Navigating Burnout as a Business Owner

One of the things I love most about being a business owner is the autonomy and flexibility it offers. But something that I'm noticing coming up more frequently is how working for yourself can also lead to burnout.

So, what actually is burnout?

The term gets used a lot, but what does it really mean? The World Health Organisation defines burnout as a syndrome that results from chronic workplace stress that hasn't been successfully managed. It shows up in three key ways: persistent exhaustion, growing cynicism or detachment from your work, and a reduced sense of effectiveness.

Although both burnout and stress share some similarities, whereas stress may be short-term (e.g. working long hours), burnout tends to occur over a longer period. Stress tends to be characterised by over-engagement and is associated with overactive emotions, whereas burnout is characterised by disengagement and emotions that are muted.

Burnout isn’t about one bad week. It builds over time. And that’s what makes it so easy to miss because each step on the way can feel manageable. You keep going, keep pushing until one day you realise you’re running on empty.

A helpful way to picture it is to think of your nervous system like a smartphone battery. Acute stress is like using your phone heavily for a few hours; it drains, but recharges quickly. Chronic stress is like having dozens of apps running silently in the background, all the time. Eventually, the battery becomes damaged and can’t hold a charge properly anymore. That’s what nervous system dysregulation looks like.

Are Business Owners Particularly Vulnerable to burnout?

Whilst research has found that entrepreneurs don’t automatically burn out more than salaried employees, there is evidence that it is still a significant issue for those who are self-employed.

In one survey carried out by Capital One Business in 2022 it was found that around 42% of business owners had experienced burnout in the past month. Other research highlighted that many had seriously considered walking away from their business because of it.

So what makes running a business particularly tough on our mental health? A few things stand out:

• Role overload - When you’re the admin, marketing and salesperson, the customer service team, and the accountant all at once, the demands never really switch off. I know that this is something that I find is one of the biggest challenges of running my own business.

• Financial pressure - When your livelihood is directly tied to your business performance, the stakes feel very personal. If you're employed and the business has a bad month, then that's your employer's problem; but when it's your own business, a bad month could be the difference between being able to pay yourself and not.

•  The blurring of boundaries - When you work for yourself, there’s no clear line between work and personal life. Your phone is always there. Your to-do list is always there. It can feel like you never fully leave work, because in a sense, you never do.

• Isolation - If you work alone, there’s no colleague to vent to, no team to share the load and no board to make decisions. Furthermore, if you have a strong inner critic, working alone can feel like working for the worst boss you’ve ever had.

Alongside those external pressures, there can also be personal factors that contribute to burnout, such as high conscientiousness, a strong need for control, or a deep sense of responsibility for others. They’re often the very qualities that make someone a good business owner. But they can also make it very difficult to switch off, to ask for help, or to feel like you’ve ever done enough.

Another factor can be perfectionism. Research shows that perfectionists tend to engage in repetitive negative thinking, mentally replaying mistakes, worries,  ‘what ifs’, fear of letting people down etc that continues even when you’re resting.

Recognising the Signs

Because burnout builds gradually, we often don’t notice it until we’re quite deep in. We tell ourselves we’re just “busy” or that we’ll feel better when we have a break.

So here are some of the signs to look out for:

•      Persistent exhaustion that doesn’t improve with rest

•      Sleep problems - either struggling to sleep, or sleeping a lot and still feeling drained

•      Difficulty concentrating or making decisions

•      Feeling detached or emotionally flat, like you’re just going through the motions

•      Increased irritability

•      A reduced sense of accomplishment

•      Physical symptoms such as headaches, muscle tension or getting ill more frequently

It’s worth mentioning that some of these can overlap with anxiety or depression, so if you’re experiencing several of them persistently, it’s always worth speaking to your GP or a mental health professional.

What can help?

Here are three things that can help as a business owner:

1.    Reconnect with your ‘why’

This ties back to one of the signs of burnout being a sense of cynicism or negativity about your work. So it can be helpful to think about your “Why”

·         Why did you start this business?

·         What was it that drove you to take that leap into self-employment?

·         How does your work help the people who use your services?

You might want to try writing this down when you’re in a good headspace so you’ve got something to come back to on the days when you’ve forgotten it.

2.    Rest

This may seem obvious, but when you work for yourself, this can be hard to do because your business is always with you. The key is to be intentional about creating some separation. That might mean having a proper end-of-day ritual, leaving your work devices in another room in the evenings, or protecting at least one day a week where you genuinely don’t work.

However, although rest is necessary, it’s not always sufficient.

If you’ve ever taken a week off and come back feeling no better, or even worse, you’re not imagining it. When your nervous system is dysregulated, trying to rest is a bit like trying to sleep while someone’s sounding an alarm in the room. The problem isn’t that you don’t know how to sleep. It’s the alarm. Your system is still running in the background, still scanning for threat, still producing stress hormones even when you’re resting.

And this also connects to why rest alone won’t fix burnout for someone with perfectionist tendencies. Because for a perfectionist, rest doesn’t always feel safe. There’s always more to do, more to prove, more to achieve. So even on holiday, the mental apps keep running, the alarm keeps sounding and the battery never really charges.

So before rest can work, you often need to actively regulate your nervous system first. And that’s not as complicated as it sounds, as some of the most effective tools are actually very simple. Deep, slow breathing is probably the most accessible. Slow breathing directly activates the parasympathetic nervous system, your ‘rest and digest’ branch, and begins to interrupt the stress response.

Other things that can help to regulate your nervous system are gentle movement, spending time in nature, cold water exposure, creative activities, and social connection with people who feel safe to you.

3.Build a support network

There is some evidence that entrepreneurs with a good support network are less likely to experience burnout. And yet more than three-quarters of business owners who are struggling don’t seek help. It can feel difficult to admit that running a business is hard, especially when surrounded by curated success stories on LinkedIn and Instagram.

Support can take lots of forms: it could be a mentor providing expert advice, a peer group who share ideas and experiences, or simply a friend who gives you encouragement. The important thing is that you have someone in your corner, who can offer perspective when you’re too deep in it to see clearly.

Good news!

There is, however, some good news in that the autonomy, purpose, and sense of meaning that comes from running your own business can be genuinely protective. Burnout can arise when you feel that your work lacks worth or your values are compromised. Being self-employed means that you decide what you stand for, who you work with and that what you do is aligned with your values.

If any of this has resonated and you'd like support in exploring burnout or the pressures of running your own business, please do get in touch to find out how I can help.

📞 07543 408551

📧 susan@sccounselling.co.uk

💻 www.sccounselling.co.uk