How Do Successful Entrepreneurs Deal with Everyday Stress? 

Oftentimes, being a successful entrepreneur means that your workdays aren’t from 9 to 5 but non-stop, with a feeling of the whole world sitting on your shoulders. You need to meet the expectations of your investors, employees, and customers, in addition to your own high standards. 

The pressure to constantly improve in order to meet these standards can become overwhelming, and you may feel like a hamster riding a wheel.  

Becoming financially secure, independent, and happy through entrepreneurship takes a lot of nerve. Especially nowadays, when successful business owners jump on social media to talk about their “dos and don’ts” and unhealthy daily routines, forcing you to implement them in your life in order to “get rich fast.” In reality, those videos will only make you want to curl up in bed and overthink the night ahead, saying to yourself: Tomorrow morning, I’m changing everything!

Today, we’d like to take a different, more wholesome path. We will not be emphasizing “life hacks” or “rich mindsets.” This article will discuss how to deal with all that bottled up negative energy in a healthy way. Why? Because a happy entrepreneur is a successful one.   

Become Aware of Your Feelings

Most of the time, in our haste to get to the top of the market ladder, we end up putting ourselves last. Our basic human needs take a backseat, and a bad day snowballs into a bad week, a bad month, and an awful year. If you don’t listen to your body when it whispers (or worse, screams) that it’s time to take a break, those days can turn into an unhappy life. 

We experience stress on three different levels:

1. Body Aches: headaches, muscle and chest pains, fatigue, insomnia, hair loss.

2. Bad Moods: anxiety, anger, lack of motivation, sadness, relentlessness, depression.

3. Unhealthy Behaviors: absence of focus, tobacco and alcohol consumption, binge-eating, anti-socialization. 

These may seem like things everyone experiences daily, but when was the last time you stopped for a second and turned your focus to these signs? 

Stress is often called “a sickness of the modern age,” but what’s more worrying is that it has been so normalized that we might feel afraid to admit we’re in pain. Yet, this little devil’s worker is not someone to befriend; the American Psychology Association states that chronic stress leads to problems with the respiratory, cardiovascular, nervous, and reproductive systems (among others) if not treated properly. 

But let’s not stress even more about the possibilities — we are here to learn how to cope with these mindbenders! Here are five habits that can help you live a more fulfilling life.

Start Delegating  

No business can be a one-person show, at least not in the long run. Although you may think no one can do the work the same way you do it, tackling everything by yourself is unrealistic and only leads to burnout. 

To achieve long-term success as a business owner, you must possess the ability to identify when to delegate tasks to others. Assess the tasks that demand your unique skill set and experience and assign the remaining ones to your team members.

If you’re a sole trader, try hiring freelancers or virtual assistants. Outsourcing tasks to people who do these things for a living will help you focus on more important things in your life. At the moment, it may be landing that partnership that’s brewing, but later on, try finding more time for yourself and your loved ones. 

And let’s keep it real —  good is sometimes better than perfect. We know that one of the things that pushes you to succeed as a business owner is your innate desire for excellence. But consider this: If it were easy, everyone would do it. 

However, you must learn when to accept that your and your coworker’s efforts were sufficient and move on. Give it your all, but when the time comes to move on, do so.

Begin Exercising on the Regular

Exercise may seem like yet another thing on your to-do list, but it is one of the most important ones. Not only does regular exercise do great things for your physical appearance, it also releases endorphins, which are the #1 driver of a good mood. 

Still, keep it realistic and within your means. No one asks you to become a gym rat or run a marathon. Find something that can ease both your physical and mental needs. 

You can start with simple morning stretches, then advance with power walks in your favorite park. If you’re a nature lover, become a golf club member. Golfing is a great getaway from the everyday noise, an escape to greenery that is pleasant both for the eyes and the soul. And at the end of the day, it’s fun yet still challenging for your body! You can even meet other fellow entrepreneurs on the field and share your frustrations with them. Remember, you’re not alone in this. 

Once you make exercising your habit, you will see a significant boost in productivity and get addicted to feeling more capable for everyday challenges. Much better than getting addicted to tobacco or binge-eating, right?

Practice Meditation

Meditation is one of the oldest practices of human beings, but there are still people who think it’s worthless. Why would anyone waste time sitting on the floor with their eyes closed, breathing deeply? The question answers itself, actually. 

Amidst stress, we often forget to take a few deep breaths before bursting into anger or other toxic behaviors. Meditation teaches us to disconnect from the outside world and stressors around us, focusing on our inner selves. 

Today, we are constantly drowning in information creeping around every corner: phone notifications, flashy billboards and advertisements, radio news, office gossip, loud traffic, and so on. Sometimes, you just want to spend time in silence, and meditation gives you just that. 

It may seem impossible to disconnect from everything and turn your phone off for 45 minutes, but even ten minutes of inner peace per day can heavily impact your mental health. This is a time when you think about your body—how it feels, and how it moves with every breath you take. Or, to put it simply, how it just exists. 

After you learn how to unwind in a safe space, you can use that knowledge and implement it in stressful everyday situations. As Shakira would put it: Whenever, wherever. Meditation is a perfect way to practice self awareness and expand your attention span, two things that every entrepreneur wants to master. 

Feed Your Inner Child Through Hobbies

Every one of us had a childhood full of things we loved to do, but as adults, we can never seem to get around to doing them again. It’s easy for an entrepreneur to let work consume every aspect of their life, but you should make an effort to keep your life balanced.

Think about those core memories you have from your childhood. It may be the smell of freshly baked cookies at your grandma’s house that you used to make with her. Or it could be something that you always wanted to do as a child but decided not to do for a living because it doesn’t pay enough money. Perhaps it was playing the guitar? Or was it just endlessly reading books and immersing yourself in fictional worlds?

The key thing you should remember regarding your potential hobbies is that they exist solely for pleasure. They don’t need to pay the bills or upgrade your skills to become better at your job. Hobbies exist to make your life more meaningful and to find comfort in everyday life. 

Another great aspect of hobbies is that they can positively impact your creativity and get your brain going. Those fresh waves of satisfaction will definitely boost your mood, making you less stressed during the day and making you excited to come home and play, just like you did as a child. 

And by the way, even Barack Obama has time to make a summer playlist every year, so there’s definitely time for pleasure, even if you’re a politician. 

Successful Entrepreneurs Know How to Say No

Not every opportunity that comes your way is a good one. In fact, if you say “yes” to a lot of things, you will definitely regret saying no to at least two of them. 

Occasionally, we must all exercise the ability to decline an offer. Overextending oneself is problematic on many levels: psychologically, physiologically, and monetarily. You can’t fix every issue that comes up, nor can you be in two places at once. 

You shouldn’t feel guilty about passing up an opportunity because you canceled a meeting or took a mental health day. It goes without saying, but it bears repeating: there will always be problems, and not all of them are yours to tackle.

If you find it hard to say no, here are some tips to do it in an adequate way:

* Keep it short and sweet. Always be direct and honest when declining a request. Avoid hedging or providing unnecessary context when announcing your decision.

* Remember to say ‘thank you’. Acknowledge the person’s request and thank them for thinking of you. In doing so, you’ll demonstrate that you respect their trust, even if you can’t meet their request.

* Provide an explanation when needed. Although it’s not required, a brief explanation may help the other person see things from your point of view. However, lengthy justifications could undermine your position, so avoid them if possible.

* Stay polite and respectful. Always speak in a respectful and polite manner. Just because you say “no” doesn’t mean you have to be rude or dismissive. Kindly and empathetically explain your decision.

* Remain assertive. When saying “no,” it’s important to be assertive. Don’t let guilt or outside influence make you second-guess your decision. Keep in mind that you have the right to decide how you want to spend your time and energy.

* Give it another shot. If you’re genuinely interested in helping but can’t right now, you can always say that you’ll be available in the future. Let them know that you would be willing to help them again if they find themselves needing you in the future.

You Can Do it As Well!

You started your own business because you wanted to make your dream a reality. You knew it would have its difficulties, but you’re here now, and that means you can get through them.

You can either give up or enjoy the ride.

Not to sound like those entrepreneurs on TikTok, but quitting leads to defeat, and that’s not who you are. You have the grit and determination to succeed despite the odds.

So, let’s pull ourselves up by our bootstraps and face the difficulties head-on as a team. You have what it takes to make it through this process and turn obstacles into breakthroughs. Trust in your own abilities and persevere.

And if you ever need a wind beneath your wings, bookmark this page and return to DotCom Magazine to hear and read how other entrepreneurs do it and find inspiration to become a better business owner yourself.