Grow Your Business Without Burning Out

In 2009 after only two years of doing something I thought I would love forever, I was burned out and broke—and had lost my love for my work.

But that’s also when I reached a tipping point: I needed a change in perspective. I could change by building my business around the life I wanted, instead of the other way around.

The Burnout Epidemic

There’s a chance that many of you reading this post are also feeling burnout. The truth is, we’re all vulnerable to burnout.

Just last year, the Mayo Clinic published a shocking study that found burnout rates among health & wellness practitioners exceeded 50%. There are many, many more studies corroborating these findings, but the sad reality tells us that burnout rates in our industry have become a full-blown epidemic. 

In general, burnout is experiencing complete physical, mental, and emotional exhaustion in long-term, highly demanding situations. Burnout affects your ability to build a successful business and the quality of your relationships with the people you serve. You’re also too emotionally spent to build genuine relationships with them.
 
Perhaps the most noticeable impact of burnout in our industry is the complete lack of passion. Undoubtedly, you began with wholeheartedly-devoted to the wellness and care of the people in your community, making this symptom ironic and unfortunate.

Remember, burnout doesn’t just impact your professional life—your personal life is greatly affected as well, and this is not a way to live your life. While overcoming burnout is difficult, it can be done.

Overcoming Burnout

Here are the steps you should take to overcome burnout in your practice:

1. Think outside of the box

   To overcome burnout, the first step is understanding how to step out of the box and take a different approach to your business. This may mean you need to buck the traditional way of running your practice or studio.

   Changing how you run your business can bring out critics.It is imperative that you ignore these people! Don’t let fear of the unknown control you—the status quo has not been working for you, so it only makes sense to use a different approach.

2. Change your mindset

   Identify any negative thoughts that are holding you back and remove them once and for all—after all, the wrong beliefs are destructive to your mindset and your business.

3. Define the lifestyle you want

   Now that you’ve removed self-limiting beliefs, you have a clean slate. Begin thinking about the lifestyle you really want. What does it look like? Does it look like your life now? Create a list of goals for the lifestyle you seek—whatever lifestyle elements you want to include, write them down! This way, you have the vision to build from.

4. Build your business around your lifestyle

   Once you have your lifestyle vision, you can now create a strategy to build this lifestyle. The key to doing this is to build your business around your lifestyle, not the other way around!

   To overcome burnout and build the lifestyle you want, your happiness must come first. You must put your needs first which leads to a more effective business, more satisfied clients, and a more engaged you.

When you build a lifestyle business, you build freedom to enjoy your work—and have a life outside of it.