Do you wake up most mornings in a flat panic, realising you didn’t get to an email or haven’t sent out that proposal? Do you have sleepless nights stressing about the lack of cash flow? And, have you thought about throwing in the towel simply because the stress of running a business is making you ill?
You wouldn’t be alone, my friend.
Running a business is seen as one of the most stressful activities you could take on. More accurately, it is the lack of work/life balance that actually causes the stress. It does beg the question though, as to why there are over 710 000 small business owners in South Africa, and why the South African SME is such a tenacious animal.
The answer is that it still is lucrative to run your own business. At what cost, you ask? Is the stress and ulcers worth it? Not really … but if you can manage the stress and spend less time worrying about your business, you can make it work in your favour holistically.
PUT LIMITATIONS DOWN
From social media to email time, you should be limiting the amount of time you focus on digital aspects. In fact, you should have very clear and strict on screen time as well as dealing with admin. There is the 4-hour workweek book that speaks about how it is possible to only spend 4 hours of your week on work and still be successful. I can just imagine your face right now – “how the hell is that even possible?”. Tim Ferriss, the author, goes into great detail about how he managed to go from $40 000 income a year to $40 000 a month and only working 4 hours a week as opposed to 80 hours a week before. The main premise of the how-to book is that outsourcing is where you should be focusing.
Easier said than done, sure, but you cannot be all things to everyone. You cannot be the accountant, the tea lady, the salesman, the marketer, the CEO, etc. etc. While many do it, it eventually starts to wear them down. And, many businesses are lost because of their owners becoming victims of all-encompassing stress.
IS IT REALLY AS BAD AS YOU THINK?
Most people imagine the worst and can get themselves into such a state about elements that are either out of their control or are not as bad as they think they are.
Business owners are faced on a daily basis with stresses, like the threat of competitors, the worry that clients won’t pay them, that suppliers won’t be able to give them the good margins they do or that their one big seller won’t be available anymore.
However, when it comes down to the details (yes, the devil is in them, but also the angel) the thing that is worrying you is manageable and there is always a solution.
Take time to make a list, and extract what is very urgent and what isn’t. Take the urgent list and further extract to “do now” – “do tomorrow” and “do next week”. You will be surprised at what can wait. Then, with further dissecting, decide what items can be outsourced, at what cost and whether it’s worth it.
A simple plan, but it is somewhere to start.
On a parting note, no stress, no matter what it is, is worth getting sick over. If your current business is not benefiting your health, then you should consider selling or bringing in more help.
Optigrowth knows business and because we have run our own businesses for years, been through the ups and downs, lived the stress on a daily basis, and come out the other side whole and healthy, we can advise from a place of strength.
We look forward to chatting.