I was recently writing a blog post for our client about employee burnout and how dangerous it was. At the time I was exhausted. I’d just got back from 10 days on holiday, was straight back at work then next day and I had thrown myself into everything. Employee burnout? How about business owner burnout?
I have seen so many business owners of brand new businesses just burn themselves out. They are at every single networking event you attend and they are often rushing off to the next one. These business owners will email you at 2am in the morning and 10pm at night. This business owner will often be doing their own leaflet delivery, social media, marketing, sales, accounts and more.
You can often spot a business owner burnout before it takes place with a new business owner. They look frazzled, they smell of desperation and they are flying off somewhere else, while telling you, behind their plastered on smile, that business is going really well.
Why is it that we are never honest about business? Surely if we said that actually we were struggling with recruiting the right receptionist, need a new accountant or want help getting in with a chosen client people would help? But hey – that’s another blog post in itself.
Business owner burnout isn’t just a thing with new business owners though. I am the owner and founder of Creative Content Company. The business is just over 6 years old and I still fall ill to business owner burnout from time to time. However, I now recover from it much quicker and notice it sooner too.
So how do I avoid business owner burn out?
Firstly and perhaps most importantly, I do not work weekends unless I have a very good reason for doing so. In the last 2 years I have worked 2 weekends. One was to prepare for the upcoming Christmas break and the other was before my holiday so I could get ahead for my return.
If you are always ‘at work’ you have no release – which is a one way road to business owner burnout.
I also fill my social life with fun stuff. This could be a monthly comedy night, a trip to the theatre, bowling, meal out or a quiz night. Interestingly I have done all of these this month. These nights out give me a release from work and take me out of ‘work zone’ into a relaxed mood.
I outsource. While some businesses outsource social media management or blogging requirements us, to reduce the risk of business owner burnout, we outsource too. In September we have outsourced general admin duties to three different people. This allowed me to focus on what I’m good at, while the other work still got done and I could relax.
How do you avoid business owner burnout or are you still a victim?
