Any entrepreneur, from a freelance journalist to a PERM advertising designer, will experience ups and downs. This isn’t just in terms of the profit or the clientele, but their own feelings about the business. In some cases, it feels like everything is going wrong with the business, and there’s a very real risk of you getting burned out. Business burnout is a very real risk and is a threat to your physical and mental health. Even if your health is okay, being burned out may lead you to make some poor business decisions, in a time where that’s the last thing you need. There are many different ways that you can handle these issues, but the best thing to do is be prepared. Here are some warnings that you may be on a burnout track.
One thing to look out is frequent exhaustion. Being tired as a business owner isn’t a rarity, as the occasional late night or long day is part of the cost of doing business sometimes. If tiredness is the norm, you may be dealing with something else. Constant fatigue, even if you are making an effort to sleep, is a clear sign that business stress is becoming a physical issue. In many cases, it’s not a matter of working too hard but working constantly. If you always have to bring work home or always have to work weekends, you may risk running yourself ragged. If possible, you may need to even take a harder stance and start putting together clear boundaries on when to work and when not to work. You’re a business owner, yes, but you’re also human.
Sometimes your emotions can also be a bit of a warning sign. Part of running a business is understanding that things will go wrong every now and again. There’s nothing wrong with a little bit of stress when that happens, provided you let it run its course and handle the issue. However, when small things lead to big blowups, something may be wrong. It may be a good idea to find some method to destress at work, like mindfulness meditation. This doesn’t require any fancy items and has been proven by science to help people.
The biggest sign of burnout isn’t in your body, but in your mind: when you start losing track of your business goals, it’s a bad sign. One of the worst things you can find yourself saying is “What’s the point?” Try and reassure yourself by going back to why you opened your business. Was it a chance to do what you love? Was it the ability to control things on your own terms? Always have that motivation in mind for the hard times.
