A man who buries himself in work to dodge marriage problems ends up destroying the thing he's trying to build. Unresolved relationship anxiety bleeds into the office, tanks productivity, and teaches your kids to run from their own problems. Stop using the business as an escape hatch and fix what's actually broken.
Here you are, distracted at work because of the problems in your marriage, which is causing you to not even be able to focus on the task at hand, on your business. It's causing you to ruminate in these cyclical thought patterns that keep you in a state of anxiety, that make you even sometimes want to leave the office to go back home to figure out how you can solve it or to gather more information about something that you maybe think's going on. And the problem is that you used work as an opportunity to dissociate from those issues. So now the very thing that you used as an escape has been sabotaged by the fact that you didn't address the problem. So here you are, problem in the marriage. I'm going to escape into my business. But now escaping into my business, I can't do that anymore because the problems in my marriage are interfering with my business. And my mind can't even focus on what I need to focus on at work, so I can't get the work done. See, when your business is taking a toll and your livelihood and your ability to provide, to protect, to serve as a leader is being interfered with, brother, what are you doing sitting on the sideline and not fighting for something? You're called to fight. You're called to take action. You're called to be more than a conqueror. More than a conqueror. So what are you conquering? What battle are you waging? Are you in the storm getting thrown around, tattered, shipwrecked? Or are you preparing to fight? Are you preparing to wage war with the problems that are recurring in your marriage, which are beginning to bleed over into other areas of your life? You're business can't be the collateral damage. Your kids can't be the collateral damage. Tim, I'm afraid my kids might have to go to therapy because I keep procrastinating about solving these issues in my marriage. Yeah, that's the ugly truth. And then the shame and guilt that comes along with that 10 years from now when you don't even realize now the problems that were created in your family and the fact that your kids are so hurt. Because guess what? Kids make everything about them. Your kids make the divorce about them. Why do my parents not love me? Why am I not good enough? Why am I unlovable? Why am I not important? Your kids make everything about them. There isn't a day that can go by that you continue to wait, that you continue to procrastinate this. And here it is: when the very thing that you've been using to escape the problem no longer becomes an escape, then where do you go? When the very thing, your business, that you've used to escape the problems in your personal life no longer becomes an escape but becomes a place that you can't even focus. And the very thing that you created it for is now misaligned with what it should be used for. You created the business to enjoy. You created the business to provide, to create purpose, to create impact. To serve. But now you used your business maladaptively as an escape. And because you've used it as an escape, it's come around and it's bit you in the back, because your business was never intended to be created for that. It wasn't created as an escape. It was created as a place of a foundation to build momentum, to provide, to create legacy, to create impact. But because you've used it as an escape, it's no longer serving you. And guess what? Your business no longer serves you. Now you serve the business because now you're a slave to the business. Just like you're a slave to an addiction because now you're addicted to the workaholism and the escape that the business provides until you make the decision to make the changes so you don't have to maladaptively use your, your business as some dysfunctional escape hatch that you escape into in an attempt to not face the problems that are happening in your personal life. Stop using your business as an escape. Face the problems in your personal life and start using your business for what it was intended for— to create, not escape.
