How to keep your mental state in check when starting a business
It may seem easier than ever to start a business today, but becoming an entrepreneur isn’t for the faint of heart.
There’s a lot involved in turning your ideas, skills, and talents into a successful brand – and a great deal on the line, from hope, pride, money, effort, relationships and time.
That’s why it takes a mentally strong individual to be able to handle the ups and downs of starting a business. If you’re planning on embarking down this road, here’s four pieces of advice to help you keep your emotions intact while building your company.
1) Adopt healthy lifestyle habits
Getting your business off the ground will require every bit of your time, effort, and energy. This means that you need to maintain good health. If you are struggling physically or mentally, it could slow down productivity and hinder your chances of success.
So if you’re not doing so already, now is a good time to adopt healthy lifestyle habits. Make sure that you’re eating a well-balanced diet, getting regular exercise, and getting enough rest.
If you want to start eating better, it’s a good idea to reduce your consumption of processed, sugary, and salty foods, and start incorporating more fresh fruits, vegetables, whole grains, low-fat dairy, and lean protein into your diet. Finding quick recipes, planning, and prepping your meals can help you stick to your diet.
As for exercise, if you’re strapped for time, try waking up 30 minutes to an hour earlier and do a physical activity you enjoy (but that also challenges your body). It’s also important to create a bedtime routine that allows you to get enough rest.
2) Simplify processes
One of the biggest stressors for new business owners is workload. When you’re inundated with too many tasks, it can become stressful and lead to careless mistakes and slowed productivity.
So how can you avoid this? The best way to keep stress at bay is to simplify processes. Write down a list of everything that needs to be done for your business and create a workflow. Then, do some research to determine which tools can be used to help make these steps easier.
Some examples might be using a social media manager or email marketing platform to help automate your marketing efforts, a task manager and calendar for efficient time management, and accounting software to make keeping track of transactions, payroll, and financial reports much easier.
3) Don’t be afraid to get help
Most people don’t reach the top without some help along the way. Though finances can be tight when starting a business, getting help when you need it is a wise investment.
Whether it’s a virtual assistant, accountant, web developer, project manager, or a team of employees, when you have people who are skilled in their profession on your side working towards the same goal, you can achieve a lot more. You take a lot of the weight off your shoulders, gain new insight, and can essentially take your business further.
Speaking of getting help. For entrepreneurs who are already experiencing emotional or physical overload starting their business, it is important to know when you’re spiraling out of control so you can seek another type of assistance.
This could be talking with your doctor, going to a counselor, learning from a mentor, or, if necessary, seeking mental health help for women and/or men. This group of professionals can help you to get to the underlying cause of your emotional distress and help you to develop a plan to lower your stress and improve your mental well-being.
4) Don’t be so hard on yourself (enjoy the process)
The last bit of advice for those starting their own business is to learn how to enjoy the process. This is a journey that will have lots of ups and downs. Revel in victories large and small. But, equally importantly, remember that when mistakes are made, you should learn from them and make changes to reduce the chances of them happening in the future.
Remember, it takes a great deal of strength and courage to do what you’re doing. The fact that you’ve actually started taking steps towards accomplishing your dreams is something to be proud of. So pat yourself on the back and keep on pushing on.
Work every day and maintain good health
The first few years of starting a business are some of the most emotionally and physically taxing. Though it can be easy to become overwhelmed by it all, if you want to succeed you have to work every day and maintain good mental health.
Though the advice provided above won’t make the journey a walk in the park, it will reduce common stressors making your path to the top a lot easier to master.
Photo by Trent Szmolnik
