If you were asked to think of adjectives that best describe the experience of being a small business owner, what would come to mind? Easy? Peaceful? Relaxing? Not likely! Entrepreneurship is inextricably linked with stress, late nights and burnout. Of course, there’s a huge amount of positives that go with being your own boss and most of us just accept these negative aspects as par for the course. Does it need to be this way though? Are we doing enough for ourselves and our wellbeing? Or are we stuck in this mind-set without the time, space and resources to discover a better way?
When we’re not busy working for our clients, we’re working for our families and we always feel that there are not enough hours in the day. When we get a few minutes downtime, we can feel guilty if we do something for ourselves. We think we should be using that time to do some follow up with potential clients, help our partners at home or make sure that our employees are doing well. This, however, can be a recipe for disaster and the spectre of burnout always looms large in the entrepreneurial life.
If you burnout, you will have caused yourself real damage and you’ll be no good to your family, clients or employees. Therefore, a long-term strategy is needed. Our guest on this episode of the number one small business podcast is Kathryn Lovewell and she is an expert when it comes to creating emotional resilience. Emotional resilience is needed when working in high pressure environments and being an entrepreneur is definitely up there with some of the toughest.
Without emotional resilience, each knockback, late night and crisis can chip away at the body and mind. Over time this can lead to serious problems such as the aforementioned burnout. By using strategies to make yourself more resilient, you will be able to handle challenges, rise above problems and put events into perspective. This is not only great for yourself and your wellbeing but it will also have a huge impact on your effectiveness, productivity and leadership.
Kathryn’s going to talk us through how we can create more emotional resilience and how this can have a positive impact on our lives and businesses.
Issue Challenged in this Small Business Podcast:
How can I develop the emotional resilience needed for long-term success?
About Kathryn:
Kathryn Lovewell is an expert in the field of emotional resilience and using mindfulness to create wellbeing. She worked for many years in mainstream education and during that time found that she and her colleagues were all suffering from the stresses and strains of the job. Kathryn studied techniques to help her cope and now works with schools and teachers around the world to help educators build up emotional resilience which can have a fantastic benefit on physical and mental health, wellbeing and performance.
Kathryn’s programmes, seminars, book and audio resources have helped thousands of people develop skills that have improved their lives in so many different ways. She’s joining us on this episode of Excellence Expected to talk through some of her experiences and how her techniques can be applied to those in the business world.
Actionable Tips:
* Take the oxygen first. Often, everything else comes before ourselves. The needs of family and clients are always at the forefront of our minds and it can be easy to forget about yourself. You need to take the time to focus on yourself and make sure that you are looking after yourself. How you do this will be unique to you and your circumstances. Looking after your mental, physical and spiritual health by dedicated some time each day to yourself will have a profound effect on how well you can perform at work and look after your family.
* Create the weather. It’s all about having the attitude that will allow you to meet...
