I admit it: I ignored the signs that I was burned out for a long time. (Years, actually.)
My most vivid burnout memory was seeking out ice cream at all hours of the day. On the way to work, 11 o’clock at night, or having to manage a ravenous craving for it in the middle of a meeting.
Often, feeding the ice cream beast within me, was all I could think about.
From anywhere in the city, I could tell you the nearest source of ice cream instantly.
At the time, I attributed this to an insatiable sweet tooth that I inherited from my dad and a bad habit that I couldn’t shake.
It went unnoticed that my desire for ice cream increased as my stress levels did.
I would learn years later that this was a sign of entrepreneur burnout.
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Why Entrepreneurs Burnout and Ignore It
About 75% of entrepreneurs and small business owners are concerned about their mental health. While more than 40% report feeling burned out. By the way, 36% of entrepreneurs said they took one or no vacations in the last two years.
Entrepreneurs/business owners and leaders ignore entrepreneur burnout because they see it as a sign of failure. This comes from how stress affects your brain. It translates chronic stress into fear or feelings of failure, which leads to math that equates burnout with failure.
Many sources point to long hours, financial pressure, and a burning desire to succeed as major reasons for entrepreneurial burnout. I think most entrepreneurs and leaders are more affected by an unhealthy or negative mindset or personality struggles like perfectionism and people pleasing. These things make you more susceptible to making mistakes, making you less efficient, and too tired to make better decisions.
In turn you end up working long hours due to mistakes causing you to be less efficient. Those mistakes and lower productivity can mean a financial hit. And, a warped definition of success can come from unrealistic expectations that have morphed from unhealthy beliefs.
There are a lot of motives for entrepreneur burnout, but here are four less discussed reasons:
- Wrong kind of passion: Passion is what fuels most entrepreneurs to keep showing up when things get hard. There are two kinds of passion – harmonious and obsessive.
Harmonious passion comes from a sense of satisfaction and contributes to personal identity. Obsessive passion is motivated by status, money, and power. These motivations are tied to self-esteem and are relied upon to produce feelings of self-worth.
Too often, entrepreneurs are driven by obsessive passion, which are tied to things that aren’t consistent and this leads to exhausting mood swings and stress.
- Boredom at work: Entrepreneurs can get bored with their work, too. You can lose interest in your work and work-related tasks. Boredom can cause irritability, stress, and fatigue.
- Trouble delegating: I think a lot of entrepreneurs have trouble delegating because they become used to only depending on themselves. You were likely all you had in the beginning to get things done. By the time you begin to hire employees your beliefs about what you are responsible for day-in-and-day-out have morphed into unrealistic expectations.
- You try to power through: Most entrepreneurs believe that if they keep working hard and ignore a difficult/tough situation, they will feel better and be able to relax when the work is done or things get better.
Burnout does not say anything at all about your entrepreneurial and leadership talent or character.
Signs of Entrepreneur Burnout
Burnout is defined as a state of emotional, mental, and physical exhaustion due to excessive and prolonged stress.
The chronic stress and exhaustion often lead to an inability to keep up or meet expectations. As a result, you lose your motivation or drive to succeed. The lack of progress can easily make you depressed, which fuels cycles of poor performance that keep getting worse and harder to deal with.
The longer you allow your burnout to fester, the harder and/or longer it will take to recover. Your chronic stress also endangers profits, productivity, and can harm professional and personal relationships.
Warning signs that entrepreneur burnout is hitting you:
- Your body is talking to you: You experience persistent fatigue, back or stomach aches, muscle pain, or migraines.
- Sleep disturbance: Sleep plays a vital role in clearing out mental fog. Developing insomnia or having trouble getting up in the morning signal that your mind isn’t coping with stress.
- Change in appetite: If your brain is overloaded with business concerns, it often shows up in neglect for your nutritional needs (loss of appetite) or overindulgence as a comfort or distraction.
- Excessive and unexplained anxiety: Anxiety starts to creep into unrelated areas of your life.
- Lack of focus: This is a sign that you have taken on too much and need to scale back for a while. You might simply have too much to think about to give an issue or task your entire attention.
- Lack of motivation: And, when you can’t focus properly on a single thing, it’s hard to get started at all. You may find yourself procrastinating more than usual or becoming overwhelmed by simple tasks.
- Feelings of loneliness and isolation: You’ve allowed your business and work to take over life so much that you are neglecting family and friends.
- Increased irritability and go from anger to despair: You find yourself irritated with people more than usual, or are more easily upset or angered – which leads to you feeling discouraged and dissatisfied.
- Cynical about your work and colleagues: You feel distant or detached from the work you do. You might even have negative or cynical thoughts about work that you were once passionate about. Little by little, you are becoming very frustrated.
- Make a lot of mistakes: Your chronic, high levels of stress and exhaustion cause you to make more mistakes than usual, forgetful, and less efficient.
- Brooding: You used to be shiny and happy, but now you are dark and brooding. Feelings of failure also begin to creep in.
