88 - 5 Tips to Avoid Burnout in your Business (and My Personal Experiences with Burnout)

5 Tips to Avoid Burnout in your Business (and My Personal Experiences with Burnout)

Waking up tired? Feeling utterly unmotivated? Are you feeling anxiety when you open your computer or laptop? Procrastinating on simple takes and even questions if you are cut out for entrepreneurship? You, my friend, might just be experiencing burnout. Let’s talk about it.

LISTEN TO THE EPISODE HERE:

When we don't take care of ourselves, we can not bring value to other people.

This is why the topic of burnout is so important to talk about as entrepreneurs.

Danielle dives into her two significant experiences with burnout and she shares her 5 tips to avoid hitting burnout in your business.

The Reality & Signs of Burnout

Burnout is a real and prevalent problem, especially in the entrepreneurial world. We often keep going and “pushing through” until we are all spent. 

Here’s the truth - you cannot pour from an empty cup. You have to take care of your physical and mental health,  and if you are working around the clock, chances are that your work lacks passion and may not be as effective as it could be. 

Signs of Burnout 

  • Lack of motivation, or even resentment 

  • Procrastination

  • Exhaustion

  • Anxiety

  • Irritability

Danielle shares these tips from real and messy experiences with burnout. When she finds herself putting work above all else, it’s a que for her to pull back and re-evaluate and reshape her boundaries and systems. She’s still growing in it, and she loves sharing her mistakes so that others have a gentler learning curve! She has put all her framework into Action Takers Club, and these tips are just a glimpse!

5 Tips to Avoid Burnout in Your Business

*These are preventative tips! If you feel like you’ve already hit burnout, these tips will help you, but you should tune into Episode 89 to learn how to recover from burnout.

  1. Schedule in Flex Time 

    Create a calendar and actually put flex & rest time in it! Schedule family time, date nights, times away from work and treat those times as importantly as if they were client calls. If you don’t rest, your body will force you to rest. 

  2. Create Strong Boundaries around your time

    Learn how to say “no”. It is ok to say “no” - just because you say no to something doesn’t mean that opportunity will never come around again. You can create a set of questions aligned to your boundaries that help you determine whether or not you say “yes” or “no” to an opportunity. Stay focused on your goals and priorities, and opportunities will continue to present themselves!

  3. Take Evenings and Weekends OFF 

    Do this as much as you can. There are times/seasons where work overflows into evenings and weekends, but it should be the exception, not the rule. If your business is in an industry where you work evenings and weekends, make sure you “create” your own evenings and weekends. The point is - carve out time away from work daily. You can do things like turning your phone’s notifications off or on airplane mode or even deleting apps off your phone in the evenings.

  4. Start Your Morning with Intention

    This can look like journaling, reading, prayer, etc. It can be difficult to find quietness in the morning, but if you are able to make it happen, it makes all the difference. Even if it’s 15 minutes, it starts your day on the right foot!

  5. Get Accountability 

    This is so key! Surround yourself with others who care about you and are willing to help you achieve your goals. 

If you feel that you’ve passed the point of avoiding burnout and are IN FULL ON Burnout mode, tune into Episode 89 - How To Do A Business Reset and Re-Ignite Your Passion.

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TRANSCRIPT

[00:00:00] Danielle: Welcome to the business babes collective podcast. I'm your host, Danielle Wiebe. In this podcast, you'll learn tangible business tips and strategies on how to grow successfully and sustainably. We'll also interview seasoned entrepreneurs, so you can listen in on their stories and see behind the scenes of what it took to grow and scale their businesses. Let's dive in, as we discussed the wild, exciting, crazy, challenging, rollercoaster ride of entrepreneurship.

[00:00:29] Welcome back to the podcast. Today, we have a very important topic. The reason I want to dive into this topic today is because burnout is something that I have personally experienced a couple of times, which I'll talk about in this episode.

[00:00:45] And I've experienced it very seriously in my business. And I take this really seriously because I see this a lot. I see it happening in the entrepreneurial space. I see people posting about it, and I'm so glad that people are opening up and sharing [00:01:00] about it. And something that I really wanted to dive into today is prevention.

[00:01:05] So how do we prevent burnout? I am so passionate about teaching entrepreneurs, how to scale profitable, successful businesses, but businesses where they don't have to work around the clock. You know, businesses where you can still value, you can still have your values in line. You can still have proper priorities in your life.

[00:01:29] Since becoming a mom, this has been so, so key for me and something that I have had to navigate personally. And so I am really excited to dive into this today. So wherever you are at right now, whether you feel very good about your business right now, you're feeling like things are flowing. You feel like you have a lot of flexibility or maybe you feel like you are super overwhelmed.

[00:01:54] You're unmotivated, you're uninspired. You feel like maybe you're heading towards burnout or maybe you feel like [00:02:00] you're actually burnt out. So in this episode, we're gonna be talking about five ways to avoid burnout. So today's episode is a lot on the prevention side. We're actually gonna be talking on Tuesday about what to do, if you're actually fully burned out.

[00:02:16] Okay. So we're gonna be talking about actually taking a break and how to reset your business and how to get reinspired and re-motivated. So if that sounds like something that you need, then definitely tune into Tuesday's episode, cuz that's gonna be covering there. But I want this episode to be about how do we prevent ourselves from falling into burnout and what actually sparked this episode was a question that I got inside of our action takers club, coaching call.

[00:02:42] We have monthly group coaching calls with our students. And one of the students was asking about this. She actually, the question actually was not around burnout. The question was, was around, what do I do if I feel uninspired in my business?

[00:02:55] And so as we kind of dug deeper and as we kind of uncovered what was really going on, [00:03:00] it was really that she was feeling burnt out and so I really wanted to take this to the podcast, cuz I think it's gonna be super valuable and helpful for all of us. So again, whether you feel really good right now, you know, burnout is real and it can easily sneak up on you.

[00:03:17] And so that's why I wanted to share both my personal experience and then the tips and things that I have done to be able to avoid going into burnout again. So let me tell you about two pretty significant experiences that I've had with burnout. so the first happened back in December of 2018, I had just come back from an event one of our chapters was hosting and I came home and I was feeling so incredibly sick.

[00:03:46] So we had had this fabulous event, you know, the event was super successful and I ended up coming home though, and just feeling horrible. I had actually, I actually thought that I had some sort of a virus or I thought that I had some sort of a [00:04:00] sickness and I was in bed for a full three to four days.

[00:04:06] And really all I could do, I, I literally could hardly get outta bed. The only times that I got outta bed was to go to the washroom and then come back. And so what I actually realized when I actually looked back on it, looked back on it. What I realized is that it was a result of total burnout. So to give you some context, we had started our community back in 2015 and from 2015 to 2018, we had been hosting a minimum of one event per month.

[00:04:35] And then we had actually scaled that up to two per month in Vancouver, in, in Vancouver, Canada. Plus we had launched chapters all over, you know, north America. So we had a chapter in San Diego. We had a chapter in Seattle, Victoria, Toronto, and I was traveling to many of these cities for the events cuz, well, one, I was always there for the launch and then, you [00:05:00] know, I, whenever I could, I would go to events that they were hosting just because I wanted to be there.

[00:05:05] I wanted to support. And also I just, I mean, I loved going like truly this such a huge passion of mine. And I definitely don't regret, I don't regret here's where it gets confusing. I don't regret going to those events, right. Because I had such a great experiences.

[00:05:24] What I think I could have done differently, and what I'm gonna be talking about this episode is having proper boundaries and having proper systems in place so that when I was at home, I wasn't working around the clock. Cuz what ended up happening was there was so much happening in the business and there were so many things that I was showing up for.

[00:05:45] And on top of that, I didn't have proper systems or boundaries in place. So I was also working around the clock when I was home. So during this time, I, you know, during the time of 2015, 2018, I honestly [00:06:00] feel like I had pretty much zero boundaries.

[00:06:02] I would say yes to everything. I would go to coffee with basically everyone that asked. I was the epitome of a people pleaser, right? So anytime anyone asked me, Hey, do you wanna be a part of this event or do you wanna collaborate on this or do you wanna do this with me? I would pretty much always say yes. And so that's really what led me to that first burnout.

[00:06:23] and I knew something had to change, so after I slowly started getting better and, you know, week went by, I was like, finally kind of like recouping everything. I actually had to cancel our very first event that I canceled because I was so sick. And because I knew that I couldn't show up for the people that were coming the way that I wanted to.

[00:06:45] So I ended up canceling an event and for me, that felt like a huge failure because I was not someone who canceled. I was not someone who, you know, I would push through. I was always like, okay, we can do this. I'm gonna push through no matter how I feel, no [00:07:00] matter what my body is telling me, I'm just gonna do it anyways.

[00:07:02] And so I learned a huge lesson there, is that when we don't take care of ourselves, we cannot bring value to other people and we cannot take care of other people. So that was a very, very valuable lesson that I learned. so coming out of that season of burnout, I started to make very different choices. So I started surrounding myself with people that I was inspired by, that I could learn from. I hired a coach, I joined a mastermind and I started to implement a lot of routines and systems that helped me stay balanced.

[00:07:36] Again, this wasn't like a really, like, I, I think when I kind of share that, people are like, oh yeah, it was just this beautiful morphing into this, you know, perfect, perfect schedule with these perfect systems. No, it was very messy. And if I'm honest, I'm still on this journey of really honing in these systems and honing in, you know these boundaries and all of these [00:08:00] things.

[00:08:00] So it's something I, I wanna encourage everyone that this is something that's ongoing for me. This is something that I struggle with. I, I definitely, one of the biggest things that I struggle with is putting my work above all else. And so one thing that I really have to check myself on is when I'm getting into that phase of working, you know, more than I should, I really have to pull myself back and I have to put my priorities in place again.

[00:08:27] And of course it helps a lot that I'm a mom now. And so I literally can't put my work first and, you know, there's times where I am home with Rosie for days. And so my work has to take the back burner, but I just wanna let you know, like, things are not gonna be perfect overnight. If you are on this journey of creating these boundaries and wanting to create these systems.

[00:08:49] So hopefully that's helpful for you, hopefully that encourages you. And you know, this is a huge reason why I created action taker's club. This is a huge reason why I've put the [00:09:00] resources in there that I have is because it's all of the things that I wish that I had when I was first getting started. It was it's all the systems and processes and, and the framework that I wish I could have followed when I was first getting started in entrepreneurship.

[00:09:14] So, and that's why I'm so passionate about working with clients and more mastermind members. And all of those things is because I love sharing my mistakes and encouraging people to not make the same mistakes that I did and trying to redirect their path so that they can have a simpler path than I did.

[00:09:31] So I want them to learn from my mistakes instead of having to learn from their own mistakes. Anyways, I, yeah, I started putting these boundaries in place, started to get more clarity on where I wanted to go in the business. And so things were actually going really well. So from 2018 to 2020, We had created this momentum within the business, things were falling into place.

[00:09:52] We were getting featured places, you know, whenever we put on an event, it would sell out, like it was just, the momentum was there. And I [00:10:00] remember that feeling of like, wow, all of these systems that we put in place and all of these processes and, you know, the years that we have been building this, you know, it's all kind of now coming to fruition.

[00:10:10] And I'm seeing that result of the work that I did years ago, right? And then 2020 hit, of course. And as you all know, everything that happened with that, we lost 80% of our income overnight when we had to cancel events. And so it was crazy. And so the second time that I actually hit burnout was in the fall of 2020.

[00:10:28] And this was actually, for me, it felt worse than the first time. The reason it felt worse is because I was, I felt really embarrassed, if I'm honest. I felt ashamed that I had let myself get to that point. And again, to give you that kind of picture of what was going on during that time, COVID hit, So we had to pivot everything online.

[00:10:50] We were hosting these online events, and then we had decided to host a, with all of our chapter leaders, we got together and we hosted this conference, this online conference. [00:11:00] And so if you've been a part of our community for a long time, maybe you attended that conference or you were a part of that. And it was so incredible.

[00:11:06] Like I'm, I I'm so grateful for that experience, but , if you guys know me, you know, I'm someone who's like all in on stuff. And so I went all in on this conference. And one of the things that we did was a V I P box. And so we created these V I P boxes, where we would have products from all these different businesses and mind you, I have never, I don't, I had never had a physical product that I had sold before and like shipped myself.

[00:11:36] And so we had all of these gift boxes that we were shipping across Canada, across the USA. And it was so much work. Like I have such an appreciation, I have such respect for my product based businesses out there. Like huge shout out to all of you guys, because you know, doing it for the first time, not realizing [00:12:00] how much work it was going to be was a huge eye opener.

[00:12:03] And so I took, I took that on and we packed all the boxes with our team and shipped them all out. And man, it was insane and I kind of was running on this adrenaline. And so after the event, I hit this burnout and it really, and the reason I think too, it was so significant. It was because it wasn't just the exhaustion and the myself overworking, but also it was this kind of identity crisis in a way in my business, because I had had this identity within my business that I had put on myself that I was the events person.

[00:12:40] I was the person who hosted the, these events and we had grown these chapters. And so I felt that when the pandemic hit and, you know, we weren't able to do these in-person events anymore, I felt like a piece of me had, had died in a way. I know that sounds really weird, but it felt like I, [00:13:00] my identity within the business wasn't there anymore.

[00:13:03] And I didn't really know where the direction of where the business was going. We, on the backside of the conference, we ended up opening up the membership that we, that we ran for about a year. And so that was all going on and I just felt really lost, like where what's the vision where we going as a brand, what do I wanna be doing in the business?

[00:13:27] And so I just, it was this time of just being so unsure of what was next. And that was a really hard time for me. That was a really kind of some dark, dark days if I'm being honest. And that was actually the month before we found out we were pregnant with Rosie. And so obviously, you know, we found out we were pregnant and it was very exciting, it was, it was awesome. But also that kind of added to this level of like, wow, what are we doing?

[00:13:52] Like, what direction are we going in? And so, that was when I was like, okay, I've, I've gotten myself out of [00:14:00] this season of burnout before I can do it again. What processes am I gonna put in place? What am I gonna do to, to kind of dig myself out of this situation that I've found myself in, right?

[00:14:11] And so that was kind of what happened is I slowly but surely started to get back into, you know, creating these systems, creating these boundaries. And then also it allowed me as I started getting more and more things off my plate, we decided we're not gonna host any big conferences or big events online anymore.

[00:14:32] What we're gonna do is we're just gonna focus on what we have going on right now. I was also able to look forward into my business and say, okay, where do I wanna be five years from now? And what can I do now? What can I do today? And next month and six months from now, that is actually gonna help me get to that.

[00:14:53] And that is what actually inspired the podcast, because I thought, you know, I wanna be able to bring value [00:15:00] to my community whether or not they ever invest a dime. Because I truly, for me, of course, I wanna build a profitable business, but for me, more than making money is like, I am so passionate, passionate about creating impact. Creating impact for women entrepreneurs to allow them to scale their businesses, to allow them to collaborate, to have community, to see success.

[00:15:26] And I want that to be available for everyone no matter where they are at in their journey. And so the podcast really was that kind of huge moment of, okay, this is something that I'm gonna invest in. This is something that I'm gonna invest my time in. And it's going to be a long term strategy to get us where we wanna go.

[00:15:44] So now that you know where I'm coming from in my seasons of burnout, I just want to share with you that yes, burnout is real. Sometimes it sneaks up on us when we're least expecting it. And I want to let you know, like you cannot pour from an empty cap. You [00:16:00] have to take care of yourself. You have to take care of your own physical and mental health.

[00:16:05] And that is so much more important than your business. So I wanna share a few signs of burnout just in case you're like, I don't really know, like, am I feeling burnt out? Am I, you know, headed towards burnout because now I have these signs, ? . I have these signs that come up and when I'm feeling these things, it's like, oh, Okay, pause. What do I need to go to do to get myself back on track so that I actually avoid burnout rather than going towards burnout.

[00:16:32] Okay. So signs of burnout is lack of motivation, right? You don't feel inspired. You don't feel motivated. Maybe you feel some resentment to your business even. And also that can come with like procrastination.

[00:16:46] I don't want you to confuse this with like, you're just kind of being, being lazy. I mean, I have those days too, right. You're just lazy. You're like, ah, I don't really wanna do that, but like procrastinating on things that are really important to you, you know, they're really important to you, but you're like, why can't I bring myself to do [00:17:00] this? So that is a sign as well.

[00:17:02] Exhaustion, just feeling totally tired and exhausted. Anxiety. Also irritability. If you're just feeling like you're always on edge and you're always just frustrated with things or you're getting irritated, or you feel like you're snapping back, maybe at your kids or at your husband or, you know, friends or family, and you feel like it's not you, right. You feel like this is something that's not coming from you. It's coming from a place of you just feel super overwhelmed.

[00:17:29] So I wanna share five tips that I have for you today on how to avoid burnout in your business. Number one is I want you to create and schedule flex time in your calendar. What I mean by this is creating a calendar and creating a schedule that actually has flex time. It has rest time. It has family time and it has, you know, a date night on the calendar.

[00:17:59] It has [00:18:00] times that you're completely away from your business. And I want you to make sure you schedule that in as if it's a really important meeting with a potential client, right? So often I think what happens in our business is we get so consumed with, okay, we have to do this, we have to do this and we, we pile all of this stuff on our plate and we don't create that flex time, which then leads us to burnout. And something that I wanna encourage you on too, is that if you are just thinking like, okay, I'll I'll rest later, I'll rest later. If you don't rest in the meantime, your body will actually force you to rest.

[00:18:35] Like I said, I got really sick and that often happens where you'll get some sort of an illness or you'll get sick or something will happen where your body will just be like, Nope, you are resting and it'll force you to rest. If you don't actually be proactive about it. Okay. So that's number one is scheduling in flex time, actually putting it on your calendar as if it's a very important schedule with a potential client.

[00:18:58] Number two [00:19:00] is create strong boundaries around your time. Learn how you can say no to things. This was such a huge learning experience for me, and it still is today, but, you know, having a set of questions that really helps me having a set of questions that are aligned with your values if you're gonna say yes or no to an opportunity.

[00:19:21] It is okay to say no. Just because, because you say no to something, that doesn't mean that that's never gonna happen in the future, right? So sometimes what ends up happening is we get a really great opportunity and we say, yes, even though it doesn't really fit into the lifestyle we wanna create, we know it's gonna create some anxiety for us, but we say yes, because we're like, we don't wanna miss out.

[00:19:41] We have FOMO, right? I have this all the time. You have FOMO. You don't wanna miss out on a great opportunity. But I can promise you if you stay focused on your goals, if you stay focused on like the most important priorities, you're gonna get other opportunities and ones that are super, super aligned with you, maybe even better than [00:20:00] the ones that you said no to, right? So that's number two is creating strong, strong boundaries.

[00:20:04] Number three is taking evenings and weekends off as much as you can. This has been such a game changer for me. Now, there are times in and seasons where sometimes I do have to work some evenings and some weekends. Now, usually what happens is like, if we don't, for example, if we don't have childcare that week or, you know, schedules get all mixed up, whatever that is, there's some evenings that I will have to work and that's okay.

[00:20:32] But if you can take most the majority of your evenings and weekends off that is so game changing. For me, I try to have everything scheduled for during the day, so that after five o'clock, I don't have anything to do that has to do with work. Now, if your business is something like maybe it's in the wedding industry, or you have a photography business, or maybe you are someone who works full time and you're doing [00:21:00] your business in the odd hours, I totally get that evenings and weekends are at the time when you are working.

[00:21:06] So what I would say is make sure you have days or you have times that are set aside for only either doing personal things or like we talked about before resting, et cetera. Because if you are, let's say you have a full time job, you're also trying to build a side business in the evenings, let's say, but you never schedule time for family, right? Or you never, never schedule time for friends or you don't schedule time for rest. That's where the burnout is gonna start to come in.

[00:21:42] So if you have a job that is often you have to do in evenings and weekends, then maybe choose a Wednesday, right? Or maybe choose a Tuesday. And that is your rest day. And maybe you can't do evenings, but you can do mornings and mornings is the time when you completely [00:22:00] shut off work and you're not answering emails, you're not responding to clients, all of those things. So what I wanna encourage you is just creating that time that is away from work.

[00:22:10] So hopefully that helps for those of you who have schedules that aren't necessarily traditional, find time and carve out those times that you can be away from work. And one really great way you can do this is to turn your phone on airplane mode after a certain time at night so that you're not checking social media, you're not checking Facebook or your email or anything like that.

[00:22:33] Another thing, and I know I've talked about this on the podcast before, but turning off your notifications. I do not get any notifications on my phone for social media or for emails at all, ever. The only notifications that I get to my phone are for phone calls. Even text messages, I don't have notifications, cuz those actually can suck me in, and then I get on my phone and then I go to Instagram and all of the things.

[00:22:55] One thing that has really, really helped me as well is actually deleting [00:23:00] apps off my phone and then having to redownload them. I know that sounds super drastic, but I have done this in seasons of my life. I recently did this, actually, it was a few months ago where for, I think it was like two months, where I completed completely deleted Instagram off of my phone after 5:00 PM.

[00:23:17] And I only redownloaded it the next day at 8:00 AM. This was game changing for me because I was finding myself, scrolling social media so much more than I wanted to. So I had to put those boundaries on myself in order to get my time back and get my sanity back too. Right. Okay. So that is number four.

[00:23:38] Nope. Number three, number four is starting your morning with intention. So this is so key and I'm gonna be honest with you. Right now, I'm this is the one that I'm struggling with the most., As a mom, as I'm sure those of you with kids can probably relate. It is difficult to have [00:24:00] that quietness in the morning because usually you're woken up by, you know, right now we're woken up by a toddler.

[00:24:06] Right. And so, but when I'm able to do that, a lot of times what Brent and I will try to do, and we have to get back into the habit of this, just being totally transparent with you guys here. We have to get back in the habit of this, but we were doing, I think it was about a month ago, as we would shift who would take care of Rosie in the morning, and then the other person would have like, even if it was like 15 minutes, just alone, to journal, pray, read whatever that was. Just to set your intention for the morning and start it in a really powerful way. So for me, that looks like devotions, prayer, journaling. For you, it might look different, but starting that morning on the right foot is so, so key.

[00:24:47] And then number five, this is a get accountability. And you've heard it before. You'll hear it again on this podcast. it is so key for so many different things, so many different [00:25:00] aspects of your life and for your business is surrounding yourself with other people who can keep you accountable to this. If you are surrounding yourself with other, whether it be other entrepreneurs or other people who really care about you, who can check in with you and say, Hey, you know, and tell people your goals, tell people what you want to do.

[00:25:17] If you're like, Hey, I want to not work evenings or weekends for the next month. And I need you to hold me accountable. I need you to check in on me, on this. That is so, so powerful to get that accountability. And if you need a community to hold you accountable, let us be that community for you. Come join action takers club, come join our mastermind, or let's do some one-on-one coaching where I can hold you accountable to these things. It's so important to have people around you who can support you in, in some of these goals.

[00:25:49] Okay. So those are the five ways, five tips to avoid burnout. And like I said, next week, we're gonna be diving into what to do when you've actually [00:26:00] hit burnout. So having a business reset and reigniting that passion that you have as an entrepreneur. So stay tuned for next Tuesday for that episode. And until then, come join us. Come connect with us. You can connect with me on Instagram @danilivinglife. Send me a message if this resonated with you, if this helped you. Would love to hear from you would love to hear your takeaways from this episode.

[00:26:24] And then also grab our free workshop, how to scale a profitable business without working around the clock. You can get that at businessbabescollective.com/masterclass, you can sign up there. You can watch our free training. I talk about some of these things. I talk about how I was working around the clock and I kind of go into a little bit more detail in areas.

[00:26:46] And then I share our framework, profitable entrepreneur framework. And so you can get access to that there. If you're curious about that, and if you want to potentially work together or join one of our communities, just go to [00:27:00] businessbabescollective.com. You can see all of the options there on the top navigation, either action takers, club mastermind, or working one on one with me. Would love to connect with you. There would love to start working with you until next time. Thank you for listening. I am so grateful for you and I hope you have a fantastic rest of your day.

[00:27:23] If you love this episode, make sure you screenshot, post, and tag us on Instagram at @businessbabesco. Want to know when the next episode goes live? Subscribe on your podcast app, and while you're there, leave us a review. Until next time, keep dreaming big, setting goals and taking action.[00:28:00]

Danielle Wiebe