10 Reasons You Are Burning Out

Running a business can certainly be challenging.

Burn out is a real problem for business owners, especially as we all get busier, face more demands and try to develop the ever-increasing skill set that we need to run our businesses. We need to know when it’s time to recharge our batteries.

If you are feeling under pressure and stressed out, perhaps even exhausted, check through the following list of the ten most common reasons for getting out of balance in the first place ‒ most build up over time.

The more items on the list that you can relate to, the more likely it is that you are risking burn out and you need to take action:

1. Overwork ‒ simply putting in too many hours and being a slave to your business
2. Financial problems ‒ struggling to make ends meet in the business and worrying about how you will pay your bills
3. Over-commitment ‒ agreeing to do too much for too many people and not leaving enough time or energy for yourself
4. Poor stress management ‒ not knowing how to manage your own stress or not being able to admit that it is a problem
5. Relationship issues ‒ with partners, family and friends, co-workers, and customers
6. Poor lifestyle ‒ eating badly, lack of exercise, and alcohol and drug abuse
7. Lack of direction ‒ feeling trapped and isolated in the business and uncertain about your future direction
8. Lack of boundaries ‒ being too accessible to too many people
9. No space to rejuvenate ‒ no holidays, time off, hobbies, or distractions to remind you why you do what you do
10. Having a negative environment or negative people around you every day

If you have all of these issues to deal with, a brief holiday will help you in the short term. But more importantly you need to make some major changes to your business and your life, or you will simply keep repeating the burn-out cycle.

Ultimately, this may cost you much more than you could imagine.

Learning to take some time off and/or work remotely is a way to put some distance between you and your business. This space provides the opportunity to look at the above issues more objectively and to come up with solutions.

The juggling act that every business owner needs to work on is reducing the stress and at the same time, developing healthier lifestyles.

If we can eliminate, or at least reduce, the stresses identified above, we will naturally feel more energised and more positive about our life and our business, and that will encourage us to take better care of ourselves.

The overall end result is our business will run more effortlessly, we make more money, we enjoy the process much more, and we live longer.

Andrew Griffiths is an inspirational mentor, global speaker, and an international best-selling author with 12 books now sold in over 60 countries. To connect with him, send an email to editor@leaderonomics.com.