Entrepreneurship is a long and often treacherous
journey, and it’s easy to encounter periods of burnout along the way. According
to the Mayo Clinic, job burnout is defined as “a special type of job stress — a
state of physical, emotional or mental exhaustion combined with doubts about your
competence and the value of your work.”
If that sounds familiar, you’re not alone. Almost everyone experiences at
one point or another over the course of their career, but entrepreneurs are
particularly susceptible.
The burden of creating a company from scratch and
leading a team builds up over time and can manifest itself in unfortunate ways.
I’ve dealt with burnout at several different points in the past and know
how hard it can be to overcome once it sets in. Fortunately, necessity is the
mother of invention. In my desperation to stave off burnout before it causes
real problems, I’ve managed to find a few ways to identify its symptoms and
avoid its impact.
Change the scenery
I’m a big believer that place has a tremendous impact
on both the quality of work you produce and your overall morale. Working from
the same place, with the same view, during the same hours reinforces a sense of
monotony and can lead to burnout.
Our offices at BodeTree are fun, open, and pretty creative, all things considered. Still, I
find myself falling into similar routines and thought patterns when I work from
my desk day in and day out. This mental rut of sorts is always a key indicator
that feelings of burnout are right around the corner.
When I feel that beginning to take hold, I make an effort to get a
change of scenery. Sometimes this means simply getting up and working from a
different place in the office. Other times, I’ll leave altogether and work from
a coffee shop or café. The change of scenery almost always encourages new
thoughts and ideas, preventing you from falling into the mental rut that leads
to burnout.
Explore your creative side
Running a business can be stressful, terrifying, and
lonely. Even for individuals with great support networks and co-founders, it
can still be difficult to find an outlet to vent. After all, spouses can get
concerned about the how your challenges will affect their lives, and fellow
entrepreneurs are often too wrapped up in their difficulties to listen to
yours. When you bottle these emotions up, they can easily result in feelings of
burnout. Writing, however, is the perfect outlet for explaining, exploring, and
digesting everything that you face as an entrepreneur in a healthy way.
Writing is my preferred outlet for creative expression, but any creative
outlet will work. The important thing is to find a way to identify and address
the feelings that lead to burnout. When you manage the causes of burnout in a
healthy, creative way, you rob them of their power over you.
Be in the moment
When things start to pile up and feelings of burnout
set in, don’t panic. Remember to stop and be mindful of the present
moment. More often than not, the feelings you’re experiencing are related to
what you think might happen in the future, not what you’re dealing with in the
present. Practicing mindfulness and focusing on the current moment can give you
a reprieve from the thoughts and concerns that lead to burnout.
The benefits of mindfulness have been well documented, and a recent Harvard Business Review article points out that it takes as little as
six seconds of mindful meditation for these benefits to manifest themselves.
Quieting your mind and moving away from the endless “what-if” scenarios helps
to center you in the present and prepares you to deal with the tasks that lie
ahead more effectively.
The key to managing burnout and avoiding its worst effects is to spot its
early symptoms and take decisive action before they take hold. Simple things
like changing the location of where you choose to work, writing, or being
mindful of the present can make all the difference in the world.
Original
No comments:
Post a Comment