How To Avoid Burnout In Your Small Business

Owning a small business has plenty of obstacles that larger-sized companies don't have. While small businesses are unique in that you can oversee a majority of the departments, projects, and goals on a day-to-day basis, it can be very hands-on; having everything fall on your plate can have a negative effect and create burnout in your small business.

How Can Burnout Affect Your Business

While you may feel that multitasking can be a great thing for your business and the best way to get things done, it can often hinder your quality of work and even your efficiency. The easiest way to reach burnout is by taking on and doing too much at once while not allowing yourself the time to step back and reset.

So how can burnout affect your business? Burnout has many negative impacts and can be felt across the entire company, often beginning at the top and trickling down to other departments and employees. One major detrimental way burnout can affect your business is in how it affects you as an individual. If you feel stressed and bogged down by work, your motivation can begin to waiver, and your passion for what you do can change. Once your motivation is gone, your level of productivity can suffer. Disorganization is another effect of burnout. Missing deadlines, having too much due, and being unable to focus or prioritize are all symptoms of burnout and will ultimately lead to being unable to do your job correctly. 

Burnout is a lot more than just feeling overwhelmed and exhausted. It can be costly to your business.

What Can Cause Burnout In Business?

There are a lot of moving parts that come together to create burnout; here are a few of these causes:

No Clear Work-Life Balance

It is no easy task to separate your work and personal life, especially in today's constantly connected world. It's so hard that most executives cannot do it when they work where they live and live where they work. This is one of the main ingredients for burnout. Turning off your work life, even for a day a week, is crucial in resetting, recharging, and coming back feeling better and mentally more clear.

An employee policy could help you establish your perspective on these situations and how to manage them effectively.

Unclear Goals/Expectations 

Goals allow us to have a purpose and often force us to get organized to meet said plans. If you are unsure about where you'd like to be as a business or how you want to grow, it is hard to set meaningful tasks and see them to completion. If you don't have a goal in mind, it may feel like you're on a hamster wheel and constantly working hard at nothing. Set a goal and get a plan to reach it. Your tasks will feel meaningful and have a purpose.

Lack Of Self-Care Routines

Find what brings your joy, then prioritize doing those things. Whether you enjoy getting up early and reading, getting fresh air every afternoon, going for a run, etc., get out and do it. Self-care is vital in making sure you avoid burnout. Without a self-care routine or making sure you take time for self-care, it's easy to feel run down, and like your life is all work. 

Most Common Signs Of Burnout 

Becoming Easily Frustrated

When you feel you constantly have to tread water, those feelings catch up with you and show themselves in many different ways, and one of those ways is having a short fuse. Things that used to roll off your shoulders now cause a reaction. All logic begins to go out the window, and you are easily frustrated. Being easily frustrated can be detrimental to your reputation as a leader. Your team feels the tension, people will stop looking to you for guidance, and communication can halt. 

Performance Goes Down

As we discussed previously, productivity majorly decreases when you are burnt out. While you're trying to juggle everything and stay afloat, deadlines are missed, and tasks are completed with much less quality. And items are done to get them marked off as done, and your all-around performance suffers.

Chronic Exhaustion

Burnout is also being in a constant state of exhaustion. You feel the weight of the world on your shoulders every minute of the day. Emotionally you are beat, and those feelings begin to affect you physically. You never feel rested or recharged but instead are constantly sluggish and tired.

Difficulty Concentrating

When you are burnt out, you are most likely being pulled in multiple directions at once. As we discussed, multitasking can keep you from being focused and concentrating. Instead of focusing on the task at hand, you are always looking ahead, in a rush, or thinking about other things.

Dealing With Burnout As A Small Business Owner

Once you are in the trenches of burnout, it can be hard to dig yourself out, but it is possible. Consider the below ways to alleviate burnout and get back on track.

Find The Work-Life Balance

Talk to your peers, join communities focusing on prioritizing work-life balance, speak to your mentors or start by focusing on one personal life item a day. When you remember there is life outside of your career and business, it makes all the difference in how you show up as an executive or leader.

Have The Right Support System Around You

Joining communities with like-minded leaders can be so effective in overcoming burnout. Even surrounding yourself with friends and family who know how to support you properly can make all the difference. Allow people to step in and help when you need it and allow yourself to vent and accept advice.

Learn To Delegate 

As much as business leaders want to oversee and control as many tasks as possible, you can trust the team you've hired to do the job you've hired them to do. Delegate tasks and items that others can handle and free yourself up to focus on the things only truly you can take on. Allowing others to step in will give others more responsibility and confidence and will allow you to focus on essential items that require your attention.

Automate Processes As Much As Possible

Solidifying processes that make your day-to-day more productive and efficient is key in fighting burnout. So sit down with your team and develop a list of items that can be integrated into automated processes. Take the heavy lifting of mundane, necessary tasks off your plate and put them into methods that can work for you.

Learn To Say No

Only some things that come across your desk are a good use of your time. Consider this when something comes up and you need to decide if you have the capacity for it. Delegate if you need to or allow yourself to say, "this isn't a priority or a need right now." The better you can filter things out, the more strategic and meaningful your workload can be.

Make Health A Priority 

Get up, get out and get moving. Feed your body with healthy, whole foods if you can't move physically. When you feel good, everything around you feels better. Focus on your mental health just as much as your physical health. Listen to your body when you need rest. A sharp body is a sharp mind and a more productive executive.

Schedule DownTime

As much as we try to be superheroes, we are all human and need to rest. So make downtime a priority just like you do planning for quarterly goals. In fact, make it a quarterly goal to get in some downtime. 

Avoid Burnout for Yourself and Your Business 

It's easy to get swept up in the day-to-day stressors of running your own business or leading a business, but it is crucial to your health and the company's health to take a step back, check in with yourself and do what you need to do not to get burnt out. If you realize you're taking on too much with your business and need help with recruiting or how to grow properly, GCE can help. Schedule a call with us today and get your life and business back on track.