Solo-Entrepreneurs: Self-Care or Burn-Out. The Choice is Yours.
Have you ever felt like you lost yourself? Have you wondered where that playful, energized, and fun to be around person wandered? Perhaps the endless days and nights of starting and running your business has taken a toll on you, and somewhere in the mix of all these things, you lost the most important asset, you. Even more ironic, one of the reasons why you started your business in the first place was to have more time and be the “maker” of your life, schedule, and so on. With the planning, launching, and everything after that, you may find it difficult to find your cell phone, yet alone, yourself. As solo-entrepreneur life can get a little hectic, and losing oneself in the hustle of it all can be one of the biggest challenges. Time, deadlines, and resources can have a profound impact on self-care. It can either shift the value toward practicing self-care or in other cases, put self-care at the bottom of the list. My guess is if you're reading this, you fall into one of those categories, i.e. you proactively practice self-care, or you don't and are at or getting extremely close to a burnout. The purpose of this post is to provide you with a few easy steps to practicing self-care, and the intention is to help you, help yourself and those around you.
1. Check your mindset pulse. What is your current emotional state? Are you energized, drained, or somewhere between those points? Are there triggers that led to your current state? What are they? This will help you first to identify how you feel, what factors impact that state, and perhaps, identify whether or not your current state is positive or toxic to your well-being. Ideally, it is positive. However, having experienced a personal burnout in the
2. Recognize your feelings. If you made it through step one without saying “this is dumb” or “I don't have time for this” then you are making headway. Next, recognize those feelings. For some, this may be a hard step because of putting oneself in the “numb to life” state for so long. Practicing self-care may take years to break through, but once you do, your level of awareness and empathy toward yourself and others will expand exponentially. You may do this exercise by simply sitting at your computer having a cup of coffee, or you may save it for later and write it down in a journal. However you go about doing it, be honest with yourself. Disregard your ego's burning desire to throw you off track. This is your time to work on you. Yes, work on you. There, ego, put that in your ego pipe and smoke it.
4. Identify the things that matter to you. The practice of self-care is a lot to take in. I get it. I've been there. There comes a point in our lives that we must stop and identify what matters. Every person is different. So what matters to me is different for you. The key is to get honest with yourself. What matters to you? What is it that you want to have in your life? In a perfect world, how would your life look? How would you look? How would you feel? Write these things down. Meditate on it. Go for a walk and think about it. These things that matter to you are essential to practicing self-care. Identifying these things and then doing nothing is quitting. You're not a quitter. You're a doer.
6. Monitor your progress and be kind to yourself. Changes may not happen overnight. There will be times of being on track with self-care and times when it is harder. There may be times when you fall back into working too much and forgetting about you. The key is to be able to monitor your progress. Be kind to yourself for your accomplishments, and for identifying times that you may have struggled with your practice. It is okay. You are human. We are not perfect. The practice of self-care is not perfect. The more proactive and genuine you are to yourself throughout this practice, the more you can identify, adjust, and monitor your self-care practice.
In conclusion, practicing self-care is a necessity, especially for solo-entrepreneurs. You do not have to take on all of the issues of the world or all the issues of your business at the same time. You most certainly do not need to put yourself last. That is your choice. It is also your choice to practice self-care or put yourself in situations that lead up to a burn-out. The choice is yours. Small actions of self-care, can lead to big results in the quality of the life you want to live and the life you will actually be living. You can have balance making a living and a life. I hope these tips help, and if you have other suggestions, please comment below. I believe that if we can help one another feel better and have a better quality of life, even through the meaningful suggestions of self-care, we can make a difference in lives of others and our own.
“Nourishing yourself in a way that helps you blossom
in the direction you want to go is attainable,
and you are worth the effort.” – Deborah Day.
Have a wonderful day, and remember how blessed you are.
by Katie Doseck, PhD MBA
Chief Visionary and Strategic Ace Up Your Sleeve | Viral Solutions LLC
Copyright 2015 by Viral Solutions LLC
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