Early in my career, I experienced a serious case of burnout.
After spending six years growing my first business as a copywriter and online marketing strategist, I was having serious anxiety, daily panic attacks, and feeling exhausted and burned out on a daily basis.
Though I was financially successful, I was constantly burning the candle at both ends, taking on too much, and doing everything myself.
As a result, I was tired, overwhelmed, and unhappy in the business I’d worked so hard to build.
When I transitioned out of that business and into coaching, I hoped all of this would change.
I thought stepping into work I loved would naturally fix my pattern of overwork and overwhelm. But I was wrong…
Yes, I was happier and more fulfilled. But many of my old patterns and habits followed me.
I thought my new career would be the natural cure, but it turned out I needed deeper solutions.
Today I can happily say I run a thriving, multiple 6-figure business and I no longer feel burned out.
Quite the opposite actually!
I’m lit up by the work I do, and I have an incredible team that supports me to spend the majority of my time “in my function.”
After going through my own journey of healing from burnout and helping a lot of clients grow their businesses in a way that’s truly sustainable, I’ve learned a lot about how to grow your business without burning out.
Finding the solution actually starts with identifying WHY you feel burned out in the first place.
Here are the most common reasons I see that people feel burned out:
Reason #1 – You Have Too Much On Your Plate
Sometimes burnout is exactly what it looks like on the surface – you’ve simply taken on way too much. This is common for people who are trying to build businesses while working a full time job, and/or raising a family.
We all have a slightly different threshold for overwork. Be honest with yourself and consider whether you’ve taken on too much. If so, what can you take off your plate? Or delegate to someone else? Or wait to do until later?
Your well-being comes first, because without it you won’t get anything done!
Reason #2 – Something Is Out of Alignment
It isn’t unusual for entrepreneurs to experience burnout as a result not of doing too much, but of simply doing the wrong things. Think of this as more of a “soul tiredness” than a physical overwhelm. Even if your workload is reasonable, spending too much time out of your “function” doing things that don’t bring you alive will drain your energy.
In fact, when you’re “in your function” doing work you love, your capacity for work will increase because you will be doing things that feed your energy. This was a huge aspect of my experience in my first business – although it was only a piece of the puzzle!
If this is you, consider how you can begin setting up your business to spend more time in your function. Can you hire support? Get someone to come in and collaborate with you?
Or perhaps there is a bigger shift needing to happen into work that is more aligned for you. (If you have a sense that you’d love to coach or transform lives, we’d love to help.)
Reason #3 – You Need More Support
One of the most common causes of burnout is getting stuck in the solopreneur model, doing everything yourself. Without support, you’ll likely find yourself overwhelmed at all there is to do. Chances are one of the reasons you became an entrepreneur was to have more freedom in your lifestyle. Without the right support, it will likely be quite challenging to achieve that sense of true freedom.
If it feels like the only way you can earn money is to be actively working and generating all the time, this may be one source of your burnout. Start thinking about how you could get some support and delegate some of the tasks that are draining you.
(Hint: If you don’t have the extra budget for this right now, consider a trade!)
Reason #4 – You’re Spending Too Much Time in “Go Mode”
You might have heard people talking about being in a more “masculine” or “feminine” energy. As a driven woman in business, I never resonated with these terms, so we recoined our own version – ”go mode” and “flow mode.”
Being in go-mode tends to mean being more in the world of action, structured thinking, and checking things off the list – a lot of this energy is needed in business! But flow mode has just as much value. And it’s essential for preventing burnout.
If you’re stuck in go mode all the time, consider how you can add just 10% more flow into your work and daily life. (What puts you in flow mode? Whatever makes you deeply relax and unwind.) This will give you more energy & vitality to bring to your business.
There are levels and layers to the experience of burnout. In my first business, an element of each of these was contributing to my burnout!
It’s been a long journey to discover a business model that allows me to feel nourished and fulfilled, without falling back into exhaustion and burnout.
But I can happily say that today, I rarely experience these feelings. And when I do, I catch them and course-correct quickly.
That’s why we created our Aliveness Mastery® certification – to help coaches, leaders & entrepreneurs come ALIVE again and transform your own life, while you master the art of transforming others.
Our next session starts July 20th!
