5 Healthy Ways to Handle Stress as a Business Owner
As a business owner, you know all too well what stress is. From worrying about sales to dealing with issues within your workforce, your brain is often on edge and worrying. High levels of stress can quickly lead to burnout. This can cause you to feel tired and anxious, which can impact your focus and productivity.
Owning a business isn’t easy and avoiding stress is all but impossible. The good news is that there are many ways to manage stress so that it doesn’t impact your health or the success of your business.
Here are our top picks for how to handle business stress so that you can stay level-headed and focused.
1. Prioritize Your Tasks
One of the biggest causes of business stress is trying to work on too many things at once. As a business owner, you have to wear endless hats, and your to-do list is constantly growing. This can quickly become extremely overwhelming.
When running a business, it’s important to prioritize your tasks. Stress management is all about not stretching yourself too thin. Take the time to figure out what tasks are most important and which ones need to be done soonest.
By prioritizing tasks and goals, you know exactly what you need to focus on, and you’ll finally notice your to-do list will get smaller.
2. Keep a Clean, Organized Environment
Your environment plays a large role in your mental health. It’s also an indicator of how you’re feeling. When you’re overwhelmed, your environment is more likely to be disorganized. But this only makes things even more stressful.
One of the best things you can do is to tidy things up, including your desk and office. Take the time to:
- Sort and categorize papers.
- Get rid of any clutter.
- Use shelves and cabinets.
- Turn notes into digital files.
By organizing your working space, you’ll feel less frazzled. This will also give you a sense of control, which can greatly improve your well-being while also reducing stress levels.
3. Stay Positive
Whether you’re just starting out as a business owner or have a few years of experience, it’s all too easy to focus on the negative things. From being behind schedule to lacking funds, it’s easy to become stressed out and fixated on everything that’s going wrong.
Instead of dwelling on the negative, you can better manage business stress by reminding yourself of all of the positives. Write down everything you’ve accomplished thus far. Make note of all of the milestones that you’ve achieved. On those days that you’re feeling down, look at everything that’s gone right.
4. Take Time to Relax
If you’re like most business owners, when you’re feeling stressed, you simply push through it as much as you can, but this is the complete opposite of what you should be doing!
Instead of letting stress consume you, give yourself a break! Work/life balance is important, and it’s unhealthy to continuously commit to working while letting your personal life and happiness slip.
As a business owner, you owe it to yourself to relax! Spend time doing things that put your mind at ease. This could be as simple as taking a walk outside or hitting the gym during your lunch break to blow off some steam.
Other great ways to relax and calm your mind include:
- Taking deep breaths
- Practicing yoga
- Saying positive affirmations
- Enjoying happy hour with a colleague
- Finally taking that vacation
Don’t think twice about taking breaks and practicing some self-care. The more you take care of your health, the more ready you’ll be to keep your business on the path to success.
5. Delegate or Outsource Your Work
You’re only one person, and while it can be hard to accept that you can’t do it all, it’s reality! There is no shame in delegating work to your employees so that you can take a few things off of your plate. Sharing the workload relieves stress and will show your employees that they are an important part of your business’s success.
What can you do if you don’t have a large workforce? The other option to alleviate stress is to outsource some of your work. Hire a CPA to balance the budget and deal with anything finance-related. Or you can outsource your customer service calls. This way, you aren’t interrupted every time the phone rings while trying to focus on something you’re uniquely qualified to handle.
AnswerMTI Can Help!
Providing quality customer service is an important part of running a successful business. As a business owner, you know that there’s only so much time in the day to tend to your customers’ needs. This is where we can help.
AnswerMTI is one of the nation’s top answering services for small businesses. We offer a variety of services, including appointment scheduling, call patching, inbound call center services, and even remote receptionists solutions.
You can trust the team at AnswerMTI to take care of your customers so that you can focus on other aspects of growing your business. Want to learn more? Contact us at 844-798-1027.
