Become an entrepreneur, they said. It’ll be fun. But when you’ve just worked another 100-hour week, you haven’t seen your friends for months, your skin is turning gray and your physique is going pear-shaped, you might be wondering what all the fuss is about. You dreamed of a life on your terms and time spent exploring. You pictured sunshine, beaches and cocktails with umbrellas in them, while your team diligently looked after operations on your behalf.
If you’re running a company that feels like it’s running you, make a change. Draw a line under where you are right now and begin a new chapter. Commit to finding a new way forward that involves you enjoying the results of your insanely hard work. Use ChatGPT to transform your entrepreneur lifestyle with these five simple yet powerful prompts.
How to use ChatGPT for lifestyle design
Establish your lifestyle goals
If you don’t know where you want to go, you won’t find the route that will take you there. All roads lead to nowhere without a clear plan. You’ve probably set goals for your business. You know where you want to be in terms of revenue, profit and headcount, you’re fairly sure which inputs create outputs and your three-year plan is solid. But what about your life?
Don’t let how you spend your non-work time be left to chance. Plan it with the intention you apply to your business. Create some extracurricular goals with the help of ChatGPT and this prompt. Paste it in and edit the square brackets with your information.
“My business goals are clear but my lifestyle goals are not. Adopt the role of a lifestyle consultant, tasked with making sure I live my best life as an entrepreneur. Use the following information to create a set of lifestyle goals that I should aim to achieve within the next [number] years. When I’m not working I like to [describe what you like to do] with [people you like to spend time with]. Ideally I spend [number] hours per week not working, but involved in activities that [describe the ideal outcome of these activities]. What should my goals be and therefore my plan of action for achieving them?”
Figure out what to subtract
The secret to success for more entrepreneurs? Do half as many things, twice as well. The problem is that hardly any follow this rule. Most business owners cram far too much into their already-busy week, and leave no time for thinking time, mastery, or anything other than work.
If you’re busy with so many things you don’t have space to breathe, use this prompt to work out what to cut. ChatGPT will be the ruthless editor you need in your life. It doesn’t care about hurting your feelings, but it may share some truths you probably should heed.
Here’s the prompt for the subtraction tips: “I can only achieve my lifestyle goals if I subtract nonessential items from my week right now. Otherwise I won’t have the time. You are tasked with ruthlessly cutting things out of my schedule that don’t need to be in there. Given that my business goals are to [describe your business goals in a simple way], look at my weekly schedule and suggest things I can cut out. For each suggestion, explain how much time it would save and the effect of cutting it out: [Include your weekly schedule split by hour].”
Identify what you can delegate
A weakness of many entrepreneurs is not delegating enough. Whether a symptom of ego, fear or scarcity, this problem prevents them from achieving more and limits the amount of downtime left at the end of the work, mainly because the work can never end.
Don’t fall into this trap. Ask for ChatGPT’s help in figuring out which tasks other people could do. Ignore that inner voice telling you not to trust anyone else. Move aside the feeling that it will never work. Get your plan from ChatGPT and run experiments to free up your time.
“Within my task list there are things that other people could potentially do. Given that my specific skills are in [describe your specific skills] but I want to free up [number] hours of time to focus on my lifestyle, which elements of my task list do you suggest I delegate? For each item, suggest who I could delegate it to, and the steps I should take to ensure it’s a success. Within my team I currently have, [describe your team structure and individuals] and my task list is [copy and paste your task list].”
Create better processes
Your processes should run by default and break occasionally, not the other way around. But if you find yourself putting out fires and dealing with everything case-by-case, your processes need work.
Get ChatGPT’s help in devising a blueprint for what happens in your company. Find the most optimal way to do every task and document the standard for everyone to follow. Ask for suggestions for improvements and implement them, for fewer headaches all round.
“If I had better processes within my business I could free up more time. Knowing my business of [describe your business] and the tasks I am responsible for [outline these tasks and processes], suggest where I should create or modify my existing processes to do more work more efficiently. For each change, suggest an action plan and include what difference it could make.”
Uncover your limiting beliefs
Holding a limiting belief means you have subconsciously assigned something a meaning, which may not be useful or true. By their very nature, limiting beliefs restrict progress. They stem from our childhood, current environment or other people’s ideas for who we are and what we should do.
If you’re not letting yourself enjoy your life, you might be holding limiting beliefs about what your role should entail and how you should spend your time. Break free of unhelpful definitions to reach new heights with your entrepreneur journey.
“I want to improve my lifestyle as an entrepreneur but something is holding me back. Can you play the role of a compassionate and intelligent psychologist and figure out what it is? I don’t know for sure, but I think I’m afraid of [describe your fears in spending more time on your lifestyle]. I’m worried that [elaborate on any worries] if I do [outline an action you could take that might have undesirable consequences]. Use this information to uncover any limiting beliefs I hold and suggest how I could reframe this situation.”
ChatGPT prompts for a better life as an entrepreneur
You weren’t put on this planet to work non stop until you die. You can achieve everything you want to achieve even if you enjoy yourself. Use these five ChatGPT prompts to call out unhelpful behaviour and see what changes you can make. Establish your lifestyle goals and subtract any nonessential work tasks, figure out what you can delegate, create better processes for you and your team, and work through unconscious belief patterns that are holding you back. Transform your entrepreneur life starting right now.
