When I was at the height of my business, I was also the most miserable I had ever been. I was making money, but I was also extremely burned out. And it wasn’t necessarily because I had so much to do. It was because I felt like I should always be doing more.
I felt like I was ALWAYS working and always had to be on. After all, those bills weren’t going to pay themselves and my entire income was based on how much or how little I worked and hustled, right? Which meant that I never felt like I could take any time off.
Even when I wasn’t working, I felt stressed that I should be working, which created an experience of never actually having any real time off, doing lots of busy work, and not actually moving forward in proportion to my stress levels; ie the amount I was stressed was not equal to the amount of dollars I had.
This is a really common experience among business owners, both new and seasoned. It’s easy to get into a rhythm where you work a lot, then don’t work a lot, but feel guilty and stressed in either scenario. If you’ve ever felt this way, Nicole’s question is for you…
Dear Sally,
Having done business for as long as I have, and knowing the cycles of work a lot, coast for a bit, work a lot, I still have a hard time with real time off or doing things just for fun. In the coasting or working hard stages, burnout is real, and I’m not sure how to approach this conundrum. There is still guilt and a sense of uselessness when not working a bunch or working really hard. Any advice?
Thanks,
Nicole
Hey Nicole,
What you’re asking is something I find that happens with almost every business owner, whether seasoned or new. It sounds like you’ve been in business for awhile, which GOOD JOB! Having your own business is not for the faint of heart, and a big part of that is due to what you mentioned in your question.
It’s easy to feel like you have to work super hard, then after all that work you want a break, but when you take that break, you don’t really feel like you’re “off,” likely because you feel like there’s always more to do. Add in the feeling of uselessness, like you mentioned, and that’s a recipe for an anxiety soup that doesn’t taste good, and is not motivating for creative business-building. No wonder why you feel like this is a conundrum.
I’ve experienced this myself and almost every client I have ever coached has felt a variation of what you’re describing, so I hope these ideas resonate with you.
From what I’ve seen, there are typically three reasons how folks get into this cycle and the good news is, the solution to all of them is the same. The three reasons typically are:
They schedule their time to work really hard when they need money, but as soon as that period is over, they stop working (ie “coast” in your example). I call this system the “boom or bust” cycle.
They haven’t mapped out their year/quarters to know what’s coming up and what needs to be done, so they’re often flying by the seat of their pants and scrambling to create offers on the fly (which creates the “working hard stages” that lead to burnout)
They haven’t scheduled their time in their calendar to work on their business a little at a time each day/week so their work is spread out, which allows them to feel good about the time that they’re not working (because they already got done what they set out to do).
The bad news is that this is a really painful and unsustainable pattern to be in. If the burnout hasn’t already made you want to quit, it likely will soon. The good news is that it doesn’t have to be this way, and there are three really tangible ways to change this pattern:
To get out of the boom and bust cycle of working really hard until you burnout, and then coasting but not really being “off,” is to spread your work out over the entire year and get yourself on a good weekly schedule so you’re working on your business for 2-4 focused hours each day (instead of say 16 hours a day a week straight, for a few weeks when you need money, and then hardly at all after).
Look at your year ahead and map out what needs to be done. You can ask yourself…
How much do I want/need to make this year to make my life work? How do I want to spread that out? (ie Do I want to have a few large launches? Do I want to have more frequent smaller launches?)
What months do I need to be selling something?
Given what I’ve decided, what needs to happen each month to get this done?
Use time blocking to schedule these work chunks in your calendar. One of my colleagues/mentors, Marie Forleo says “If it’s not scheduled, it’s not real,” and I couldn’t agree more. Set your schedule, know clearly and specifically what needs to get done, do that work during that time, and the rest of the time, schedule out things that are fun, exciting, fulfilling, and nourishing to you.
Overall, the idea is you set up your business so that there aren’t as many swings. You can spread the work out over longer periods of time so it’s not so much coast a lot, work a lot, but work a little, over a more consistent amount of time. That way, when you’re off, you’re actually off because you know you already handled what needs to be done.
This is about time management and calendaring, setting things up ahead of time, and putting them on the schedule. It’s about batching content, it’s about mapping out your year so you know what you have to do and when, and setting your life up to get that done.
Now, a lot of people I talk to don’t like doing this. Most of them are creative type people who would rather be spontaneous and in the moment and feel constricted with thinking too far ahead and putting things in a calendar. And I get that because I’m the same way. AND ALSO, doing it that way leads to stress and overwhelm like you mentioned, but I think you can do both…be creative and also be strategic and here’s how…
Do what I said above, but leave room to change your mind. Have things set up in case you need them, but if you want to change course or do something different you can.
When you’re doing the work, make it fun. If writing a bunch of content at once doesn’t feel fun to you, find out what does and do that. Maybe you go to an AirBnb in a beautiful place with some friends for a work-cation. Maybe you go to your favorite coffee shop and reward yourself with a book you’ve been wanting to read. The idea is to try to make a less than exciting task, more joyful. Anything come to mind?
Now that we talked about the practical tips, there is one more thing in your question I wanted to speak to. It’s the part where you mentioned a feeling of uselessness if you’re not working.
That stuck out to me, and I would encourage you to explore this a bit more. I’d suggest to explore looking at the underlying feeling of only being valued or useful when you’re producing or working hard, since that usually comes from somewhere. That’s a belief that tends to get lodged into folks in childhood, so I would definitely start by tending to that. you can ask yourself…
Where did I first pickup the idea that my value is tied to my work or how much I do/produce? Who told me that?
What benefit do I get from keeping that habit?
How is keeping that belief hindering my joy or happiness?
What do I think will happen if I have fun and enjoy my life?
This two-pronged approach of exploring the root of the feeling, while also adopting some tangible productivity tools, I believe, will help ease this boom and bust cycle.
And now I want to hear from you. In the comments below, let me know…
What questions do you have about this?
How might this work for you (or not)?
Do you feel resistant to any of this? If so…what?
I look forward to hearing from you and if you’d like to ask your own business/marketing question, drop it here anonymously.
Also…my mission is to help as many folks as I possibly can with free business advice. I believe business can be a beautiful and fun experience that allows for a life of fulfillment and freedom, instead of an overwhelming rollercoaster. I want to save you that overwhelm.
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