How to Increase Well-Being While Running a Successful Business That Seems to Require All Your Time and Energy

Think business is all work and no play? It’s that mindset that will hold you back from reaching your potential. Your happiness matters. The problem is, the pressure of running a business can make it seem that prioritizing self-care and your overall well-being is next to impossible, or even irresponsible. But, in fact, the opposite is true.

If you don’t prioritize self-care, your business will never succeed to the level you want. It’s a tricky balance that you will only be able to master if you see through the belief patterns that are holding you back.

Here’s something to look at that can have a big impact on your achievement of true success, going forward.

Quite often, traditional success is driven by fear of failure, a need to prove something, or a mind that tells you that when you [insert your favorite achievement oriented goal], then you will be able to be happy.

Unfortunately, what most often happens with success driven from this place, is you’ll hit the goal, but still not be happy.

Or you’ll be happy for a few minutes, and then it’s on to the next goal. Always chasing, never satisfied.

Typically, that’s happening because your relationship to discomfort is out of whack.

You are trying to solve for your discomfort with achievement, when really what your discomfort is asking for is self-care.

And, if you don’t listen to the request properly because you were never taught what self-care looks like, or because you don’t know how to listen to the part of you that’s uncomfortable, you will keep feeding the discomfort the wrong kind of nourishment.

In order to get into right relationship with your discomfort, you first need to notice that your mind is driving all of this.

It is using discomfort to speak to you.

But only because it’s the only way it knows to get your attention. Like a small child that keeps trying to get your attention, until it needs to use the most atrocious negative behaviors to do so, your mind will keep trying to tell you what it wants.

And, it’s way of doing so will get louder and louder, and uglier and uglier, until one day, it may make you very sick, just so you finally hear it.

Ideally, you can see it far before that point (like right now) and make the life changes it’s asking for, not by achieving more, but by caring for yourself more.

Entrepreneurs make tough decisions every day. They also have tough conversations. Whether it’s discussing an employee’s performance or a recent hiccup in operations, approach uncomfortable situations with a well-thought out plan, specific suggestions for improvement, and confidence.

Along those same lines, put preventative measures in place—like drafting better legal contracts—to mitigate uncomfortable situations.

Driven entrepreneurs often hire like-minded people who are passionate about work and motivated to do whatever it takes to succeed. They work hard and get results! But it’s just as important to set healthy boundaries, especially with a team of dedicated professionals. It’s vital that you model excellent self-care by taking good care of yourself and encouraging your team to do the same.  Work hard and don’t lose sight of the importance of your own mental health and well-being.

As a business owner, your bandwidth is not unlimited. Running a business is a mentally draining endeavor. When you suffer, your business suffers.

Put systems in place to ensure legal and financial issues are taken care of before they stress you out. This can include proper tax planning and auditing your insurance policies to ensure your business is well protected. Minimizing problems can free up your mental energy so you can actually enjoy the excitement and freedom of entrepreneurship.