How Many Of These Challenges Are You Facing Daily?

Need A Recharge? 

Running a business can certainly be challenging.

Burnout is a real problem for business owners, especially as we 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.

Are you at risk?

If you are feeling under pressure and stressed out, perhaps exhausted, check through the following list of the 10 most common reasons for getting out of balance in the first place, most build up over time.

The more items on the list you can relate to, the more likely it is that you are risking burnout 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, 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 out, hobbies or distractions to remind you why you do what you do.

10. Negativity: Having a negative environment or negative people around you every day can affect you.

Action plan

If you have all of these issues to deal with, a brief holiday will help you in the short term.

More importantly, you need to make some major changes to your business and your life or you will simply keep repeating the burnout cycle.

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

Learning to take time out and work remotely is a way to get some distance between yourself and your business.

This space provides the opportunity to look more objectively at the issues mentioned 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.

Summary

If we can eliminate or at least reduce the stresses identified earlier, we will naturally feel more energised and more positive about our life and our business; and that encourages 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 a Cairns, Australia-based serial entrepreneur and the author of 12 books on starting, managing, and growing small companies. He is a founding mentor in the global entrepreneurial programme, Key Person of Influence, and presents around the world on small business, consumer trends, entrepreneurship, and publishing. To share your thoughts with us on this article, send an email to editor@leaderonomics.com.

This article first appeared on inc.com.

Reposted with permission

READ: 30 Self-Care Strategies To Avoid A Burnout