10 WAYS TO BANISH BUSINESS BURNOUT

Natalie Tolhopf offers her ten-point plan for business owners who feel they’re at the end of their tether.

W e’ve all heard the phrase ‘ fake it ‘ til you make it’.

Well, that doesn’t sit well with me when talking about business goals.

You can’t fake success when big hairy goals are just too much to handle and burnout is creeping into your life.

It’s easy to let yourself and your business spiral out of control – not taking positive and productive daily actions in your business means you take your hands off the steering wheel. And when you take your hands off the wheel, you crash. Are you waking up tired, feeling like you’re working hard but not actually being productive and overwhelmed with tasks and thoughts?

Burnout happens when we feel out of control, anxious and downright exhausted.

It’s easy to get overwhelmed and, eventually, burn out in business. The online world highlights everything you and your business must do. Everyone else’s social media highlight reels can make you second guess yourself and feel like what you’re doing is not enough.

Part of what I do with clients, through equal part hand-holding and butt-kicking, is to stop people from procrastination and mindless social media scrolling. But mostly, I help create businesses of simplicity driven by intuition and consistent action.

Here are my ten tips to help you avoid business burnout:

1. AVOID BIG HAIRY GOALS

Big hairy goals set you up for failure. If you don’t believe your goals, you don’t take action to succeed. When you believe in your goals, you get excited and your energy changes.

If you go for weeks with the same things on your to-do list, it means you’ve not been realistic about how long they should take to complete, or if you can achieve them at all.

Have realistic expectations about what you can achieve and give yourself time to achieve your goals. There are no quick fixes in business – take the time to do the work. Then you’ll get to where you want to go.

2. IT MUST BE A ‘HELL, YEAH’, OR IT’S A ‘HELL, NO’

When an opportunity comes, or a decision must be made, you’ll usually know how you feel about it. It’s that simple – it’s yes or no.

Trust your intuition in business – it will save you a whole lot

of time and avoid those decisions replaying on a mental loop. The sooner you listen to yourself, the sooner you act.

3. REPEL IN YOUR BUSINESS

Not everyone liked you before you started your business so, stop trying to get everyone to like you now. You are your own USP. Repel tyre kickers and clients that don’t understand you. The more you stand up for what you believe the more you repel those who just don’t get you. You’ll find that this will speed up the sales process, and make business run smoother.

4. REPURPOSE YOUR CONTENT

You need to show up on your business social media page every day. The life cycle of customer interest can be up to 18 months. All it takes is for you to stop showing up on social media before someone else swoops in and takes prospective clients from you.

But I can see you, Monday morning, head in hands thinking "What the heck am I going to blog about or post on social media?"

Repurpose blogs, interviews and newsletters. For example, take one blog post and turn it into five social media memes, a video, a database mailout and perhaps five more social media posts.

5. WARM UP FOR BUSINESS

An athlete doesn’t run onto the game cold. Make sure your attitude is warmed up before you start your day.

Write down why you do what you do and your business mission or goals – it will dramatically shift your mindset to success.

Mindless scrolling and social media fixation is an epidemic in New Zealand and is detriment to success. Don’t start the day by scrolling or reacting to emails – this increases adrenalin and stress.

One of my secrets is that I put my business first every morning, after my self-care.

Warm up and get your eyes on the prize.

6. FIND YOUR CONSISTENT SWEET SPOT

There are 100 ways to run your business but find the best fitting structure to help you drive sales and performance consistently.

Find a way that you can take positive action consistently – listen to your intuition and note what you do naturally.

I do video marketing naturally – I don’t have to fight myself to do it.

Hating what you do in your business will drain you. Focus on your sweet spot – whatever it is that you can do consistently to boost your business.

7. TAKE IMPERFECT ACTION

This is the best way to avoid burnout. Start at the start and keep moving in the right direction.

Overplanning before you take a step causes analysis paralysis. Crippling perfectionism can be an issue, especially for creatives and those who were managers in previous jobs. A culture of perfectionism exists in corporations.

But you started your own business for liberation. Take imperfect action and the perfection will come in the doing.

8. PUT HEALTH AND FAMILY FIRST

Building a business means you need to feed it with energy, which you get from exercise, healthy eating and living. Spend time with family and exercise.

I’m not talking about 5am yoga classes and green smoothies. It might be a 10am routine, but make the time.

If you’re at the level of burnout – delegate, even if it’s just at home with cooking and laundry.

9. REPEAT YOURSELF

Be clear about what you stand for and repeat your key messages in your marketing.

The power of repetition can elevate you to the level of industry expert. It also clears mental fog and muddle and allows you to be confident that you are enough – your business message is enough.

10. PLAN AND STAY FOCUSED

There’s power in planning, but you don’t need a big business plan. Signposting milestones to meet in the first quarter, allows you to plan bite-sized actions for the month, week and day.

Keep it simple and see them through – unfinished projects hang over us like bad smells.

To prevent burnout you should know exactly what you’re doing, and why, when you hit your desk each day.