Sofia is a happy mother of two kids, health and fitness expert and blogger. She’s here to share her knowledge and motive other women change their lives.

Why Fitness Is No Friend to Small Business

You must have heard this thing a thousand times- “you are never too busy to exercise”.

Guess what? Some people are too busy to exercise and they are called small business owners. You could be working a 9 to 5 job and thinking about hitting the gym and the pub later in the night. The small business owner doesn’t have that luxury.

Chances are high that he will be working day and night. He will start working before 9 and may keep working at midnight too.

Why so busy?

If there is one thing that defines a small business owner, it is the term ‘busy’. Some people may not even have the time to eat their lunch properly.

Some of them survive only on a few snacks throughout the day. It is not because they can’t afford it.

It is simply because they don’t have the time for it.

If you own a small business, you are not just an entrepreneur/founder or CEO. You are also the CFO (Chief Finance Officer), the CMO (Chief Marketing Officer) and the CTO (Chief Technology Officer).

You could also be the secretary, the accountant, the office manager, the sales officer and even the customer care/client servicing officer. You have to wear several hats at once.

All this is done while you are managing social media pages, trying to make your website look better, doing SEO and digital marketing and answering emails.

Not to forget, you even have to pay bills, invoices and employee salaries. You could be working for more than 12 hours a day, trying to do everything possible for your business to work properly.

Still, you bear the risk of not getting paid on time yourself. You are worried about your taxes and your invoices. Do you think it will be possible to include fitness in your lifestyle?

The answer is NO.

When you are handling so many burdens, even taking a day of vacation could sound like a torture. Driving to the gym, driving back from the gym and spending 45 to 90 minutes warming up, exercising and showering can have great health benefits for you. However, the 2 hours that you spend each day reaching your fitness goals could make you miss tons of opportunities at work.

You will miss several phone calls. Your clients and customers could be waiting for your emails and there could be people waiting for you at your office. The opportunity cost of the gym is too much for the small business owner to bear.

Forget about hitting the gym. Even a morning walk or jog session could be tiring. A person who works 12 hours a day and consistently thinks about his business, never gets enough sleep. It could be difficult to wake up every morning, denying yourself even more sleep and going for a walk. It can make you weaker and more fatigued in the long run.

While I believe that fitness could be a great goal for people, I don’t think it is a feasible goal for any small business owner. If you have been able to achieve it, hats off to you.