Starting and managing your own firm or business inevitably comes with range of challenges. As a business owner, you can find yourself working from the ground up, developing business and marketing plans, and determining how best to ensure lasting customer satisfaction, among many other responsibilities.
These responsibilities can feel stressful at times. Therefore, allowing yourself time to take care of your mental health and explore ways to incorporate stress management techniques can be highly beneficial, both now and in the future.
In this special guest blog, Gladys Torres shares some stress management tips to assist you on your business journey.
1. Accept assistance
Many business owners are passionately independent and adamant that they can handle nearly every aspect of their businesses without help or assistance. While this approach certainly gives you the feeling of being in control over your operations, it can add a huge amount of pressure and lead to high stress levels.
Having a support network of people wanting to help you reach your business goals is not only important for reducing stress, it’s inevitable to ensure an effective and sustainable business. For example, you could consider enlisting the help of an accountant to handle tax matters, a legal expert, and an IT specialist to ensure your technology systems are running optimally.
You could also approach an experienced business mentor for advice, where you’ll gain invaluable insights and support to help you cope with managing your business.
2. Prioritise your downtime
Relaxation and downtime can often take a back seat when you’re focused on running a business. Be mindful that if you are constantly working or checking your emails, you may find yourself getting trapped in a cycle of burnout.
One of the many ways to prevent burning out and overexerting yourself is by treating your downtime equally as important as your work. Whether you schedule breaks on your calendar or make a habit of setting reminders, try to actively honour your downtime just as you would do any other priorities in your life. Periods of relaxation are just as important and worthy of your attention, and in turn helps to ensure you feel at your most healthy and energised for your business.
3. Minimise procrastination
You may feel the temptation to delay handling issues that are causing you stress from time to time. Perhaps these issues won’t escalate, however there is a chance that they will, which then has the potential to create heightened stress in the future.
For example, if you own an engineering firm, you may notice the fact that some of your specialised equipment urgently needs servicing or repairs. Performing preventative maintenance as soon as possible could prevent full equipment failure, along with the astronomical costs that come with it.
Delaying this maintenance could become costly, leading to financial losses and expensive repair and replacement bills. Acting quickly and proactively can help to prevent these issues from occurring.
4. Monitor your emotional wellbeing
There are very few business owners who aren’t quietly harbouring fears of failure. This fear can often be rooted in financial challenges, especially when the economy takes a knock and recovery is slow going.
Money can sometimes be an emotional topic, and it’s important to be aware of how your emotions can affect your actions and thoughts. If you identify negative, repetitive thinking patterns, take a step back and take notice of how this links to your emotions. Taking a step back to name and notice your emotional responses to your thoughts can help you to realise the next step you need in order to help yourself, and broaden your perspective.
Emotional monitoring involves noticing how your emotions can steer your thoughts and behaviours. Once you start to make a habit of monitoring your emotions, you can find you’re better able to gauge situations more accurately, and understand how your mindset may be impacting your perceptions.
5. Meet up with other business owners
Each industry has its own unique organisations and professional networks. Each sector has its own unique obstacles and challenges that many entrepreneurs before you will have likely experienced and dealt with, through trial and error.
You can meet experienced business owners through organisations or networking events, where you could seek out advice on any challenges you may be facing, and likewise you may be able to help others as well. Getting involved in the business community and connecting with like-minded people is incredibly beneficial, both from a business growth perspective as well as enhancing that feeling of connectedness that we all appreciate.
Knowing that you aren’t alone and that other business owners have faced similar struggles to yours can help to reduce your stress levels, as well as provide you with an outlet to share experiences.
6. Explore wellbeing resources
Stress can have notable impacts on your emotional state, as well as impact your physical and mental health. When your cortisol and adrenaline levels rise and remain elevated, this can lead to hypertension, immune dysfunction, gastrointestinal problems, to name a few.
There are many products and resources that can help to reduce stress levels. Whether you choose to invest in a wearable stress monitor to help detect and manage physical signs of stress levels, look into wellness apps such as Headspace, Calm or Insight Timer, or explore self-paced guided Mindfulness Ecourses - this can help to remind you that you’re not alone and empower you to embed regular healthy habits to reduce stress.
7. Reduce stress on a regular basis
It’s essential to incorporate stress management techniques into your everyday routine, whenever and however you can. Even if you aren’t feeling stressed or anxious, practices like mindfulness and meditation can help to train your brain to think proactively about self-care, boost your mood, and equip you with the tools you need to manage any challenges that lie ahead.
Make stress management a priority
Business owners regularly experience high levels of stress due to various reasons, such as complex workloads, deadlines and business growth demands. While short, manageable bursts of stress is a natural human experience, high stress over a long period of time can create a myriad of challenging effects on your mental, physical and emotional wellbeing. Therefore, it’s important to manage stress through regular self-care practices.
Remember to reach out to mentors and fellow business owners in your community who can offer advice, help with specific tasks, and lighten your load - you’re all in the same boat, and a support network is vital for business and personal success.
Gladys Torres is a writer, and advocate for self-care and leading a healthy lifestyle. She hopes that her writing can inspire others to prioritise their mental and physical well-being. With an absolute love for food and a self proclaimed foodie, when she's not writing Gladys loves to experiment in the kitchen and try out new recipes.