Owning and running a business is a lot of work, and business owner burnout can happen pretty easily. You are the CEO, chief everything officer, and you wear multiple hats in the company. You have a degree in marketing, sales, business management, and graphic design, and you are also a janitor, mentor, and coach.

It is easy to get burnt out as a business owner when you do so much and carry so much responsibility.

I know the feeling! I have been there every year since I owned a company—eight times, to be exact. I run myself so hard in every aspect, and by the time the year ends, I don’t want to be a business owner ever again.

5 Ways to Avoid Business Owner Burnout

So, from one entrepreneur to another, here are the things I learned and implemented over the years. Did I do them perfectly each time? No! But I know these work.

Understand why

We hustle so hard for so long that we get flustered and confused about what is actually making us feel the way we do. This is when you know you have run yourself too hard and too long.

Take some time to understand why you feel the way you feel. What I am trying to say is reflect!

Here are some questions to ask during your time of reflection.

What are my day-to-day responsibilities?

What are the additional things on my plate that have been added?

Have I created enough time to do these additional things?

Delegate

This is really hard for many business owners. The business they started is their baby. It took blood, sweat, and tears to build, and they wouldn’t want someone to break it apart in one day. It’s impossible to trust another human being to run the company as they do. NO WAY!

I am going to let you in on a little secret. Someone else could run your business better than you! Because you wear so many hats in the company, you do everything with your time, which is not much. Imagine if you hired someone to do that very thing, and they commit to doing it 100% of the time with all their time dedicated to the task. The impact and multiplication in that department wouldn’t just double but triple!

So, reflect here with me. Ask yourself some questions.

What am I not really good at doing? Does this task take you forever to do, drain you, and make you constantly have to learn something new to keep up with something you don’t even like doing?

Where do I make the most impact in my company?

Now, my advice.

Let the professionals take care of the rest.

Hire people who like doing what you don’t really care to do and suck the life out of you and make you not like your company. There is a reason we were all created differently.

Sometimes, we need to do the very thing we don’t like to grow our company temporarily. Remember, this is not the forever way. Learn to let go and let others help you.

Talk to Your Mentors or Coaches

I can’t stress enough how important this point is for business owners. When I started my company, I didn’t have enough money to hire a personal business coach. I joined an online coaching group that was only $50 a month. As a newbie in the business world, so this was very impactful to me at that time. I couldn’t talk through situations, but I learned concepts and developed an understanding of business.

Years later, I could afford an in-person coaching group that helped me walk through situations in person and develop my leadership skills. I continued that group for years as it wasn’t just a group of people, but multiple personal mentors who poured into me as I walked through difficult situations, as well as personal ones. Honestly, I am unsure if I could have done it without that group of people. They cried with me, challenged me, developed me, prayed for me, and cheered with me.

Find someone or a group of people who can walk with you. That coach or group will be crucial during times when burnout is real.

Realign Your Priorities

When we start hustling as business owners, we get distracted. Opinions, advice, and reviews start to cloud our minds, and what we set out to do in the first place gets a little muddy. This is when we need to pause and realign our priorities.

Do some reflecting.

What is your purpose?

Why did you open your business?

Who are you serving?

What opinions and reviews are you going to allow to impact the direction you are going?

Realign your direction, and don’t let everyone who doesn’t belong be a part of your journey. The people who don’t belong are the ones who don’t support you, the jealous ones, the mean comments that make no sense, the competition who steals your ideas, and those who have never owned a business but have an opinion about everything. Those don’t belong!

Take a break

Taking a break means everything is off and partying on!

One of the biggest mistakes I made as a business owner was taking a vacation and running the business remotely simultaneously. My staff would constantly text me when I was at the beach or trying to spend time with my family. Some had valid reasons, but most were questions that could have been answered independently. It took away from my family, my time to release the stress, and time to dream again. I would return from vacation more stressed because I had to catch up on the things that were not done or done wrong. I agree that mistakes typically can be fixed from the top, leadership. But I should have taken a true break if I was burnt out!

My advice is to take a real break. Turn off your phone, close your business, and be just you, with or without your family. This is very important, so please do not do it otherwise.

What are the benefits, you ask? Well, it could be a long list. I will give you just a few: new energy, room to dream again, stress relief, and clarity. This is my experience, and I have heard many other business owners experience the same. Try it!

Avoid the Burnout

Are you ready to forget the burnout and start feeling blessed again? Implement these 5 things as a business owner to get back on track to loving your work as an entrepreneur.

For more great tips on being a solid business owner without leading yourself to burnout, here are a few articles that may interest you or give you some ideas on how to avoid burnout.

3 Things to Organize Social Media Content –

Monthly Small Business Checklist –

Starting a Small Business and NOT Quitting –