I’ve been working on my business for nearly five years now – trying things out, testing ideas, dropping things that didn’t work. Last year I spent a fair amount of money on a six week program to help me move my business to a more sustainable level.

All of these things are working, to an extent. I have more work, the work is larger, and I’m getting comfortable with how I work and who I work with. I have come to accept that I enjoy running my own business, that I’m reasonably good at it, and that I expect that I will continue to do this for a long time.

But.

But I find myself still struggling sometimes with how to do the work. How can I work more effectively? How do I integrate my work with my family and all the other things that I’m doing? I realized that I’m at a point that I can’t solve all of this myself.

So I’m doing two things that I didn’t think I’d do: I’m taking a solo business retreat, and I started a mastermind group.

The retreat is something that I’ve toyed with, but I had always felt wasn’t right for me. But earlier this year my wife and I took three days and made a parenting retreat for ourselves. And it was so useful. By creating a quiet space where we could focus, we had breakthroughs, made plans, worked out issues, and in general improved the way we work together. So when I was again facing the issue of how to get my work completed effectively, I was more receptive to the idea of a retreat. Through the magic of AirBnB, I found a small house nearby that I’m renting for two nights. And while I have to be careful that I don’t try to work on too many things at once, I expect that I’ll come out of that experience with some clarity and some new methods.

The mastermind group was the result of a fortuitous set of circumstances – and I hope will be a great addition to my process. Having a group of people who are all working on their own problems will make it easier to share advice, receive advice, and to be held accountable to my goals.

Over the next year I will interested to see how these changes will affect my business and my work. And I expect that I will be taking retreats more often as a way to tune up and focus my direction.