How to Avoid Burnout as an entrepreneur

How to Avoid Burnout as an entrepreneur

Are you an entrepreneur and worried that you might be burning out? You’re not alone. Recent studies reveal that a quarter of busy entrepreneurs experience moderate degrees of entrepreneur burnout at some point in their careers.

It’s no secret that running a business, whether you run a franchise or an online business, opens you up to stressful situations. The key is learning how to cope with stressors in healthy ways.

You need to learn how to keep your motivation levels high, your stress levels low, and avoid burnout when leading a company. One of the ways to accomplish this is by hiring an entrepreneur coach to keep you on the correct path so that you can handle your business and family responsibilities in the long run without burning yourself out.

Let’s explore what causes burnout, how to avoid burnout as an entrepreneur, to avoid the situation, and how an entrepreneurial business coach can help within the situation.

Causes Of Entrepreneurial Burnout

Suppose you are about to open a new business or a promising franchise opportunity or are currently operating one, for instance. In that case, you need to pay attention to your schedule and self-care. Are you burning the candle at both ends? Do you act as though you are a machine that can keep going no matter what?

Even the most strong-willed individuals with a passion for entrepreneurship can’t keep that pace up or work under constant stress without eventually breaking down. Make a point to work enough mental and physical activity rest into your schedule.

Another potential cause for burnout is when you are feeling like your hands are tied because you have others pushing you back too often. Does resistance exist in your business that deflates your motivation around too many important decisions? Do you experience decision fatigue? If so, then it’s likely that stress and consequently burnout are around the corner.

Low mental health maintenance is a significant factor when it comes to burning out. You will feel drained of energy if you succumb to overthinking or worrying too often. It leads to feeling overwhelmed and as if you don’t have control over the business anymore.

How To Avoid Entrepreneur Burnout

Outsource some activities: Find ways to strategically hand off tasks and projects you’d instead not do. Business leaders often think they can and have to do it all. You might think that others can’t do essential tasks as well as you can. Recognize this in yourself and understand that it’s an unhealthy control issue. Let go of individual activities so that you can invest more time in higher-level leadership responsibilities.

Use activities to arrange the schedule: Set up your schedule based on activities instead of the standard office hours approach. For instance, try running your schedule this way:

  • Monday: Client calls
  • Tuesday: Business building
  • Wednesday: Marketing
  • Thursday: Client calls & social media scheduling
  • Friday: Big vision thinking

Maintain structure from day to day: If you are like most busy entrepreneurs, due to a strong entrepreneurial mindset, you feel the responsibility for the entrepreneurial task you accepted. Again, this is why you might try to control everything and do it all on your own. Set up a structure for your day and use an accountability partner, such as an entrepreneur coach, to help you stay true to your goals.

Hire An Entrepreneur Coach To Avoid Burnout

It’s one thing to read tips that teach you how to avoid burnout. It’s another to put that information to use when you’re in the middle of living a fast-paced business owner’s life.

That’s where coaching comes into play. A coach provides focus and a solid sounding board to report into and relay what’s causing you stress. A professional entrepreneur coach will reduce burnout in three ways:

  • Keeping you accountable to all of your goals and productivity
  • Supporting you with actionable ideas when you start feeling out of control
  • Providing you a mindfulness partner that positively pushes back when you go back to doing more than one human can possibly do

A business coach helps you see what you do not see because you are too close to the situation. For example, your coach can help you take a step back and see the toll those 18-hour days for 20 days in a row are taking on your family, as well as your ability to lead effectively.

Accountability to avoid the behaviors that lead to burnout is the true value of an entrepreneur coach. No one doubts your ability to get the job done. You would not be in your business owner role if you didn’t have the talent and know-how to do so.

Entrepreneurial burnout victims often look back and realize that they were their own worst enemies. They could not see the signs leading up to the burnout phase. Stress? Pressure? That is all part of the job, right? You think you need to keep pushing through. You think you need to stay strong.

The reality is that your small business coach is there to recognize when you need to pull back a little bit. A coach helps you see which responsibilities you should hand off to others so that you can more effectively perform higher-level tasks that drive the business forward.

It’s the blind spots that can derail your efforts to become more successful while remaining balanced. Consider putting a coach in your corner so that you don’t ever become blindsided by your inability to recognize when it’s time to pull back slightly to avoid burnout.

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