The Why’s of Entrepreneurial Burnout

Burnout exists in the workplace. This is just our reality, right? Unfortunately the risk of burnout isn’t something that ever 100% goes away. This is true in corporate jobs and, as you know, this is all too true among the entrepreneurial community. In fact entrepreneurial burnout can become even more severe, as many times our identities as entrepreneurs become intertwined with our business. You become your business, and this is where things can get dangerous. 

Before we dive down this particular rabbit hole, let’s just start by saying that in order to be a successful entrepreneur, you do not have to be stressed about your business all the time. There’s an unwritten [and quite toxic] rule that if you aren’t continually stressed out about the success of your business then you’re not doing it right and you surely aren’t going to be successful.  This. Is. Just. False. 

There are ways to build and have a successful business and avoid serious entrepreneurial burnout. But in order to know how to avoid it, we need to understand why it happens in the first place.

Entrepreneurial burnout rears its ugly little head for a variety of different reasons that are nuanced for each business and entrepreneur. As I mentioned earlier, many times as entrepreneurs, or solopreneurs, our identities become one with our business. This is a dangerous place to be. Businesses can come and go frequently, especially in the start up phase, and tying yourself inextricably to your business sets you up for devastation if your business doesn’t go as well as you’d like. It’s perfectly normal to be invested emotionally into your business, we understand that as an entrepreneur it's your baby. But there also needs to be some healthy boundaries between you, your identity, and your business. We’ll talk more about that later…

Along the same line, people who find themselves too passionate about their businesses are much more likely to experience entrepreneurial burnout. Typically in this case, business owners see one path to their success. That path IS their current business. Frequently they can see no other path to achieve any measure of success and tie their dreams to this very specific definition of success in front of them.

The problem with this lack of fluidity is that it can cause even more stress and rigidity in both your personal and business lives. Consider if you felt that the path in front of you was the only path available and if you didn’t make it work you’d find yourself at the end of the line. Wouldn’t you feel trapped? Wouldn’t you feel so much pressure to do everything right and be successful? Yeah, us too. 

Entrepreneurial burnout can also happen because you simply get bored of your role. Especially if you work from home, or are a solopreneur, you feel like an island and isolated from others. The monotony of the same procedural tasks each day to keep the business running can eat at you and burn you out. After all, running your own business isn’t 100% excitement and closing sales! As you well know, there’s a lot of rote tasks that have to be done as well. Luckily we’ve got options for you to help take those monotonous tasks off your plate and help you avoid entrepreneurial burnout at the same time. 

How Do You Know You’re in the Throws of Entrepreneurial Burnout?

Let’s take a trip down memory lane for a moment: what was the catalyst for you to break out as an entrepreneur and leave your corporate job behind? We’d be willing to put some money on the fact that it wasn’t because you loved your corporate job too much.

In fact, it’s not just us here at Social Fox that remember the Sunday scaries, right? Sheesh. That’s the worst feeling. Spending a whole day or evening dreading the fact that you have to go to work the next day to be able to keep the lights on and pay the water bill. Well, the Sunday scaries don’t just live in the corporate world, they sneak their way into the realm of entrepreneurship as well in the form of entrepreneurial burnout. So if you start feeling that sense of dread, it’s probably time to take a look at your business habits. 

Along this same line, changes in your personal habits can be a good indicator of if entrepreneurial burnout is sneaking up on you. Maybe you start feeling tired all the time and feel the need to sleep in one, then two, maybe even three hours later than you used to. Possibly your eating habits have changed or you’ve noticed an increase in your weight because you’ve picked up a snacking habit. Even things like bingeing Netflix or spending hours scrolling social media, when you normally don't, can be indicators that your business is taking a toll on your mental health. You’re using these other activities as a way to self-soothe and avoid your business and they are sure signs of entrepreneurial burnout. 

Your emotional and physical health can suffer in different ways as well if you’re struggling with entrepreneurial burnout. Frequently people experience mood swings or mood changes, becoming more irritable and anxious. As a result of these changes, your productivity decreases which just further contributes to your overall declining mood. Outside of mood, many times entrepreneurs also find their immune systems struggling and begin ending up sick frequently or taking an extended time to get over a small illness like a cold. Some people even find themselves feeling faint as a result of the stress they’re under. 

Entrepreneurial burnout can manifest in many different ways but the key is to look for changes in your life or routine that are making you feel less like yourself. If you find yourself becoming detached from your work, your relationships, or things you once enjoyed, it’s past time to change up your routine and build a healthy relationship back up with your business. Luckily, there’s things you can do to help.

Habits to Set Yourself (and Your Business) Up for Success

We’d bet that your viewpoint of entrepreneurial burnout is pretty bleak right now. So do you want the good news? There are things that you can implement today that can get you out of that rut [and keep you out of that rut in the future]!

Avoiding entrepreneurial burnout is really all about managing stress and setting boundaries. That’s what it comes down to: continuous stress placed on you along with pressure to be present in your business all the time. That pressure builds up overtime and can cause you to fall completely out of love with your business. 

It’s important to focus on setting time apart for yourself and engaging in other activities outside of your business. This could be spending more time with your family or getting outside with your pets. Even changing up your working routine or location can be helpful in breaking the cycle that keeps you feeling stuck and like you’ve lost your enthusiasm. 

There’s no one size fits all solution to resolving entrepreneurial burnout. Do what feels right for you and for your body and focus on the habits that you can easily stick to. Try adding just one new habit to support your mental health. Better yet, stack that habit onto another. 

Do you always have coffee in the morning? How about doing a short five minute meditation when you sit down with your coffee? This type of habit stacking makes you much more likely to stick to your new habits. 

Focus on things that make you feel good, more calm, and less stress. If you make a serious effort to disentangle your identity from your business and focus on activities that make you feel healthy or like yourself you’ll be well on your way to healing your relationship with your business. 

If you want our top ten tips on healing entrepreneurial burnout through habit changes and re-prioritizing your time, be sure to sign up for our guide below!

Leveraging Technology to Avoid Burnout

The daily ins and outs of running your own business can, at times, be daunting to say the least but there are ways that technology can take some things off your plate!

By leveraging an all-in-one marketing system that automatically completes some of those routine tasks that you get bogged down in, you can free up much needed time on your schedule [and by doing, help to avoid entrepreneurial burnout before it starts]. 

Imagine that you have a system that works in the background of your day and works to move your business forward in your sleep. This system is Social Fox. 

Whether you want a system that allows clients to automatically book appointments to your calendar, automatically send out follow up emails to nurture leads into customers, or remind customers that they forgot to hit purchase on that item they were looking at, Social Fox has the ability to do all this and so much more.

The biggest benefit of this all-in-one system is that you can make the integration nightmare of using multiple services to run your business obsolete. This clears out so much time spent previously troubleshooting why your email management system was no longer playing nice with your CRM. Talk about a headache!

Social Fox isn’t just about the technology though nor is it just about your business. We believe that the most important aspect of any business is the person behind it. It’s for that reason that we put a lot of effort into making sure that not only are we engaging users of our platform but that we are providing those users with a supportive community. 

This community building allows us to help all our users decrease the risk of entrepreneurial burnout by providing opportunities to build connections with other business owners. We’ve talked in this post about entrepreneurship sometimes encouraging feelings of isolation and loneliness. Within our wellness-forward community we focus on ways to improve the productivity of your business without you having to supervise every single step. 

If this sounds like something that you need in your life or if you’re struggling under the weight of supporting your business, we’d love to chat! You can jump on our calendar for a free demo call to see how Social Fox can streamline your business and free up your headspace.