There are many benefits to being your own boss, so I made a list of The Top 3 Benefits that I am most thankful for that the entrepreneurship lifestyle brings:

#1 - Health

#2 -Wealth

#3 - Relationships

One of the first benefits to being an entrepreneur is having the ability to take better care of your health. When I became my own boss, I knew that this was one of the best decisions I've made for my overall mental and physical health. A lot of times when people think about health, they only think about their physical health, but it's not just your physical health, it's also your mental health, your state of mind, the mood you're in every day.

As an entrepreneur, there are many benefits such as being able to work from anywhere you want to, whether you chose to work at home, or at the local coffee shop, in the library, or at the park on a beautiful day. By being able to switch up your atmosphere and surround yourself by the right type of environment to work in will have you work and perform better. I am grateful for the freedom that I have to get the option to get my work done on my own time, and knowing I am in control of taking care of my body as needed throughout the day. I love that I don’t have to commute in traffic to get to work, or work at an office building every day. That was instant daily stress, which affected my health daily, that I no longer have to experience.  

When I was working a nine to five, I enjoyed some of the work that I was doing, but it took a big toll on me by being in a little cubicle and having to sit there every single day and only having a certain amount of time off. That really started to take an impact not only on my physical health but also on my mental health because when you have a nine to five you don't have much time in your day due to a lot of your day being filled up with commuting to work, sitting at work, driving home, and then doing house chores or whatever you have to do, whether you have a family, or kids to take care of, etc. 

Also taking a day off at my normal 9-to-5 to attend to my health was not always an easy option. There are times where I felt trapped and not able to give my health the full attention it needed and becoming my own boss truly saved me.  I no longer have the anxiety and back pain that came from working a traditional corporate based job. Instead, I now can start work when I am ready, I can eat lunch when I am feeling hungry, I don’t have to wait for a “lunch break.” If I'm feeling drained, I can step away from my projects and devote time if I need to go for a walk or take the morning shift off, read a book, or go out in nature until I feel recharged enough to get back to work.

I am also able to select the type of people I want to work with or be around which is huge for mental health and productivity. Being an entrepreneur has given me the ability to work on different projects, and I love the constant learning that comes to being an entrepreneur. I have gratitude for having clients who I love working with, as well as being able to work on creative projects.

Overall, when you are an entrepreneur you have the ability to structure your day so that you can enter your work shift with ease, putting less stress on your health and more and peace. I can spend time in the morning to do yoga, and prepare myself for the day instead of feeling rushed and have to do double shifts every day. I'm able to structure my day around not only what's going to work best for my body, but also what's going to put me in the best state of mind because we all work differently.

Some people like to sit down in the morning and get everything done, while others need more time to wake up and prefer working at night so there's a lot of different kinds of schedules that vary person to person. By becoming an entrepreneur, I was able to ERASE all that stress I mentioned above, and take back my power by setting my own schedule and improve the quality of my health. Each day as an entrepreneur brings a wonderful balance to my life, and keeps me engaged, happy, and healthy. These are some of the health benefits that I now have as an entrepreneur, and  I do not take these blessings for granted.

One of the second major benefits to being your own boss is that your wealth is never capped like it is in a corporate job. When you work for yourself, you can earn how much you want. The benefit of being an entrepreneur is that you are in control of your earnings and working for yourself. I am grateful that being my own boss is overall a more stable and secure career path. This also provides financial freedom, so if you ever wanted to take a vacation, or have a nice place, or eat healthier food, it comes down to how much you are making. Working for yourself can turn into a 6 figure business, if you are dedicated. You are no longer restricted to one paycheck every two weeks and your income isn’t limited by your hourly or salaried rate, either. To live a life you love, you must be profitable and always scaling, never limited.

I am grateful for the benefit of having more income potential and to be able to charge what my work is worth. The more effort you put into finding clients and landing new jobs, the more income you can make. You get to build the dream career that you want and you have the freedom of full control over the work you take on, and how many streams of income that you want to have. When you're working a nine to five you usually only have one flow of income. This is where you're trading your time for money and one of the major reason why so many people have to work their whole lives until they're in their 60s or 70s and then retire. They barely scrape by to make it in their retirement because they never understood how to create financial freedom. This is because they didn’t know how to stop trading their time for money. Instead, as an entrepreneur you start trading your value for money. This is in the form of product services or whatever it is that you're doing as an entrepreneur. This gives you the ability to not get paid by the hour but to get paid for the value you’re delivering to companies.

When you have financial freedom it's a massive benefit in your life because beyond yourself think about your family, your friends, and your community, and all the causes that you care about in the world. When you're just working a nine-to-five or you don't have financial freedom you are stuck in your own world and not even able to think about helping your neighbor, helping your family, or anything. When you're an entrepreneur, you're able to create a real difference in your life and the people that matter to you. Becoming an entrepreneur will grant this to you through hard work, this is not an overnight thing. After you put time in, you'll start to see that the benefits of an entrepreneur is much bigger than having more money because when you have more money and you know how to use it as a tool that's when it opens up all the fun things that life has to offer. Having more abundance in your life can unlock:

• Vacation trips with yourself, or with family
• Buy things you've always wanted 
• Live in a safer area 
• Healthier food options
• Driving that car you always wanted
• Help and donate to your local community, or organizations

As you can see, there's so many things that money can do for you and your family, and your community, because when you work hard you get to live the life you want to live. When you have that financial freedom you can take back control of your life and spend more time with your parents, your kids and everyone around you. That is why wealth is the second benefit of being an entrepreneur.

#3 - Your Relationships

The third benefit that comes with being your own boss is having more time to nurture your relationships in life, such as family, friends, and even clients. As an entrepreneur, I am grateful for the flexible schedule that I am in control of to be able to do the things I want to experience in life, and not be held back due to a work schedule. 

As an entrepreneur, you can plan life events that you don’t want to miss out on such as seeing your son's first home run, catching up with a friend who’s in town for one day, schedule out any medical and dental appointments, or to travel to see family. Many people who work nine-to-five jobs simply don't have the advantage of being able to work whenever they want to or create a day-to-day schedule that best fits their needs. They have a strict and non-flexible corporate work schedule to follow. That hindrance and restriction I felt at my corporate job affected the relationship I had not only with my relationships, but it also affected the relationship I had with myself internally. I wasn’t able to give myself the proper time and care to meet my needs on a daily bases, due to not being able to control my schedule. I am grateful that I am now my own boss, and to be able to spend time with loved ones and do the things that are most important to me in my life.

When you're stuck in one flow of income and have to go to an office every single day to get a paycheck, a lot of times relationships start to suffer because you don't have a lot of time to really put energy into nurturing different relationships. You’re stuck spending your energy in a job all day, everyday, and under-payed. Unfortunately when your job takes up your time, it will start to hinder relationships such as with your significant other. You end up not being able to spend a lot of time with them, which can drive some people apart. Let's say it's with your parents, they’re growing older and you want to be able to spend more time, or they live out of town, you really can't if you don't have many vacation days at a nine to five. When you're stuck on a certain schedule it gets very stressful to maintain these relationship aspects of your life but when you're an entrepreneur it opens up freedom.

When you do it the right way and you build yourself up and you start providing value that's when you can set your own schedule and you will no longer be tied down to a certain amount of paid time off. Whereas when you're an entrepreneur you can build an online steady flow of income which gives you the ability to just pick up and go see anyone, or go anywhere you want to in the world as long as you have a computer, a phone, and an internet connection. Work is an important factor in life, but should never take all of your energy and take over your whole life. Through entrepreneurship I am grateful for the benefit of the work-life, and social-life balance it brings to my life, and the more time I get with all of the relationships that matter the most to me.