Quell the entrepreneur burnout
Tuesday, 18 December 2007
Last Updated: Tuesday, 18 December 2007
By Wendy Tuohy
Entrepreneurs have taken a huge burden upon themselves, and the risk of personal burnout is very real – and potentially devastating, both individually and for their businesses.
Burnout among entrepreneurs and owners of medium-sized businesses is a huge problem in Australia, and many proprietors are unaware or unable to acknowledge they are at risk, industry observers say.
If business owners fail to act on symptoms stemming from work-based anxieties and demands that are running them down, they are more likely to slip into clinical depression, say business coaches such as Samantha McDonald and industry psychologist Eve Ash.
“I see so many people with this, and often they don’t understand they are not getting enough balance; they just think how they’re feeling is normal,” says McDonald, MD of Dare Coaching & Seminars.
“It’s a huge problem; and people need to understand you can’t sustain the whole working-too-hard thing. You can get sick.”
Symptoms of work-based burnout include listlessness, lack of energy, lack of interest in the business and home life, arguments at home, “stopping enjoying anything they normally do enjoy doing, such as exercising”, says McDonald.
“They’re very tired – you can be quite close to depression. Burning out you can end up quite depressed, some are just tearful all the time,” she says. Other signs include feeling overwhelmed or overloaded by the business, problems spilling into home life, and just that “their business no longer seems fun”.
Psychologist Eve Ash also lists signs such as persistent tiredness, headaches, moodiness, loss of perspective on happiness and not having time for one’s self or family.
“So many things are spoken of (by burned-out people) as ‘not enough’, ‘too much work’, ‘too hard’, ‘not enough time’, ‘I wish I could...’, too many of what I call negative scripts,” says Ash.
Successful proprietors such as Katherine Sampson, founder of the Healthy Habits chain of sandwich bars, say creating and sustaining a growing business can take a big personal toll.
“I know I am burned-out, but it’s really hard (to maintain balance),” says Sampson. “I know that I should be going to the gym, but you never find time, you always find an excuse.
“This week I had three personal training sessions booked and I cancelled two; last week I did the same.”
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