Tips and strategies to avoid burning out as an entrepreneur

It’s not very hard to burn out, especially when you are just starting out and passionate about what you are doing. Not only do you work yourself to exhaustion (not just once or twice, but just a constant state of exhaustion), but you also go through a tremendous amount of extreme highs and extreme lows.

• You have to be able to unplug from the 24/7 tech lease. Part of burning out is our desire to always be available, to everything, to everyone.

• You have to be able to relax and enjoy yourself. You’re the boss, don’t feel like you have to be in the office all the time. Build yourself a tech stack so you can work (and play) anywhere. And take frequent working vacations (that’s where you go somewhere to enjoy but can still stay on top of work while you’re there. In fact I get more done on working vacations) 

• Being debt free as a business (and personally). Maybe weird advice, but part of that panic attack I mentioned was due to the overwhelming burden to make payroll every 2 weeks for 80 employees and being way over leveraged, out of control, and at the mercy of the bank, customers, and everyone else. You will be amazed at what being debt free does for your stress and for preventing burnout 

• Along the same lines, bootstrapping and not taking investment. Others will disagree with this on this forum and some will say its even more stressful to be worry about cash flow all the time and how you’re going to survive and grow. Well this goes hand in hand with being debt free above. But having a strong, sustainable, cash flow positive business where you are not answering to investors can prevent burnout. Why? Because our nature is to feel committed to working extremely hard to those we feel we owe, and even if you have the best investors in the world, deep down, you feel you owe them something extra

• Plan, plan, plan for the worst case. If you are prepared for anything, when it happens you don’t freak out and burn out. We don’t do enough contingency planning 

• And lastly, when the crap hits the fan, and you’re at your lowest, you need to take a mental health day, pause to calm down and get the emotion out of your decisions, start to crunch the numbers and collect real data, and create a plan of action. Nothing helps an entrepreneur prevent burnout than if you have a plan of action that you can follow to a successful outcome