Burnout is common in the small business community yet no one talks about it. It’s something that is often dealt with in isolation.
Most small business owners think their situation is temporary. They also think it’s because they can’t keep up so the tendency is to dig deeper, work later and go harder!
This leads to increased exhaustion, self doubt and an over all lack of productivity.
I know I went through burnout a few times before I even knew it had a name.
I didn’t understand what I was dealing with or why?
I thought it was a matter of dusting myself off and getting back in the game.
Let’s talk about the symptoms of burnout.
1. feeling low of energy or exhausted
2. feeling less connection or enthusiasm towards one’s work
3. reduced productivity
Being an entrepreneur usually starts with taking a risk. So pushing through and grinding it out felt like a very small price to pay.
Following the “grind it out” mentality online, I understood it to be part of the process. And when I struggled with burnout I thought it was just me struggling to keep up.
Signs of Burnout
1. Your Usual Passion Or Creativity Has Diminished
I know I would be surprised when I didn’t have my usual hunger to get things done. I was trying to figure out what was wrong with me. I was worried about my mental health but didn’t understand that was part of the burnout cycle.
2. Long Hours But Low Results
If you start working later and later in an effort to keep up that is definitely a sign of burnout.
It’s easy to trick yourself into thinking that staying late and not putting such tight time constraints will help…
but actually what you’re doing is getting diminishing results.
You’re staying later and later and your return on your investment is dramatically decreasing.
3. You’ve Fantasized About Quitting
If you’ve ever fantasize about quitting you probably been struggling with burnout. This sort of mental ideation is definitely a sign of burnout
How To Fix Burnout
1. Hire A Virtual Assistant
About 12 years ago, I was still going to face to face appointments. (I wasn’t virtual yet). I would sit take notes in these meetings. The plan was to go back back to the office, and put my notes right into the computer.
Spoiler alert: that never happened!
I would get back to the office. I’d get busy. I’d get distracted.
And Oh, if I was lucky, I would get the notes into my computer by Friday afternoon but sometimes it wasn’t until the following Friday! Ugh!
If anyone called me to clarify on a project… I was always scrambling.
My notes were meant for 2 hours not two weeks.
My first outsourcer was someone I hired to transcribe my notes. I would leave these appointments, get in the car, immediately pick up my phone. I would just do an audio message and send it to my outsourcer. The notes were in my computer within 24 hours!
Some weeks I had a bunch of appointments, and some weeks I didn’t need her at all.
But the weeks that I did need her, it was like $12.
It got me all a Friday afternoon back, it relieved so much stress.
It eliminated mistakes and potential loss.
That’s when I saw outsourcing Filipino virtual assistants in a whole new light. It immediately allowed me to work more effectively and reasons to work less hours.
The first step in how to fix burnout is changing your entrepreneur mindset and understand you can’t do it alone. You want to build a business that means you need to scale your business with outsourcing. You need to outsource admin work and lean into virtual assistant outsourcing.
2. Systems And Processes Stop Burnout.
Most people when they hear about systems and processes, tense up and feel like a restriction is about to be placed upon them. When in fact it’s the exact opposite. It actually frees you up in a powerful way.
Systems and processes allow you to build on your success. This means consistency of service, eliminating mistakes, and expediting your work.
Let’s say you are doing something like I’m onboarding a new client.
And there are 7 steps to this onboarding process.
The human brain will remember 4 out of the 7 things and often rotate those four items.
With systems and processes you will be guaranteed to follow through on all aspects of the onboarding process easily and using very little brain power.
Using systems and processes allows you to reduce effort and cost. (The most common mistake small business owners make is assuming that their time is free).
You don’t save time or money by doing administrative work.
Admin work is a quick way to experience burnout. You could probably do 40 hours a week just on admin work, data entry and social media. These leaves no time for the work that brings you revenue!
Having systems and processes that are effective allow you to transfer your work to your team. It also allows your team to become more efficient at what they do. This is essential for any company to grow.
It also allows new people to come in and take on less demanding roles.
It protects you from being dependent if your team changes for any reason.
And it allows for absences from anyone on the team, including yourself.
You can easily take on any ambitions and add to your team without any hiccups, are painful learning curve throughout the process. The benefits for outsourcing for small business are unbelievable.
3. Don’t Grow Your Business, Scale it!
Systems and processes also allow you to scale your business. Small business owners talk all day about growing their business but that’s exhausting. You have to keep up with the growth. What you want to so is scale your business, this will eliminate burnout!
You will:
-avoid mistakes
-increasing your output
-reducing your efforts
-expediting all work
-have time for working on income generating projects
The bottom line is you are getting ideas to execution which equals financial success, freedom and independence. Outsourced administrative chores gives you an unbelievable amount of freedom. It’s one of the benefits of outsourcing virtual assistants.
You can hire assistants in the Philippines part time for a variety of tasks. Its one of the benefits of hiring a virtual assistant.
You need to change your entrepreneurial mindset where you think outsourcing is expensive and systems and processes take to much time.
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