Today's topic is about how to avoid burnout and I have a lot of friends in the entrepreneurial world who know that my background is as a therapist, and I do apply a lot of the concepts of self-care to the entrepreneur life because I believe in a holistic perspective in everything. And lately, I've been seeing a lot of entrepreneurs getting burned out and my friends have been sending me other podcasts and articles, and they take me in Instagram and Facebook posts where there are entrepreneurs struggling with burnout.
I feel like I talk about this topic a lot, but I'm going to do it one more time today because May can be a hard month in my mind a lot like January. You think it's kind of uneventful and like there's not a lot to it, but yet May can be an overwhelming month and I want to address burnout so that you don't have to experience it and you can feel good running your business and you can feel good enjoying your life and doing both at the same time.
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I'm Jen Argue, and I have been leading masterminds for the past five years for six and seven-figure entrepreneurs, and I would love to help you start your own mastermind as well so that you can create a really big impact with those around you and work a lot less and make a lot more at the same time.
So let me ask you something. Are you getting burned out in your business? You know you're getting burned out when you are getting sick and tired of talking about the same thing over and over and over again, and you have new passions and you want to talk about those new passions, or you want to maybe even start a business around those new passions.
But you are in this one topic and you're feeling confined, now can you pivot? Will that get you out of burnout? It might…It might, but pivoting isn't always the answer and I think, you know, deep down if it actually is the answer or not. Okay! Let's talk about another type of burnout. Let's talk about the type of burnout where you are burning the wick at both ends. You're not sleeping well, you feel exhausted, overwhelmed, and you are tired to the bone, so tired.
Now, burnout can come from being tired and exhausted, and it might not actually have to do with your business. Your business can be a completely separate issue than your sleep state or your lack of sleep. So often when we're tired or maybe we were sick, we can feel like our business is heavy when actually it's just…us.
We just need rest, and if you get more rest, you'll start feeling better about your business. It's funny how it works, but I've seen it over and over again, trust me. Another type of burnout comes from feeling very stressed over finances. Maybe you're not seeing the cash flow in your business like you need, and it's stressing you out.
It's creating anxiety. And you feel like your business is stuck. And so there's this feeling of heaviness about your business, and that is causing you to burnout because you feel overwhelmed and you feel stuck. And so there's all these different types of burnout, right? And so burnout is not typically about your business, burnout is about you.
Now, that's a hard truth to swallow, but burnout is typically about you and not your business. Anyone else and you, and you know this is true because if somebody else could walk into your business today and just start running things and problem-solving, it just shows that it's more about you and not the business.
So then what do you do? First of all, you start off with your beliefs, it's easy to think, well, maybe if I hired somebody or maybe if I had systems in place, then I wouldn't feel exhausted or burned out, then I wouldn't have to work nights or weekends. But instead, those solutions are really short-term because you're still taking you with you into those solutions, and instead, the real solution lies within you first.
It lies with your beliefs and so if you think about what are the beliefs that are causing this burnout, that's what you address first. So are you stuck in a loop that says, I can only make more money if I work more hours? Is that a loop that you're stuck in because that is the job loop? That's not the entrepreneur loop.
The entrepreneur loop says, how can I leverage my time and my efforts to create more cash flow? So if you think abou releasing that old belief, that nine to five job belief, and you think about instead, the entrepreneur belief about leveraging your time and efforts to create more income. It helps you to then look at your other solutions with the right engine behind it.
The engine of leverage, I don't have to work more to create more cash flow. Instead, I can work smarter. And that as you put together, your team and your systems will have the juice behind it with the right belief that it gives you more energy and it feels more aligned, right? And I always talk about alignment, the more aligned you are, the more flow you're going to have in your life and in your business.
Another belief is that if I don't show up 24/7 or think about my business 24/7 my clients aren't going to think they're getting the best from me. Now, do you believe that for the things that you love to buy that the people working there are working 24/7 in order for you to enjoy the product?
Really, probably all you truly care about is that you're receiving what was promised if you bought a Coke Zero, you want the Coke Zero. You don't care about any of the other stuff. If you bought a program on how to launch a course. All you care about is that you have the deliverables to help you launch a course.
You're not really thinking about the person who created the course and are they working behind the scenes 24/7 to deliver the best course for you? No, they've already done that. And you trust that, and so you don't think that about other people. And that's a belief that you can start to release because again, that belief is typically connected to the nine-to-five job, which is if you are not working completely every minute during that nine-to-five job, then your boss is going to think that you are not a good employee.
But in order to be a good business founder or CEO guiding boundaries on your work time is so important because the weight of what you're doing is so much bigger in the sense that everything is falling on you. Everything comes to you, but you don't have to work “X” amount of hours to have that happen.
You already have put in the hours by growing your expertise and becoming the expert at what you do. So lean in on that time that you've already invested that expertise and create what it is you need to create to deliver what people are expecting when they purchase your product or your service. And then, you are free…you are free…to do whatever it is.
It only takes you five hours a week to deliver what your clients are purchasing and expecting to get. Then please, you are only expected to work five hours a week. Now, if you are putting in pretty much 24/7 time and thought and effort into your business, what are you doing?
What is the busy work that you are doing? And are you actually making a difference? If you were to think about the impact that you have correlating to the effort that you're putting in, there is going to be some drop-off point, right? There's some point where maybe those first five hours there's a really high direct correlation, and then maybe our six, our 10, it starts to drop off and the correlation is not that strong anymore.
So it's up to you to be a detective and to figure out where that correlation starts to drop off and be good with that…be good with that…relish that that's what you became an entrepreneur for. So figure out what that time is for you.
If it still means putting in eight hours a day, great. Put in eight hours a day. Do you really need nine though? Think about that. And if you feel like, well…I probably could put in five hours, like let's say five hours a day. Am I really using those five hours? Well, maybe it's more of like a time management issue.
How am I using my time? Or maybe it is a value question. If I work fewer hours, then I can think about the way I could do that is by hiring somebody to help with certain tasks that I really don't need to do. Or maybe it's letting go of some things, some low-value services or products that you offer that just aren't converting, but you're still spending time on.
Maybe those things could be let go. So thinking about your approach to drive your solutions, your beliefs that are driving your solutions are going to have a bigger impact in how you carry out those solutions and the success of those solutions too. I want you to think about, before you think about the solutions, what would life be like if you dared yourself.
I challenge you to dare yourself to not work nights or weekends. I challenge you to dare yourself to plan and schedule a vacation. I challenge you to dare yourself to spend money on you and something that you love instead of your business. I challenge you to dare yourself to create a really big, bold offer that will bring in revenue to help you run a sustainable business that actually brings in more cash flow and does not require a lot of your time.
What I believe will happen is if you figure out what you are daring yourself to do and you just start doing them without feeling ready that the solution is going to appear more quickly as to what you need to do. And so we talked about the beliefs, and maybe you get those beliefs in line, you understand them, you are going to do your best to hold onto them, but you're not quite sure what to do in order to create more leverage in your business.
I believe that if you just start doing the things that you want to do to have a more balanced and more joyful life, that the answer is going to become crystal clear to you immediately what you need. If you need to hire somebody to do something, or if you need better systems in place. And yes, those things take more time upfront, but in the long run, they pay off.
And it is time and effort well spent to set up your team and your systems. Life is short…Do this right…Have more fun...You can do this…I believe in you…and I don't want to see you burning out…Burning out should be something that is unacceptable…Burning out is something that is for people that are unprepared and haven't worked through their belief system.
You don't need to burn out. If you want guidance to have a better business life, I'm here. I can walk you through it. You can get these changes faster when you have somebody experienced guiding you and who can read the label from outside the jar, so to speak, because sometimes it is harder to see the changes that need to be made in your own business and life.
In having a guide there with you can help you do it better and faster. But whether you reach out to me and use my help or not, I encourage you to make these changes. I desire to see more businesses stay afloat and not be burned out because you are doing a service in this world…You are providing good in this world…and we want more of that…and we want the best you possible.
The best you possible is going to make this world a better place…You didn't sign up for burnout…You signed up for time freedom and better cash flow…and I know you can do that…Remember your dream and move towards that.
Thank you so much for listening today. I hope that if you found value in this that you would subscribe to my podcast and share it with a friend and leave a review.
Thank you so much!
