It’s important to avoid burn out

Editor’s note: Michelle Stockman is an independent consultant with her company, Fort Smith-based Msaada Group. Stockman earned a bachelor’s degree from Loyola University-Chicago in communications and fine arts, and earned a master’s in entrepreneurship from Western Carolina University. Her thoughts on business success appear each week on The City Wire.

There’s a song by the Casting Crowns that unintentionally speaks to each of us as we navigate the business world that notes: “She is running, a hundred miles an hour in the wrong direction. She is trying, but the canyons ever widen in the depths of her cold heart. So she steps out into another misadventure just to find, she’s another two years older and she’s three more steps behind …”

When your day turns bad, in business it seems a bad day can turn nightmare in a heartbeat. Whether the bad day started from internal factors or outside factors completely out of anyone’s control, the highlight of your career can turn into your worst nightmare in seconds. Like a women trying to find the magical bathing suit for the summer season that helps her overcome the fears of exposing her weaknesses in public, the suit brings excitement, love and loathing into her life on any given day at any given moment.

We all can identify a bad day and look forward to the light of a new day and new opportunities. However, when a bad day is followed by multiple bad days or the energy that once kept you flying through months of 80+ work weeks has waned and you start looking at your business as a burden over the opportunity that you have been selected to conquer you need to slow down.

However, entrepreneurs (or business leaders) are often blinded by their ego with fears of showing a weakness in themselves if they slow down, or they fear the business can’t live without them and chaos will break out. Yet this workaholic attitude exposes weaknesses in the business and leader without a spoken word. Resting the mind and body are as needed to your role in business as cash flow.

As much as we like to push our limits, at some point in our lives we have to admit we actually have limits. While they differ from each person, it is not good for your health or well being to push beyond those limits. Also, giving oneself time to recharge also allows time for the business to show its weaknesses for the business leader to address. It’s understandable to jump back into work when a critical client has an emergency or the business runs into an unexpected problem, but those times need to be the exception and not the norm.

When the business leader is burned out, the feelings and attitudes of that leader will trickle down in the business. This breeds unnecessary problems and is a high price to pay when the solution can be very easy — take time for you. Whether you start playing a round of golf regularly, take several long weekends or take a vacation (or two) away from everything, everyone needs an opportunity to pursue the reasons why you work so hard. These breaks give your body and mind time to rest and pursue other interests, which in turn recharges and sharpens your mind to return to the business. Your passion, creativity, and ability to make sound decisions are at their best after you’ve given yourself a break.

It’s funny how we fear what is best for us. While we think face time will prove the world how dedicated and hard working we are, it is those who know how to take breaks, recharge and jump back into work that show us wrong.

The feelings of chaos and confusion of the woman in the Casting Crowns song will arrive at your door step if you continue without time to regroup, re-evaluate or re-adjust the priorities your life.

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Stockman can be reached at [email protected]