I’ve been learning a lot about burn out as an entrepreneur. And as I recently rounded the corner from one painstaking burnout cycle to another, I realized something that shifted how I’ve lived ever since: you can’t build your business on a broken back. As entrepreneurs, we love carrying multiple passions, project, and purposes at the same time – our desire to see ideas come to life drives that!
But we’re humans, not machines. We have limits, and I’ve learned to not only notice my own, but to love and embrace them. We need to employ consistent, intentional self-care habits that support the work we do. Growing your business, launching projects, and existing as a fully alive human means you need good self-care methods and routines in place to keep showing up every single day. And its those very routines that can teach you when you’re in burnout (so many people get used to it and think it’s normal).
And here’s the magic part: the more time I spent on tending to my needs and less time I spent grinding away at the “hustle” – the more success and opportunities I saw in my business. I grew and so did my business. So, let’s dive into some foundational practices you can be taking care of yourself as a multipassionate entrepreneur!
Related: Real Self-Care Tips for Entrepreneurs
Honor Your Solo Time
As a parent of two, I can fully admit that it’s way too easy to cheat myself out of time alone. Creating clear boundaries around time alone, even if its just 15 minutes to go for a quick walk, has been a major relief on my mind and body.
So, when you carve out time in your schedule to be alone and away from work, notifications, and responsibilities, commit to that time. Try not to push it off or cancel on yourself for a 5th time. Honor your solo time, even if you feel like you don’t need it. Making it a habit will make it easier for the days you really DO need it, especially for the other people in your life who can also get familiar with your routine and needs.
Related: My Top 6 Time-Saving Hacks
Find Ways to Unplug (Fully)
You’ve heard it a million times, but we could all stand to hear it again: don’t logout halfway. You give your all when you’re logged in, focused, and digging into your work. So, you owe it to yourself to make space for the opposite. I’m working in therapy to rewire this way that I’m constantly working ahead to get more ahead, telling myself I’ll rest but instead, I just keep working further into the future — robbing myself of the present.
Get offline and do anything that doesn’t require you to be available to anyone but yourself or the people you love. Don’t take work with you where it doesn’t belong. I’ll be the first to shout about how much better my rest has been since leaving my phone in an entirely different room all night, a habit we started years ago! Get off the grid so you can be fully present for the next time you log back in.
Let Your Nourishment Be Easy
Caring for your full self means feeding yourself well! I know that meal times can bring up anxiety and stress for us for a lot of different reasons: time-consuming, decision fatigue, and loss of focus to name just a few. If meals are an afterthought or high-stress part of your day, then you need to lower the barrier between you and the food you need to live your life!
I usually want to spend my meal time eating my food, not necessarily cooking it. The ways I’ve saved myself from skipping meals until I’m way too famished are getting pre-cooked meals delivered, plopping my food into the Insta-pot or slow cooker for the entire day (I’m a soup girl), and relying on super quick meals that pack a punch. Think about what stands between you and eating the meal you know you need – is it time? Accessibility? Invest in ways that you get the nourishment you need without the anxiety or constraints.
A quick reminder: If you’re truly TOO busy to eat, adjust your work flow ASAP. You own your time, because you own your life. Set boundaries around your meal times and give yourself the time you need to provide a primary human need. This isn’t self-care as a luxury; it’s what you need to be alive!
Schedule Your Wellness Support
When can get you out of a self-care slump as an entrepreneur is taking a chunk of your day simply for booking out your own wellness appointments. Consider what doctors visits you need to book… but then take it a step further. Book a facial or a massage. Plan that little staycation (or vacation if you can). Schedule your next haircut or try out a new treatment you’ve been curious about.
When you lay out a few months of wellness support for yourself, that means you don’t have to rely on yourself day-to-day to send out a notification that “you need a massage, stat!” This is preventative self-care vs. reactionary self-care. Sometimes it’s the facial appointment popping up on your calendar reminding you that your past self thought your present would deserve some TLC.
Related: Screw Morning Routines, Do This Instead!
Lean in to Your Community
Making time for your real-human support systems is a crucial self-care habit for everyone, entrepreneurs included. Some entrepreneur workflows involve a lot of time around other people, like coffee shop networking and planning meets, but those times are bubbling over with work talk. Your brain is in production mode. You need solid, non-work time with your community.
Think about the people you want to prioritize on your days off (and you better be taking some days off)! Who are the people outside of your work circles, but in your life circles, that you’d love to catch up with? Who do you want to be around that helps recenter you?
Investing time into your community can’t be a ‘someday, after the busy season is over’ thing. Because you’re create space for the busy seasons to truly never be over. Send a quick text, schedule a 30 minute facetime call catch up, and book a coffee date. People are what make life glorious — and what grounds you back into yours.
Feed Your Creative Mind
Your entrepreneurial mind is hungry to learn, so feed it something new! Self-care as an entrepreneur can often look like challenging myself to take up a new skill. Have you always wanted to learn how to sew? Or maybe there’s a local watercolor class or terrarium workshop you could attend! And perhaps it’s finally the time to dust off that old piano and see if you can pull up what you learned 13 years ago. *Cut to me obsessing over my latest batch of gluten-free sourdough starters!*
Giving yourself the chance to learn something new develops your brain’s neuroplasticity, which not only makes you a better business owner, but can help with mental health, brain injuries, new stressors, adapting to new technology, and aging! Keep your brain flexible and it can flex with you as you conjure up new goals and projects.
Protect Your Routines
Caring for our whole selves is what allows us to actually do the work we love to do. Without feeling those limits and setting intentional boundaries, we burnout and become way less creative and effective. We’re essentially trying to write with a stubby pencil instead of pausing to sharpen it. Humans needing rest doesn’t make them weak. Rest is what FUELS us!
So, whether you set a more nourishing and self-care-focused morning routine, set your bed times and stick to them, or get outside and offline a lot more, remember why you’re doing it. It’s not because its Instagrammable or so you can check it off your self-care to-do list. It’s because you need it, plain and simple. Being an entrepreneur can either drain you and burn you out – or ignite a fire in you that inspires others. The difference is how you care for your whole self as you do the work.
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