divide your day into a few “blocks” of time. So instead of having a full day of work, you might have four, 90-minute blocks of time. Then grab a single task or project and assign it a block.

These time blocks essentially give your chosen task a deadline that’s happening soon, which in turn prevents your effort from spreading too far out.

If you’re curious about this method, check out this video 👇🏻 where Cal explains this in further detail.

Constraint #2: Resources

How can you tell when someone needs to install this constraint?

They say things like: “First I need to get a logo / website…”. Or “I don’t have a proper camera to record content”. Or “I need a new computer first.”

In fact, many of the one-off coaching calls I have are with experts who have this grandiose plan for a lifestyle business, with a grandiose list of things they need to do or have before they can start taking action.

Naturally, they’re overwhelmed because they see so many pieces of the puzzle missing so they come to me looking for a roadmap. But what they soon find out is they never need all the pieces they think they do. In fact they oftentimes don’t need any pieces they don’t yet have.

So what they’re really lacking is a clear constraint as it pertains to resources.

Putting a constraint on the resources you “can” use forces you to adapt your strategy and focus on whatever resources you already have instead of focusing on what you (think you) still need before starting.

Case in point: if you’ve not yet launched a product, a website, or a service despite being on my email list for any number of weeks, answer this: what are you still missing in order to do it?

Some things that may pop into your head are: a website, an audience, an email marketing platform, a checkout software, etc.

Now ask yourself, if you HAD to launch it this week, only with resources you already have, how would you do it?

Would you change the scope a bit? Perhaps simplify the offer? Perhaps change the strategy? Just brainstorm this for a bit.

Then decide which one you’re doing and go for it.

Launch V1 this week. And once V1 is out in the open, choose one of those resources you currently think you need, and go get it. Then put it in place and launch V2. And so on.

Constraint #3: Outcomes

This is, by far, the toughest constraint to embrace.

When I retired from clinical medicine and began focusing full time on building my lifestyle business, I set some lofty goals in terms of impact and income. I figured if I’m going to do something, I might as well swing for the fences! And if you’re anything like me, you probably agree.

Ironically, this kept me stuck for way too long.

The reason is because every step I considered taking, had to align with the end goal I had in mind. But my business and frankly, my experience, were not there yet.

It’s like my 6-year-old saying he wants to play professional basketball and then proceed to only play and practice at professional height hoops although he’s just 4’2 and can’t bounce a pro ball yet…

My recommendation? Set an outcome constraint that makes sense for where you and your business are today.

If you have made 0 dollars online, don’t set out to launch a million dollar product. Instead set a constrained outcome of $1k for your V1. Then go for $10k on V2. And so on…

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That’s it!

As always, thanks for reading.

Do you now agree embracing constraints is the key to your lifestyle business success? Drop me a DM on Twitter or LinkedIn and let me know – I’d love to hear from you!

See you next Saturday,

🤟🏻 Dr E