Obsession or passion? Where should you draw the line?

“Passion is a positive obsession. Obsession is a negative passion.” – Paul Carvel, author

Entrepreneurs love their businesses, sometimes to the point where they find it hard to peel away from it. There is a fine line between passion and obsession that many entrepreneurs fail to realise, resulting in endless sleepless nights that they justify in the name of motivation and their love of passion.

Image : shutterstock

There are a great number of people who believe that there is no success without obsession, but that’s not true! Your business will be just as awesome without you having to give up your hard earned sanity. This childlike behavior, more often than, not pulls them down as they become way too involved with their job identities, so much so that it affects their mental health as well as their personal relationships.

If you find yourself relating to these signs, you may have a problem. So put a full stop to it before it spreads all over the place.

You have become a multitasking ninja

As an entrepreneur, you want every job to be done in the littlest possible time to reap more benefits. But you have to realise that you are obsessing over it when you find yourself doing a million things at once, like a ninja! At times, you feel like doing everything all by yourself so that the work gets done perfectly, without any screw ups. If a job is not a part of your core responsibilities but you spend a great deal of time behind it, it’s probably a good idea to hire someone to do it. You can always find someone to do it for you, so that’s one problem off of your shoulder.

You experience mood swings

What’s a classic sign of obsession with your business? You keep working even when you feel irritable and tired! Working without breaks can be more of a curse than a boon. If you find yourself working beyond a certain time frame, or working while pushing all the possible boundaries, it might reduce productivity rather than increase it. Passion is all about loving your work, and if you don’t internalise that, it can spell doom for your business.

Before starting the day, make sure to prioritise your work. So the next time you feel like you are in a fix, ask yourself if you really need to do this work right now or not!

Leisurely activities remind you of business

Have you ever been to a shopping mart or a food joint and secretly complemented their business model? Separating the church and state for you becomes a heavy duty challenge. Even while watching a fun documentary on pandas, you seek inspirational business lessons that can be learnt.

The result….? You missing out on some serious quality time with your loved ones and more importantly, not being able to think about yourself. Business is all about making the customers happy, and you can’t do that as long as you don’t make yourself happy.

Getting too involved with the entrepreneurial spirit can steal the joy and create problems that you don’t want to deal with. Work as if it’s your passion, and enjoy it while you are at it. Every success story is a journey. Being an obsessed entrepreneur will have serious consequences on how you conduct business and the personal equations as well.