Combating burnout how to maintain your business and your sanity

Combating burnout how to maintain your business and your sanity Entrepreneurs often wear multiple hats on the job. They range from moms who offer coaching services while the baby sleeps to small business owners who left corporate America and now employ a small workforce. No matter where you fall on the spectrum of entrepreneurs, you might be at risk of experiencing burnout. When you work alone or with a small group of people, you can quickly start to feel isolated and spread thin. Let’s take a look at the burnout phenomenon and a few strategies you can use to stop the burn before it begins. Importance of entrepreneursCorporate America is important to the success of our country. However, many experts would argue that entrepreneurs are the true backbone of our economy. From the first black female self-made millionaire, Madam C.J. Walker, to tech guru Bill Gates, entrepreneurs have been using their passions to create empires for centuries. According to a 2014 study by Alexander S. Kritikos, entrepreneurs boost economic growth by introducing i nnovations, cause competition among competitors, and provide new job opportunities. When you’re making strides in your business, it can be easy to forget about the need to care for yourself. Bottom lines and profit margins are essential to your success, but if it’s all you think about, you might be headed towards a raging case of burnout.The risk of burnoutYou’ve probably heard of (or even experienced) burnout. It’s the state of physical or emotional exhaustion that can make you feel disconnected from who you are as a person. Believe or it or, burnout is an actual medical diagnosis that might be precipitated by depression and other mental health triggers. For many people, burnout happens when workplace stressors become too much to handle. Those born with the entrepreneurial spirit have a few things in common that might place them at a higher-than-average risk of burnout. While research on this condition is plentiful in large corporations, data specific to small business and entrepreneurship isn’t. One study surveyed over 300 members of the entrepreneur networking organization, Business Networking International, to get a better understanding of what makes entrepreneurs burn out. The study looked at everything from job fit to beliefs about work. The majority of those in the survey reported feeling like they fit in their chosen profession and possessed a high level of harmonious passion. However, 25 percent of entrepreneurs felt moderately burned out, and three percent felt strongly that they had a case of burnout.It’s interesting to point out that the higher levels of passion the participants reported equated to a higher level of burnout. A smaller portion of study participants said they felt obsessive passion and destiny beliefs about their current professional roles. These individuals also self-reported more severe burnout symptoms.Strategies to combat burnoutThe good news is that once you recognize your risk of burnou t, you can create a few intentional practices that will decrease your chances of feeling the burn. Here are a few strategies that can protect your small business from burnout:Develop a flexible mindsetPassionate people tend to migrate towards fixed mindsets about their job fit, which can quickly lead to job stress. Adopting a flexible mindset just means that you can envision more than one perfect career for your life. This allows you to view your job as one part of who you are, not the only thing that makes you a unique individual. This isn’t a natural mindset to break. If you suffer from a fixed mindset, the first thing you need to do is to recognize areas of closed-mindedness. Once you see one of these areas, challenge your thinking to be more flexible. Another strategy is to acknowledge your efforts more than your traits. For instance, instead of identifying how smart you are, consider how hard you work instead. This can also help you notice other people’s efforts a t work, too.Switch up your workHave you ever noticed that doing the same thing for a few hours (much less a whole day) can zap your energy? Creative people who are tasked to write compelling copy or create the next masterpiece day after day can feel exhausted when they do the same task for too long. Switching between tasks actually promotes creativity and can increase productivity.To minimize this precursor to burnout, limit your time on any one task. Block out separate times on your calendar for creative work and the more mundane - but just as critical - tasks. Some experts believe that spending about two hours on work that requires a lot of thought will help you be most productive.Find work-life balanceIf you did a random survey, you would probably find that many people have had to talk about work-life balance with their boss. Finding this critical balance has long been a desire of workplace cultures big and small. Many businesses boast that they’ve found the perfect mix, but when you speak with their employees, it seems they’ve missed the mark.As a small business owner, it’s critical you find the perfect balance for yourself and your staff. This means you need to create a few rules for successful work-life balance. Here are a few we love:No job is worth your health: That’s right, even your own business isn’t worth sleepless nights, panic attacks, or recurrent nightmares. If you’re sick all the time from working too much, it’s time to find balance. Be open to new opportunities: This rule goes back to the â€Å"flexible mindset† we talked about above. Maybe you went into business with one objective in mind, but you keep getting asked about a new product or service line that could be your new â€Å"best seller.† Remember that success means being open to new things, even when it’s not what you planned for. Cultivate outside interests: All work and no play is a dangerous way to live. You mus t have hobbies and passions outside of work if you want to have an overall sense of wellness. Turn off the email notifications on your phone at least one day a week and leave the job at the office.Get up and movePhysical activity isn’t only good for your body. It’s an excellent way to calm stress and anxiety. No one says you have to be the next marathon runner, you just have to create a regular exercise routine that gets you at least 30-minutes of activity each day. Join the gym or find a local yoga or pilates class. If working out around the house fits into your schedule more comfortably, take a 30-minute walk around your neighborhood each day.Thriving, not just survivingNo one wants to merely exist in life. You want to be happy, productive, and above all else, satisfied with your work life. After all, you didn’t leave the cubicle to head into another stressful workplace culture. Use these tips to decrease your risk of burning out as an entrepreneur.About the A uthor:Jori Hamilton is a writer from the Pacific Northwest who has a particular interest in social justice, politics, education, healthcare, technology, and more. You can follow her on Twitter @ HamiltonJori.

6 Disappeared LinkedIn® Partner Applications and What to Do About Them †Part II Amazon Reading List

6 Disappeared LinkedIn ® Partner Applications and What to Do About Them – Part II Amazon Reading List Are you an avid reader? It used to be that you could share your passion easily on LinkedIn with the Amazon Reading List application. With the disappearance of LinkedIn partner applications came the elimination of this option. Amazon Reading List was a valuable way to let people know what type of professional development you were engaged in, as well as to round yourself out as a human being (read any good novels lately?) Many people are wondering how to include a reading list on LinkedIn now that the old method has vanished. I was fortunate to have one of my fellow LinkedIn authors, Patrick Gallagher, (LinkedIn Secrets Revealed) do some research on this topic. He wrote to Amazon and received the following email: Thank you for using Reading List by Amazon and for your patience as we’ve worked to make your book information available after LinkedIn deprecated their application program. Your Reading List information has been preserved and is available for import on Shelfari.com. Shelfari is an Amazon-owned site that helps you keep track of the books you’ve read and are reading, discover new books and interact with other readers. Go to https://www.shelfari.com/addbooks. You can sign in to Shelfari using your Amazon account (or your existing Shelfari account). If you’re already a member, click â€Å"Import Books† from the Your Shelf drop-down on the home page. Click the â€Å"Import Books† from the Your Shelf drop down or go directly to: https://www.shelfari.com/addbooks and you will be guided through importing your books and reviews to your Shelfari bookshelf. I followed these instructions and the process was pretty straightforward. I went to the link provided, www.shelfari.com/addbooks, and created an account. I then entered the same link again and was brought to this screen: When I clicked on IMPORT next to Import Your LinkedIn Reading List, all I had to do was provide my LinkedIn password and my reading list showed up in Shelfari! I then clicked on the Account Settings tab and customized my Shelfari link: Now that I have a link, I can add it to my LinkedIn Profile using the new platform. Here’s how to add a link in the new LinkedIn: In the Summary section, click on the blue box with a + sign in the corner. You will be brought to a box where you can paste a link: After you paste the link, you can provide a title and description: Unfortunately, there’s a small glitch. When I clicked on the link, the following screen appeared: I had to click on Read Original to get to the actual Shelfari list, which looks like this: In Shelfari, you can add books you have read or that you are reading, rate them and review them. I won’t give a tutorial on the website since I think you can figure it out by poking around! If this all seems too complicated, you can do as Patrick Gallagher did and add the Projects section to your profile. You can then create a â€Å"project† called â€Å"Amazon Kindle Book Reading List† or something similar, and list your books there. Here’s Patrick’s list: Another option would be to create a document with your list of books and upload it to Box.net. You can then add a link to the Box.net file on your LinkedIn profile. I will cover more about Box.net in my next entry of this series. Stay tuned, and happy reading! Want to read How to Write a KILLER LinkedIn Profile on Kindle? Curious about Patricks book? Check it out here: Category:Archived ArticlesBy Brenda BernsteinJanuary 28, 2013 2 Comments Laveda says: June 24, 2014 at 7:27 am The nerd in me was thoroughly excited to read this article because the Amazon Reading List was one of my favorite LinkedIn apps and I was a little dishearten to see it wasnt there anymore. Thank you for finding other options to provide a reading list. Ill definitely add one later this week. In all honesty, I enjoyed viewing my LinkedIn network readings on my news feed. That I will always miss. Laveda Log in to Reply The Essay Expert says: June 24, 2014 at 8:16 am Thanks for your comment Laveda. With LinkedIns new Publishing platform, you should once again have easy access to educational content from your network! Log in to Reply