Is running your own business starting to wear you down? Do you feel more exhausted and more fatigued lately? In this video, I discuss one of the biggest challenges that business owners face today—entrepreneurial exhaustion and how you can overcome that.
Why is entrepreneurial exhaustion bad for business?
Investopedia.com lists entrepreneurial fatigue as one of the biggest challenges business owners face today. Medical studies have shown that stress and exhaustion can lead to mental fatigue or brain fog. Symptoms of brain fog include low energy, irritability, trouble concentrating, headaches, forgetfulness, low motivation—even feeling mildly depressed, anxiety, confusion and insomnia.
Ask yourself this question: what happens to you when you feel tired and fatigued? Fatigue can impact how we behave throughout the day. More serious fatigue can lead to rash decisions about the business, including the desire to abandon it completely.
In short, fatigue is bad for business.
What can you do to overcome exhaustion?
- Learn how to recover
Many athletes understand the importance of recovery (interesting article here).
Recovery means taking pause or resting after participating in a grueling race—or even after the stress of a regular workout. Recovery helps prevent muscle burnout. And just like athletes, business owners need to recover, too, to help manage stress and prevent burnout.
Recovery doesn’t just involve sleeping or resting—it involves taking part in other activities that can restore your general disposition or health. Having a hobby is a good way to recover. Traveling can also help one recover. Taking a daily walk or having weekly coffee with a friend can help clear your mind and help you manage your business better.
Let’s take a page out of how billionaire Bill Gates de-stresses—he reads an hour before turning in at night and claims that reading has helped him manage his stress. It has also helped him sleep better at night.
Warren Buffett, one of the richest men in the world, plays the ukulele when he feels fatigued. Many studies have shown that reading and playing instruments help manage fatigue and stress.
Sheryl Sandberg of Facebook offers a practical solution to making sure that one finds time to recover every evening—she turns off her mobile phone.
- Look after yourself.
Your are not a machine. Business operations require a good dose of methodical and creative thought processes in order to resolve its daily challenges. A tired mind will find making decisions challenging and difficult—being tired due to lack of sleep and lack of proper nutrition may even cloud your mind.
If you run a creative design firm, for example, you would want your employees to come in every morning in tiptop shape and ready to take on any creative challenge. It’s the same with your own business—your mind and your body needs to be in tiptop shape in order to keep your business in tiptop shape, too.
Taking care of yourself involves sleeping well and eating well. It also involves taking care of your general health—exercising helps, too.
How do famous entrepreneurs take time out of their business schedules to take care of themselves? Oprah Winfrey spends 20 minutes a day to meditate, while Huffington Post’s Ariana Huffington makes time for early morning yoga. Jack Dorsey of Twitter spends an hour a day walking to work so he can step back from the stress of emails and meetings.
- Don’t try to do everything yourself: Pass it on or just ‘Pass it on’
It you find that you have too many things on your plate, look into the idea of delegation and outsourcing. This may be difficult, even trying initially—but those who do it properly see that it pays in the long run. Delegating tasks or outsourcing some areas of your business may save you a lot of time—time that you need to focus on the important areas of your business, such as planning and strategy, instead of you having to worry about its day-to-day operations.
If you are interested to know more about what a business has to go through when facing exponential growth, you can download the first chapter of the book, ”$20K to $20 Million in 2 Years” absolutely free here. The chapter talks about the differences between a good and a great business and puts out questions that make you consider how you can turn your business from good to great.
