Wow, I really could not come up with a better title or picture, but honestly- it gets to the point, no? I really just wanted to talk about Corvettes, but alas, here we are…
If you run a business from home, it’s easy to feel constantly connected and beyond that, constantly mentally obligated to be tied to your work. Even if you’re not actually “plugged in,” you’re still mentally “plugged in,” and mulling over work details, plans and problems while eating with your spouse, scrubbing up in the shower, and it’s keeping you up at night. Burnout starts to wear on you, but you feel constantly tethered to this business since it’s truly yours.
For a time, the thought of taking a vacation or leaving my desk to do basic tasks like get a haircut, see the dentist or gasp- get a massage during the week felt like blasphemy. If this business was going to sink or swim, I needed to prove it, damnit! Leaving during the “work day” felt like I was setting myself up for failure, but I was running low on energy.
A few days ago, I was really slugging through my work. I was exhausted and lethargic both physically and mentally. I was getting more requests for work than ever (yay!) and didn’t have the energy to meet the paying (double yay!) demands of my amazing clients and colleagues (lame!). What the hell was wrong with me? Success was coming my way, the money was rolling in, people wanted to talk to me and my body couldn’t keep up though my mind was racing. It was Lame with a capital L.
Yesterday, I threw in the towel and got a massage. I’ve come to realize that now that the money and responsibility is headed my way I need to do a lot more to take care of myself. Instead of my quarterly massages, I’m now going monthly to not only take advantage of a fat discount, but to ensure I don’t kill myself with stress (good call). I came back from my massage yesterday and felt fabulous, today I worked far better than I had in weeks. Hallelujah!
It sucks and you’ll feel like a total jackass, but you have to throw in the towel once in awhile. You aren’t a Corvette and your burnout is as cool, so stop treating yourself like a machine.
I could blather on about this forever, but Marie Forleo an enterprising and hilarious business woman does a far better job of this. I just re-watched this video and had to share, enjoy!
I’ve found running an online business LESS connected than I was when I ran a f-t-f business. When your client is across the table you can see the look on their face and get an idea what they’re thinking. But when it’s a normal day and your traffic is a third less than average there’s nobody to ask: “What am I sucking at?” It’s so much more difficult to get the cues to success.
So, I’ve found your advice very important: I have to keep taking care of me and having fun with it. My readership always seems to go up when I’m having fun and down when I get paranoid and start chasing the crowd.
So true! It’s so hard to figure out what’s going on, especially in a crowded online space where success may or may not have anything to do with you. Blog fame and “going viral” is the result of great content and design but also some other substantial factors that you cannot control (like getting touted by the key influencer that helps you catch on).
Hard work and I also say, smart work totally helps- but not if you burn your bridges and yourself out in the process. Without time to recover mentally and emotionally you end up working at half capacity and you begin taking up space, not contributing. I appreciate your comment!
The thing about burning out is that it can creep up on you when you least expect it and slowly destroy what you’re trying to build. Your business has to have some type of balancing act or you will be in serious trouble. I can remember the excitement I had for my previous blogs that went nowhere, but it taught me a very good lesson: work smarter and not harder.
For one blog, I had to continually update the blog to keep up with the emails I was getting from brands (coupon site) and it was tiresome. I didn’t make much with it and after everything was said and done, I canceled the site.Now, what I do now leaves me valuable time to put it where it should be: Family. There is a time and place for everything, but they come first and I build my business around them. Good post!
What the heck, Disqus ate my response!
Darnit, I totally had a big long response put together for you, I posted it and Disqus said it had to be approved by the moderator (which isn’t normally necessary) and so I logged in to approve it and it’s gone!
Anyhooo- I know exactly what you mean, when I started blogging I did everything myself and started to set myself up for failure. I took the advice of a friend that I should learn CSS, HTML and Photoshop…which of course, in theory, I should eventually learn, but in your first year you should delegate ground-up tasks to professionals and spend your time building an audience, focusing on content and strengthening your blogging skills that attract visitors… attempting to throw a theme together and hoping it looks good when you’re a newbie both at blogging and design is a surefire ticket to burnout!
Plus, I know I started problogging because I wanted more time for what matters in life…and I had completely missed the point. I know exactly what you mean!