Mental Health and Self-Care for Business Owners
For as many upsides as there are to entrepreneurship, there are also the unfortunate mental health problems that business owners can face, particularly if those business owners don’t engage in the self-care they need.
Think about it this way: You love what you do. You’re willing to give it everything you have, both in terms of time and energy. In some cases, that means sacrificing your own needs or other priorities. In part, this is because you’re so passionate about your business and its mission. But in other ways, this is because you know it all begins and ends with you—and if you don’t make it happen, nobody else will.
Is it any wonder, therefore, that so many business owners deal with depression, anxiety, and sometimes even extreme health problems like substance use or suicidal ideology?
Reasons for Poor Mental Health
Before we delve into how you can address self-care as a business owner, it’s advantageous to take a closer look at why your mental health probably suffers as a business owner. Ask yourself which of these four reasons (or which combination) most prominently applies to you:
Poor work-life balance
Are you immersing yourself so much into your business that you’re neglecting other aspects of your life? Have you skipped meals or sleep to run your business? Have you had to skip quality time with friends or family?
High stress
Do you often worry about the success of your business or how you’re going to turn a profit from month to month? Does a fear of failure keep you on edge throughout the day or lying awake in bed at night?
Self-neglect
Do you focus so much on caring for the needs of your customers or your employees that you neglect your own needs?
Isolation
Do you ever feel as if, because you’re the business owner, you don’t have anyone within the organization to whom you can vent about your problems? If you are struggling emotionally, do you feel as if nobody understands?
Ways to Engage in Self-Care
Here’s the thing about maintaining good mental health as a business owner: It’s absolutely something you can do, but you have to make it a priority. Once you address the reasons for your deteriorating mental health, you can start to take the proper steps toward self-care. Being mentally healthy will mean you’re better equipped to solve problems and you can maintain passion for what you do over the long term.
Here are four important ways to engage in self-care:
Create boundaries
If you were an employee at a 9-to-5 job, you would have a clear distinction between work and home life. You would have set work hours, a set work location (usually an office at the central location of the business), and business contact information like a separate email address and phone number. But when you’re an entrepreneur, you might work around the clock, work out of your home, and use your personal cell number for communicating with your customers. It’s easy for your business to take over your life and distract you from other priorities, such as family. To solve this problem set designated working hours and create a designated working space, even if it’s a home office you can simply close the door at the end of the day.
Go back to the (health) basics
You need to take care of yourself if you expect to perform at your peak. Basic health practices like exercise, nutritious eating, and sufficient sleep will go a long way in reducing your stress, upping your energy levels, and sharpening your mental clarity. You’ll be amazed by what a difference it makes. Even if there’s not a drastic change right away, you’re still reinforcing the idea to yourself that you matter—and you need to take care of yourself or nobody else will.
Keep a journal
There’s a reason journaling is a practice so many therapists recommend. It works! It’s healthy to get your emotions out of you and down on the page. In addition to being an emotional outlet, a journal lets you go back and look at patterns, potentially identifying triggers of negative emotions and successful coping mechanisms you used.
Build a strong network
You might not have anyone within your organization whom you can vent to or whom you can trust to sympathize with your problems, but there are like-minded business owners out there who know what you’re going through. Build a strong network with others in your industry or your community by being active with your local chamber of commerce or connecting with others via LinkedIn. These members of your network can provide encouragement or advice when things get tough.