How To Build A Burnout-Proof Business
For Female Entrepreneurs
“To love what you do and feel like it matters – how could anything be more fun?”
– Katharine Graham
68% of entrepreneurs reported feeling symptoms of burnout.
That’s 22,576,000 individual business owners struggling with the unyielding workout that is entrepreneurship. Building a burnout-proof business is not a want, but rather a need when 1 in 12 businesses close each year. Whether you are a soccer mom with a side hustle or a Fortune 500 She. E.O, the meaning, purpose, and necessity of your efforts should not be damped by the preventable phenomenon known as burnout.
What is Burnout?
Burnout is an all-encompassing state of being that weakens our focus, our drive, and motivation. It occurs when you overextend, over-schedule, and over-promise. The high stress and overwhelm grow laying the building blocks for a burnt-out business.
From your physical to your mental, down to a soul level exhaustion burnout is invasive and complete in its destruction.
That sounds dramatic I know, as someone who has experienced it, I can tell you it feels like you are drowning, drowning in life. Going about your day, seeing to your responsibilities and routines is infinitely harder when you feel numb and overwhelmed. It’s like trying to fill a swimming pool with a leaky cup, ineffective and exhausting.
While you might be able to push through for a while; loving what you do isn’t always enough.
The Consequences of Burnout
The origin of burnout is simple:
Burnout stems from chronic patterns of self-neglect.
It is a state of being that affects our mental and physical ability to self-regulate. Burnout can lower our immune response, cause headaches and muscle tension, create feelings of helplessness and cynicism, induce procrastination or substance abuse, and even make us more susceptible to more serious illnesses like heart disease and high blood pressure. Once you are in the cycle of burnout it can be difficult to get out.
Burnout looks different for each person, however, the building blocks are the same; abundant stress with no healthy outlet or support. For me, burnout looked like weight gain, hair loss, acne scars, anxiety, and a loss of motivation for almost everything I used to enjoy.
The consequence of living your life on auto-pilot is you start to get uncomfortably comfortable. A kind of micro-depression and high-functioning anxiety can set in where you go through the paces of life, doing what needs to be done, but you’re barely hanging on.
“Barely hanging on” is not the ideal description for a business owner, especially if you have other people counting on you for their employment. As a business owner, you can only disassociate so much until your personal inability to keep up bleeds into your professional affairs.
Which is why building a burnout-proof business is so important. For you to keep your dream alive, actualize your professional goals, and maintain your drive I encourage the following:
How To Build A Burnout-Proof Business
As a woman who has started multiple businesses over half a decade, I can tell you with certainty that the only certainty in business is that it is difficult. I don’t say that to scare or dissuade you, but rather to be honest about the path of entrepreneurship. That soccer mom with a side hustle may have different struggles than the Fortune 500 She. E.O., but that doesn’t mean one is more or less difficult than the other.
I am a strong advocate of entrepreneurship, especially for my fellow ladies. Women tend to be excellent communicators, have an eye for detail, and have a natural ability to nurture connection and understanding with others. Building a burnout-proof business, especially for women, is all about leaning into those innate strengths while maintaining one key principle:
To prioritize yourself as much as you do your business.
You started your business for a reason. Saving up to buy a house, capitalizing on a passion, paying off debt, or padding the bank to start a family. Whatever your entrepreneurial origin story is built around, be it making a few extra bucks, or completely reworking the trajectory of your life, it is important your efforts not be wasted.
Sustainability in the business world is a major focus of concern. 58% of entrepreneurs worry about the long-term sustainability of their business. This concern is especially potent for solopreneurs. When you are the HR department, the accountant, bookkeeper, cleaning lady, manager, assistant, web designer, and more, stress adds up fast.
Add onto that our external responsibilities: spouses, babies, additional 9-5 jobs, maintaining friendships, helping family, cleaning, cooking, and walking your pet iguana…idk what you like.
With a laundry list like that, (…there’s a pun in there) something is sure to fall through the cracks. That something tends to be our basic personal needs like maintaining our mental, spiritual, and physical health.
- We forgo eating nourishing foods at regular intervals by living off of tic-tacs and the crumbly granola bar at the bottom of our purse.
- Our hydration comes from the multiple cups of coffee keeping us wired and nocturnal.
- We only practice mindfulness when checking out our bank accounts.
- And the last time we felt relaxed was sitting in the 5-minute car wash 3 weeks ago.
That is not sustainable.
Our mental, physical, and spiritual well-being all have a part to play in the business world:
Our mental talents are what originated our business, expanding it with our innovation, creativity, and troubleshooting abilities.
Our physical strength and stamina to do the work and take those strides is where practicality and ideation collided.
To be like my ideal, the Proverbs 31 woman who is a total Boss Lady; a philanthropist who works, trades, and invests, being clothed in strength and dignity while being an excellent wife and mother. Her ability to excel and speak wisdom comes from the love of and respect for a being greater than her.
Maintaining the three main components that make up the frame on which our business endeavors and personal well-being hang, is so important.
It would be a poor business decision to hire staff who were underfed, overtired, disconnected, and burnt out. Yet, that is the state many lady-preneurs live in as they try to juggle everything and everybody all at once.
My experience in the wellness world has taught me the value of prioritizing your well-being. Building a burnout-proof business means learning to value the contribution YOU make to your business. You are the heartbeat that drives all development and advancement. Your passion, dreams, and goals are what founded the empire (big or small) that crowned you the title of “Entrepreneur.”
Creating a sustainable, burnout-proof business means you must invest your time, energy, and resources back into yourself as much as you do your business. By maintaining your mental, physical, and spiritual health (at a minimum, there are other forms of health, see here) you are refilling the cup with which you can pour from to fill 100 swimming pools worth of goals.
Whether you are a newbie or a veteran lady-preneur it is never too late to start implementing strategies to support the longevity of yourself and your business. If you’re interested I created a free, low-effort resource that outlines little strategies I’ve used to make a big impact on my wellness and that of my business. Check that out here:
Final Notes
Prioritizing yourself as a business owner, and investing in your needs as much as the business doesn’t necessarily mean every day is a celebration of you. Your responsibilities are still there and require your attention. The key is just remembering that you are also one of those responsibilities and you also require attention.
Every day the balance will be different. Finding the structure and systems that allow you to invest in your personal needs without impeding professional ambition is the ultimate way to build a burnout-proof business.
That self-investment journey took me years to figure out what works best for me and my business. I welcome you to shorten your journey by checking out my resource page for ways I can support and encourage.
Until nest time,
