Hello, and welcome to the Midlife Business Show with Suzanne Mountain.

This is the podcast that celebrates all those of us who are building a business during our middle years. I’m an ex-corporate girl who started my business six years ago in my fifties. And I’m loving it. This podcast is here to inspire you with conversations with other entrepreneurs about the messy and magical ups and downs of this period of our lives. Plus, I’ll be sharing simple, actionable step by step strategies to help you build a business with impact and a life that you love

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 I’m gonna talk about a very real phenomena, midlife business burnout. It’s one of the most prevalent problems of online entrepreneurs. Today, we’ll take a look at what it is, why it happens and what you can do to prevent it. 

I’ll also explore seven signs of burnout and suggest alternative solutions. That might be just what you are searching for. 

If you love your business and you are getting frustrated at parts of it that don’t seem to change no matter how hard you work, if conditions have changed for you personally, dumping more responsibility on your plate, as it sometimes does during midlife and taking all the fun out of life for you. If you find yourself engaged in destructive habits, even small ones that you make repeatedly and wonder why you just can’t get out there and get it done. Then this episode is for you being a business owner online or offline typically means working more hours than you want, certainly at the start of your business as you build your brand.

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But what if you are still doing that two, three or more years later, that’s when burnout strikes, you’ve heard the term I’m sure many times, but what exactly is it and why does it happen? 

Burnout is defined as physical and emotional exhaustion that takes the joy out of your business and SAPs away your ability to be proactive and engaged in that way. It lies dangerously, parallel to depression. 

It can manifest any time. 

Whenever two conditions creep into your work life, they are stress and the feeling that your business is controlling you rather than, and the other way round the moment you have burnout, creeping in the stress you are already feeling tends to magnify. 

Warning signs can include not feeling energised any longer, frustration with your inability to accomplish tasks that were once easy, not to sit down and do the work, feeling angry with yourself at not accomplishing more procrastination and avoidance behaviours, a decline in self worth.

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And self-esteem starting to resent your clients and a feeling of being overwhelmed and helpless above all burnout is characterized by physical and emotional exhaustion. It takes a toll on your family relationships, your health and your business, and make some mockery of your freedom-based purpose of going into your business in the first place. 

So step one starts with recognising you have a problem.

 Think back to how you felt when you quit your day job and woke up on your first day of running your business. What made you feel so euphoric?  

Chances are it was that feeling of complete freedom of being your own boss, setting your own hours and not having to deal with toxic bosses or coworkers or ungrateful or needy clients fast forward to now 1, 2, 3 years or more after you started. And the chances are that euphoria may have gone. The reality you are facing is that you are working more hours than that, rather than being a master of your time.

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You are still fitting yourself around your clients, and then trying to find time for your family, let alone finding time for yourself. 

Your health is suffering. Your sleep schedule has gone right out the window. You’re either up all night, unable to sleep, a wink, but too tired to work. 

Or you find yourself sleeping longer and longer and taking naps. When you have deadlines, you’re working far too many hours and you’re not having much fun at all. 

Add to that the pressure of always having to achieve everything, becomes a competition with peers, with influences in your fields that you are to be like with yourself. 

You are cranky with your family and friends and feel that you can’t even take a holiday or a full day off. You eat lunch at your desk or skip meals completely, and answer emails and texts from your phone while out with your family.

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Meanwhile, you’ll find yourself getting annoyed with clients and frustrated by day to day business tasks, you don’t feel creative anymore. In fact, you might have even started fantasizing about getting a real job. 

Guilt starts to creep in because you’re procrastinating putting off and not achieving. You. Tell yourself you should be doing more. 

You’re logic. It now runs along the lines of ‘I should be achieving as much as so’ and ‘she’s such a success’. 

Or ‘if I work harder, I’ll be more successful’. 

‘And if I’m more successful, then I’ll be happier’. 

And then there’s the very super successful young celebrity influencers you’re modeling yourself on compound the problem is by giving new negative messages about yourself, that you are too old to be doing this. 

That if you can’t afford a high ticket course, you’re not an action taker. 

If any of this resonates with you, if you’re here because you know you are burning out, it’s important to shift our focus, not on our wo, but on how we can create a mindset shift that will banish burnout and it’s attendance symptoms.

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Sure. We can talk about changing the way we view happiness and success to create a positive new reality, but there are also some simple actions we can and should take to put us in position, to be able to look at things with optimism and a positive mindset so that we can become enthusiastic and engaged again. 

 

So step two is making ‘you’ your top priority. Talk to any business owner about his or her business and inevitably it comes around to not being able to shut off one’s mind, which in fact is one of the most frequent signs that you are heading for burnout. 

Instead of taking breaks or relaxing for the evening, your mind’s grappling with how you’re going to tackle various problems or tasks, or you are working in your evening helping that client with a genuine or maybe not so genuine emergency.

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So number one, pay attention to your own physical and emotional health. 

You can’t effectively serve clients and grow your business if you are struggling. You owe it to them and to your family and friends to put your needs first. 

 

And let’s face another misconception on that very subject. Paying attention to your own physical and emotional health is not something you do after you’ve earned the right to free time. It’s not something that will come once you are a success. 

Take that approach and it’s pretty much guaranteed that day will never come. Why? Because you’ll burn out long before that. 

So start now, make time for self-care non-negotiable. 

The essential elements of self care include physical movement time for and reflection time in nature. It could be a walk in the country or some gardening or paying a visit to a beautiful park. Some social time with people who make you laugh and feel good.

These are not luxuries. Even if they may feel like luxuries right now, these care activities are basic essentials. 

Without them you’ll start to feel even just on a subconscious level, deprived, tired, and foggy. It’s fun to work in your PJs if you choose to, but don’t work in your PJs because you are so pressured writing that presentation, you feel like you don’t have time to get washed and dressed. 

Sure it’s wonderful to work in your most comfortable clothes, curl up on the couch with your laptop and your dog, but do remember to get dressed and get out of the house.  

Balance. That’s what it’s all about. 

Even if you have to schedule yourself more rigidly than you like, build those four elements of self care into your life. Every day, self care, doesn’t just apply to the physical, but to the emotional routines and allowances to it’s taking that 20 minutes for meditation.

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It’s treating yourself to a fun cosy mystery every Friday. While having your reading hour every day, self-care recharges you and keeps your stress down and self-care keeps life fun and reassures you that you are beautiful inside and out. 

This is not a luxury. It’s an absolute necessity. Identify what is important to you and decide how to make it happen. 

Plan a holiday. If you can’t imagine being able to take time off, then book it for six months from now and do the necessary work to make it happen. Starting with the next step. If you’ve been LA in this area or let other people’s priorities override your own, stop the downward cascade now and start adding missing self care routines into your life. One at a time, most of all, successful self care boils down to stopping long enough to listen to yourself, listen to your own needs.

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Where do you feel you are devaluing or neglecting yourself? 

What do you wish you had more time for? Respect yourself, switch the phone off. Set a particular time every day during working hours to check your stats. Shut your phone off too. When you’re going for a walk in the park or having a massage.

Stop right now, identify what you need to add to your self-care routines. Schedule back in those things that you’ve cut out. 

Make the time, if an aspect of self-care is important in making you feel like a whole person, the world won’t stop. If you take an hour off to go to the hairdressers or get your nails done after all, you can’t love and appreciate others when you don’t love and appreciate yourself, 

 

Step three is getting help. So I talked about not being able to shut your mind off resulting in actions like taking business calls in the middle of self care or family times.

This is a big sign that you cannot run your business all by yourself and be all things to all people. 

It’s time to seriously consider getting help. 

The solo dream might feel romantic, but the reality is no one can be and do everything. It’s exhausting. 

And it eats into your profits. 

Make a list of the tasks you procrastinate on the most. It will be a relief to simply take these off your plate and out your mind. 

And if you can’t delegate, automate or outsource all of them at once, start with the tasks that drain you the most. 

Here are some common suggestions for outsourcing. 

Remember what drains you, might absolutely energise someone else. 

You can outsource your bookkeeping, accounting, technical, and technological aspects of your business, your graphic design, your website creation and maintenance, and also social media management. 

 

If you’ve never outsourced before, start with small projects, look for recommendations of talented team members who can work independently.

The last thing you need is someone you have to micromanage. So get referrals from trusted sources and decide which specific aspect of each category you want to outsource. 

 

Do you need to outsource that entire category or just one troublesome task? 

 

For example, do you need all your regular bookkeeping outsourced or do you need an accountant at tax time? Do you just need someone to set up your autoresponder lists for you? Or do you need someone to handle maintaining and uploading them? 

Social media management is something it’s best not to completely outsource tasks that actively help you grow your business and build your reputation and relationships with your ideal audience.  Include at the very least daily checking in on your favourite people and any Facebook groups you belong to, where you get support or your ideal clients hang out, but you can and outsource content to be created specifically for your audience content such as image quotes, Facebook ads, blog posts, reminders, and announcements events set up a good position to take is any task that does not directly need you to implement it in order to be build relationships, grow your business, or make money can and should be outsourced the real key to getting the right help lies in understanding which parts of the business energise you and which parts, stress, and drain you, which parts absolutely need your personal touch and which parts can be automated delegated or outsourced.

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Then again, it might be parts of your personal life that are stressing you out and causing you to feel you’re working night and day without seeing any benefits, consider outsourcing these areas too. 

If the weekly shopping knocks you flat or you’ve run out of key items in the middle of the week, consider ordering groceries online and having them delivered. 

If you find yourself having to do the shopping for your parents, then consider doing that online for them too. And having it delivered directly to them. 

If housework makes you champ at the bit and interrupt you in the middle of your creativity, or you’re just tired and stressed with having a messy house, hire a cleaner, get your partner involved in driving the kids to places they need to go. 

Or conversely, if you really love watching your daughter at her hockey practice, as I used to, outsource an aspect of your business.

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So you’ll have time to go and enjoy this. If some part of your business is holding you back, then get qualified, help with it straight away. 

Coaches, qualified assistants and professionals add value and authority to your service. 

They save you time by making sure every part of your business runs like clockwork in short, done properly and wisely outsourcing will grow your business and make you more money. 

Step four is about saying no. Another important step to take in reducing midlife business burnout.  

Drop anything that drains you, stresses you or doesn’t make you a good return on investment. Allow yourself to be choosy and learn to say, no. 

You don’t have to accept every client or coffee invite or volunteer opportunity. 

And here’s another point, it’s okay to say no without explanation. 

No is a complete sentence. Don’t give in to the pressure of taking another client for every new invitational opportunity.

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Ask yourself, does this take me closer to my goals or further away.  

Also ask yourself, does this fit with my current schedule? If not, then you’ll probably wisest to make it a no. 

You may want to fit in with a particular client or activity, but before you say yes, ask yourself, will I be able to give this my full attention and the best of me? 

If not, then it’s a clear no.

 

On top of this, learn to really listen to your body’s own reactions. If you are keen to join a neighborhood project, it’s a cause you believe in. But every time you think about it, you feel a wave of weariness sweep over you at the commitment that it would mean, then you are already too busy. Be choosy, just say no. 

So step five is about controlling your calendar. Adding one simple high habit to your work routine can reduce stress and overwhelm while also creating clarity.

This significantly reduces the chance of burnout or helps you recover.

 If you are already on the way there at the start of every week, take a look at your calendar and your commitments and assess the coming weeks’ needs. 

How many hours a day and a week do you want to work? 

Then decide exactly how much unscheduled time, if any, you will set aside from real emergencies and  set specific daily and weekly goals. 

What one thing is your absolute priority for each day for the overall week? Reaching these goals can energise and inspire you as well as building your self worth.  

Lock off your non-negotiable goals, including time for your family health exercise, meditation, personal development, and get these in your diary before you fill in any client work or appointments, identify your top priorities from last week’s to do list and block these off first, keep your daily to do lists small prioritize no more than one to three tasks that absolutely have to be done that day.

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Resist the urge to overbook yourself or be over optimistic about how long projects and meetings will take. 

If you find you’re always scrambling to meet deadlines, give yourself an extra third or half the project time. On top of the time you’ve already allowed, scale your work activities to match your daily energy levels and rhythms. 

If you find that you work better in the mornings, then make sure that you do the activity that needs your best self. 

During that time, if you feel less stressed, getting all your meetings over in the same day, schedules them all for the same day. 

If on the other hand, you can only handle one or two meetings a day, space them out over the week. Don’t schedule meetings or zoom calls back to back, allow yourself time to process and recharge after each meeting, as well as to take a mental break and prepare for the next one.

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This will help you avoid reactivity. The true enemy of productivity and a major cause of burnout, create deadlines and use an online scheduler that syncs with your calendars, allow clients to access it to self-schedule sessions with you as your availability allows it. Isn’t so much about making more time. As about using the time we have available more efficiently and wisely to paraphrase the old saying a foolish man waste time. A wise man makes use of it. Remember that work never finishes, especially when you run your own business, you could easily work 24 hours a day, and that still be more to do. So when you’ve reached the end of the works hours, reward yourself, stop for the day and recharge for tomorrow. 

 

Step six is review your client list. 

Take a hard look at your current client list and honestly ask yourself if you truly enjoy working with each one.

If the answer is not, yes, then it’s a definite no and make plans to move them on. 

Another factor to consider is, has your ideal client changed since you started your business? Has the market changed, revisit your ideal client avatar? Is it time for an update? 

Perhaps the clients you once served well are now no longer a good fit. Does your message and your brand need an update to reflect this? If the answer is yes, get that rebranding taken care of as quickly as possible so that you no longer attract the wrong kind of client and do attract your ideal client. 

Only identify your ideals, your goals, your values, and decide what you want more of in your life and what you want to get out of your life. Then make this happen. This can be a real powerful way to guard against and end burnout.

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Step seven is reviewing your pricing. 

So burnout is often caused by forcing yourself to work with too many people at a time just to pay the bills. If you are full and busy and you are feeling worn out, chances are that now is a good time to raise your prices. In fact, that sort of demand is a sure sign that raising your prices is overdue. It’s the law of supply and demand. 

There’s only one you and only so many hours in the day. If you’ve got a waiting list you can afford to be choosy, that’s when it’s a great time to create that self study course or write that book or create another digital product. And you can direct some clients towards these as they leave. Other factors to consider is when you have a waiting list, are you presenting a unique signature method or program?

Are you something perceived as top value by your ideal audience? 

And are you offering even one key benefit your competitors are missing?

 The more of these assets you have, the more confident you should be in raising your prices. The way your brain processes, the world dictates your susceptibility to midlife business burnout. 

Do you see problems as a challenge or a curse following these steps and taking action will help you change to a more positive mindset that allows you to achieve more or even just start achieving again. 

It allows you to reclaim the joy in your relationships, your business, and your life, and that spreads out to others. Don’t listen to your fearful mind and excuses, banish burnout today, and go schedule that holiday. 

If you feel that you are on the edge of burnout, then please, please make sure that you get some support. If you feel that now is the time for you to take a look at your business and you want some support with reorganising, simplifying or increasing your prices. 

Then book a call with me and we can get that done. 

And if you would just like to be amongst a group of hugely supportive midlife business owners, then come and join my Facebook group. You’ll find all the links you need in the show notes. 

 

 Bye for now. 

 

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Okay. That’s a wrap for today. Thanks for listening, please subscribe, rate and review the Midlife Business Show. And if you’ve enjoyed it, tell your business buddies all about it.