Dealing with Burnout

Does this ever sound familiar?

You learn something new about your business, something you didn’t think was possible, or something that seems so simple you can’t believe you didn’t think of it sooner. You make a plan, you dive right in, you work, work, work and achieve massive results.

At some point you determine you need a break, maybe a day or two of down time, perhaps a short vacation. When you return you find it hard to get going again, you feel distracted, discouraged, frustrated and begin to feel the weight of self-doubt.

I think if you’re an entrepreneur this is inevitable.

Part of what makes you an entrepreneur is that the spark of inspiration can grip you, it can take you places you never thought possible allow you to work long hours and just be engaged in something with absolute passion. Quickly though the scales of burnout can shift leaving you feeling overwhelmed to just plain uninterested.

In an effort to avoid this burnout (or at least deal with it as quickly as possible) here’s what I recommend you do.

1)      Set defined work hours, when the end of the day comes try to truly make it the end of the day go do something that get’s your mind off work.

2)      Each evening before going to sleep try to set a priority list for the next day, I recommend using a small scrap of paper and writing down 3 things to get done. No more than 3 or procrastination and indecision can become a problem. As long as you get something crossed off your list each day you will often still retain a sense of accomplishment or that the work day had value.

3)      Plan frequent getaways, even just a weekend. Most importantly avoid the urge to “just take a nice relaxing weekend at home.” Believe me this is one of my favourite things to do and we have a beautiful home but if you’re an entrepreneur you likely do some work at home and by Sunday afternoon (or sooner) you’ve already begun to think about the work week ahead. A relaxing weekend at home is never as fulfilling as being away seeing or doing something out of the norm and truly leaving your work week environment behind.

4)      Set defined times for personal development. For me I start my weekend early and try to engage in personal development every Friday afternoon. The more continually you keep learning the more you will find yourself inspired with new ideas and a sense of new energy for whatever you are passionate about (hopefully growing your business.)

5)      Get an assistant, seriously. I was resistant to hiring an assistant but the moment you have one you realize just how valuable they are. Your job changes, you have a responsibility to yourself to find things for them to do, you have a responsibility to them to keep their role valuable and engaging. I think as creative people entrepreneurs more often than not struggle with implementation having someone I can trust and delegate to has massively improved my speed of implementation and the amount of work I can complete with far less stress.

Remember times of burnout or disinterest are normal its how quickly you can get past them that will have a dramatic impact on your continual success. I hope you’ve found this helpful and I’d love to hear your comments.