If you thought procrastination was bad then wait till you meet burnout!
At some point in your entrepreneurial journey, you are going to experience burnout. The trick is how you deal with it rather than letting it consume you. If it gets a hold of you then it can well and truly know you off your path to success. Here are a few tips to help you stop burnout in its tracks and prevent it knocking you off course on your road to success.
Stop Holding Yourself To A Unrealistic Standard
With course selling season now well underway and Gary Vee has a book out it’s easy to get caught up in the ‘hustle’ message that’s often delivered without context. The fanboys may well go insane for this work ethic but in reality, it’s not sustainable and it’s unrealistic. This whole getting up at 5am and working 20 hours a day and doing nothing else 24/7 is a very unrealistic way to run a business. Well unless you want to burn out in about 3 days.
Set your goals, create your plan, work hard, but do it at a pace that’s healthy for you and your business. I can guarantee you that the fanboys boasting about working ridiculous hours, having no sleep and never seeing their families, will reach exhaustion and burnout before they reach success. And don’t forget, often those selling courses and Gary Vee have teams of people backing them up, doing the editing, sorting out the SEO, scheduling the posts and everything else in-between. They don’t stay up till 3am faffing around with iMovie to get that YouTube upload done.
What is causing you stress?
Burnout is often caused by things that stress us out. They can overwhelm us or push us to the point of wanting to give up on this business dream. If stress is causing you to burn out then it’s important to first identify what it is that is causing you so much stress and then deal with it. Either delegate it (if it’s a task), eliminate it, limit your exposure to it or find a way of coming to terms with it. Whatever it is – deal with it!
Recommended for You
Webcast, February 20th: The 7 NEW Steps to PPC Domination in 2018
Do Something Else
It’s so important to not make everything you do be about your business. that’s just going to cause overwhelm and yes, you guessed it, burnout.
Getting out and doing something completely unrelated to your business will help you beat the burnout but also clear your head enough to get clarity on what it is you do and where you’re going. Do something fun. Exercise, take the dog for a walk. Go to the cinema or out for dinner. Just do something that isn’t work-related and switch your phone off for a few hours. Don’t check your social media (I know that sounds odd for me to say given I’m a social media person). But the world won’t end. Everything will be fine and your mind won’t be quite so filled with cotton wool.
Check out last weeks video about How To Stop Procrastinating where I also talk about doing something else.
Rediscover Your Why
When you get totally bogged down and overwhelmed with work stuff, it’s easy to forget why you started all of this in the first place. When you can feel yourself reaching burnout point and you feel like throwing in the towel, remember why you started. Whether it’s an ambition you wanted to achieve or a lifestyle choice, revisit your why and reconnect to it.
Help Someone Else
When you feel absolutely overwhelmed and burnout is taking control to the point you feel helpless, then help someone else. It’s amazing the practically healing properties just selflessly helping someone else can do for you. Whether it’s a random act of kindness or you answer someone’s question in a business group without trying to sell them something or getting them to sign up to your list. Do something for charity or turn up to volunteer for something.
But taking yourself out of your burnout situation and doing something good for someone else will just help you get some clarity on what you’re trying to achieve. It’s a bit like rediscovering your why, only by doing something nice. And don’t do a good deed with a hidden agenda. I see this in Facebook business groups all the time that are supposed to be about supporting each other. When all many want to do is just sell their crap to other members without offering any value or actually supporting anyone but themselves. Taking this approach will just add to your overwhelm and bring on your burnout a bit quick.
