It’s a wonderful thing being able to do what you love as a business owner.
Whether it’s teaching mindfulness and meditation, offering holistic therapies, being a life coach, baby massage and yoga teacher, or any of the many other “health and wellness-based businesses”, you probably prefer to be doing what you love rather than the myriad of tasks that managing a business can bring.
Yes, I’m talking about the behind the scenes stuff, the admin, the business systems and processes and other things that just seem to get in the way of you being able to help others!
In this blog, I want to talk about ways you can avoid getting burned out while managing your business. By burnout, I mean the fatigue, stress, depression, lack of motivation and the general struggle to keep doing what you love. It’s something we’re all at risk of, regardless of what we do to help others. However, it is something we can protect against, here’s how.
Keep yourself grounded when working with clients
We know how important it is to stay grounded but some clients can be easier to work with than others, some can just “get to us”, their trauma and difficulties can resonate with us so strongly that it makes it difficult for us to release the stress and tension and we end up absorbing their negative energies into ourselves when helping them.
Make sure that you’re grounding and cleansing yourself and your workspace as often as needed to protect yourself from all of that negative energy. It’s all too easy for this energy to stick with us, get carried into our daily lives and personal space and pave the way toward stress and burnout.
Whether it’s meditation, mindfulness, using incense, smudging your rooms, using essential oils or just going barefoot outdoors whenever you can, find the right grounding methods for you and practice them often to stay protected.
Make yourself your number 1 client
Helping others can mean we put ourselves second.
It’s when we don’t make time for ourselves, practice self-care regularly and prioritise the needs of others over our own that we can get stressed and depressed. You’re essentially telling yourself that you’re not worthy compared to others and your energy vibrations will change as a result.
Make sure you book yourself in for regular self-care appointments as regularly as you book in your own client work. Spend that time devoted to you by doing whatever you need to do to feel good. Keep reminding yourself that you are amazing, confident, capable and worthy of happiness.
Prioritise the tasks essential to your business
There will always be administrative work to be done no matter what business you are running. Waiting until the last minute is never a good idea, it just creates more stress and often more expense as a result! While admin tasks like email management, diary management and keeping your website up to date are probably not your idea of fun (I have to admit, it is mine! Love those tasks!) they are essential for the survival and growth of your business.
You can’t help others when your business is struggling.
It’s difficult to give your all to your clients when lurking in the back of your mind is the knowledge that you need to get your paperwork sorted, licenses need renewing and there’s a stack of emails to respond to.
It’s often worth making an appointment with your business for an hour or two each week (during working hours) to make sure you keep on top of things. Stop burning yourself out by trying to tackle these tasks out of hours and feeling guilty that you’re not spending time with family and friends. Make a list of what you need to do and when the deadlines are. Then schedule in when you’re going to do them.
As you do this more often, you’ll understand how to prioritise things better, how long tasks will take you and it’ll feel a lot more manageable for you.
Keep your business grounded too
I think there are two aspects to consider here – awareness and organisation.
Being aware of your business is important in ensuring its success. In the marketing sector, they often create a “brand persona” where they take a business and think of it as a person with their own character, quirks, likes and dislikes, hopes, dreams and goals to achieve. This is used to create the colour schemes, tone of voice guidelines, logos etc for brand marketing.
You can take this idea for your own business but look at the spiritual side of things too. What kind of incense and essential oils would your business prefer? What kind of crystals would they use right now to get to where they need to be? What kind of meditation would help your business stay calm, grounded and ready for the upcoming opportunities coming it’s way?
This level of awareness can help you and your business stay grounded, receptive and available to the opportunities that are out there ready for you but organisation is key too. What can you do now to future proof your business ready for growth?
Outsourcing can be a great way to achieve this. Hiring a virtual assistant to take care of your admin, emails, diary management and other tasks can free up your time to focus on your current clients and take on more. Outsourcing to a bookkeeper can help you ensure your accounts are always in good shape and ready for your accountant (and can often reduce accountancy fees too).
By taking away the business-related chores you don’t enjoy you can focus on what you do enjoy, this reduces your stress and the risk of burning out. Just like you like to help others, open the door for others who want to help you; your health, happiness and business will be in a better position for it.
If you’d like to discuss how I can help you and my experiences of supporting “woo based” business owners to focus more on what they love, get in touch with me here for a friendly free no-obligation chat.