5 Ways to Avoid Business Burnout
One of the biggest, yet all too frequently ignored, threats to a startup business is burnout.
Whether starting a business from scratch or launching a franchise, entrepreneurs face many challenging demands and frequently work long hours to ensure success.
Unfortunately, the well-being of one of the most crucial business resources - the entrepreneur him or herself - frequently gets neglected. Research has shown that approximately half of small business owners eventually experience burnout.[1]
And the results can be devastating for the entrepreneur, their families, and their businesses.
While the stresses of managing day-to-day operations and long-term planning are a product of entrepreneurship, burnout can be avoided.
Here are five ways entrepreneurs can make their own well-being a part of their overall business strategy for success.
Take a Break
Small business owners face an ongoing list of tasks and demands they often feel like they cannot escape. However, the mentality that one needs to keep working with no end in sight will eventually lead to burnout in the first place.
Entrepreneurs need to take breaks to disconnect entirely from the business throughout their days and months. Ideally spent outside the office, these breaks can be anything that helps create separation from work, such as reading a book, taking a walk, or calling an old friend.
And entrepreneurs should also plan longer breaks throughout the year - vacations!
Work on Your Health
Separate from taking a break, small business owners should also emphasize managing their health. Good health has obvious physical benefits, but practicing a healthy lifestyle also improves mental health and is a great way to manage stress and avoid burnout.
Creating time to exercise during the day helps improve physical health and offers an additional break from the daily grind.
Additionally, entrepreneurs too frequently develop unhealthy eating habits because of their busy schedules. By paying careful attention to food choices, small business owners can further improve their health while enjoying a small break by sitting down for a healthy lunch in the middle of the day.
Organize and Prioritize
Of course, taking breaks and making healthy choices does not eliminate the fact that there will still be a lot of work for the small business operator. But, the better an entrepreneur can organize and prioritize their work, the lower the chances are that they will burn out.
Effective organization involves careful planning of what tasks need to be completed, when they need to be done, and who will do the work. Good organization also prioritizes issues based on importance and deadlines.
Strong planning helps small business owners avoid doing too much and working inefficiently, which could eventually contribute to burnout.
Learn to Say No
One of the hardest things for small business owners to do is to say “no,” but learning to do so offers many benefits and is a reliable method to help avoid burnout.
Entrepreneurs, by nature, tend to extend themselves to a great extent, so saying “no” includes recognizing when “too much” is approaching. Things to say “no” to may consist of additional meetings, taking on extra projects, participating in causes, and much more.
It may seem counterintuitive to say “no” to a potential client, but it’s okay if the time is not right. In the future, the time may well be right to say “yes.”
Delegate
Delegating tasks goes hand-in-hand with organization and is a way to lighten the load on the entrepreneur’s shoulders and empower other employees of the business.
While it may initially be hard for the operator to surrender responsibility for specific tasks they are used to carrying out, it is necessary to help ease their schedule and give them more time to devote to other essential duties, including breaks. Furthermore, other employees will benefit and be more involved by taking on increased responsibilities.
For instance, the business owner could delegate the responsibility for hiring a new employee to one of the operation’s managers instead of squeezing that whole process into their already packed schedule.
Seeking Help
The idea of delegation and having others help you with what you consider your work isn’t just limited to the employees you manage.
Entrepreneurs can also find help outside of their organizations.
Here at Visa Business Plans, our experienced team of professionals can help ease the burden that small business owners experience through personalized, one-on-one executive and business coaching.
Give us a call today to see how our business coaching services can help your operation become profitable, grow, and provide you with peace of mind that all entrepreneurs look for.
Visa Business Plans is led by Marco Scanu, a certified coach from the University of Miami with a globally-based practice coaching Fortune 1000 company executives, entrepreneurs, as well as professionals in 4 different continents. Mr. Scanu advises clients on turnaround strategies and crisis management.
Mr. Scanu received a bachelor’s degree in Business Administration (Cum Laude) from the University of Florida and an MBA in Management from Bocconi University in Milan, Italy. Mr. Scanu was also a Visiting Scholar at Michigan State University under the prestigious H. Humphrey Fellowship (Fulbright program) with a focus on Entrepreneurship, Venture Capital, and high-growth enterprises.
At present, Mr. Scanu is the managing partner and CEO at Visa Business Plans, a Miami-based boutique consulting firm providing attorneys and investors with business planning services in the areas of U.S. and Canadian immigration, SBA loans, and others.
