Conquer Small Business Owner Burnout: Essential Tips for Prevention and Well-Being

Harvard business describes burnout as a feeling of being perpetually exhausted, annoyed, and feeling unaccomplished and unappreciated. The picture is that of burnt matchsticks, used up, blackened, curled up and good for nothing. We’ve all been there and we all know it’s a terrible feeling that we just want to escape and being small business owners is no different, whether it’s working for someone or working for yourself, burnout eventually creeps in and overwhelms us all. The good thing is,there are actions we can take to help curb those overwhelming feelings. 

Try Something Spontaneous

  Burnout can come when we’re doing the same thing over and over. The repetitious days can easily become boring and being bored with your job can make us feel like we just don’t want to do it anymore, and that in turn causes us to feel annoyed and unaccomplished. When we start to feel bored over the monotony, have a spontaneous outing. Maybe the beach or a park, even a tennis match or a garage sale day-anything that can break up the same ol’ same ol’. 

Create a Schedule

  If it’s a feeling of too much to do and not enough time to do it that’s causing an overwhelming exhaustion feeling, creating a schedule is usually what alleviates that for us. It’s impressive how an organized daily schedule can be a time saver! Sometimes, if there is too much to do and we don’t know where to start, a morning meeting and creating a strict schedule is just the perfect solution. 
  Morning meetings over coffee is a way for us to mitigate a lot of burnout. To be honest, it’s a great way to go over whats most important for the day, week and even the month, it’s a great way to go over worries, successes and places where we need to tighten up or loosen up or where we’re doing really well. 

Remind Yourself, We've Come a Long Way Baby!

  When the burnout really sets in (it does, we expect that it always will) we talk about where we started, how far we’ve come, and all that we still want to accomplish, I usually cry (I cry so easily, my tears are always ready to fall) and Robin usually tells me God is going to take care of us, He’s going to do it! And that usually reinstates my faith and hope and brings me out of the slump and I feel revived again. 

Implement a Work Life Balance

  Another great way to get out of that burnout feeling is being active outside of work, eating healthy, maintaining a proper weight; it’s amazing the mental health benefits from good physical fitness. After all, our mental health and our physical health are all happening in the same body, it’s all working together, so if one area of ourselves is compromised then it’s easy to see how easily another area of ourselves is affected. Even if our job is actually overwhelming, or needs to be improved in some way, then we are better equipped to take the necessary steps to fix our situation if we’re in optimal physical condition. Being in good health can be pivotal in staving off the perpetual exhaustion feeling. 

Challenge Yourself

  And now we come to the most effective ways to alleviate burnout for us, we pray together, we create something brand new, we organize a space, we recreate a space, we take a day off, we go home early, we create a challenge to complete. Challenges are great to get us back on track. As a matter of fact, this blog post is a challenge! The current challenge is to write at least a blog post a week-we shall see if I can keep up. 

 Conclusion

The point is, we mix it up, we try to keep our business fresh and alive, that in turn keeps us feeling accomplished, and feeling accomplished is a great feeling! It’s the opposite of being defeated and maybe that’s how burnout stays at bay the best. 

  So to all of you that need a boost, we hope this helps, we hope you found something about this useful. 

Onward and upward, Tracy and Robin.