How to Remove Stress from Running a Business
Running a business can be like juggling flaming torches while riding a unicycle on a tightrope over a pit of hungry alligators. It can look very impressive from the outside, but on the inside, you might be sweating, panicking, and feeling that feeling of existential dread. And the constant feeling like something, anything may go wrong at any moment is very much present.
And then someone asks you whether or not you've tried outsourcing IT stress-free or whether you've decided to hand over the reins of your marketing team. You might roll your eyes, sip your lukewarm coffee, and wonder if it was that simple. Well, maybe it can be.
Managing stress in business isn't about pretending the alligators aren't there. It's about making your tightrope sturdier, dulling the torches, and maybe ditching the unicycle altogether. It can still feel difficult and like you're living on the edge, but that doesn't have to stay that way.
In fact, we've decided to put together a list of how to remove stress from running a business without having to flee to a remote mountain village and become a goat herder.
Start with the one thing that you're avoiding.
Every single business owner has a task. The one that they keep ignoring. The one that pops into their brain in the wee hours of the morning, uninvited and reminding you of its existence like a clay ghost. Avoiding stressful tasks doesn't remove the stress; it just hides it behind a curtain where it grows fangs and starts doing push-ups.
The trick is to do that task first. It's called eating the frog. If it's 900 unread emails, delete them. Wrestle that dragon that's bothering you. Whatever it is, deal with it early so it doesn't gnaw at your brain all day.
Stop trying to be the Swiss army knife of humans.
The reason we talked about outsourcing it stress-free is that if you hand over the reins somewhere, you're going to be able to tackle your business tasks with ease. You do not have to do everything. And while you may have been socialised and brainwashed into thinking that you have to handle everything yourself, it's time to step away from that mindset.
Entrepreneurs wear 27 hats. You might start Monday morning as a CEO and then Tuesday as the accounts payable. Wednesday afternoon might be spent crawling under a desk, unplugging and replugging things because someone's Wi-Fi feels slow. The problem is that being the Swiss army knife of a human makes for a good session of burnout.
Highly successful business people have something magical about them, and that magic is that they don't do everything themselves. They delegate. They hand off the task that they're not good at, or they don't like, and they don't feel guilty about it either. Delegation isn't laziness, but survival. If you're drowning, you need to get yourself a life raft.
Give your brain a break.
Your brain is like a toddler hopped up on sugar. It's constantly moving, constantly demanding attention, and prone to temper tantrums when tired. Rest is not optional for your brain. Its maintenance and rest are about as productive as you can get. You need to take breaks, not scroll on your phone until your thumb cramps, but actual breaks. Stand up, stretch, go for a walk, stare out the window and question your life choices. The point is that you need to let your mind reboot. You wouldn't run your computer for years without restarting it, so don't do it yourself.
Set boundaries like a boss.
You know that one client who thinks urgent means that they didn't plan well. Or the employee who texts you at 9:00 PM about printer toner. Or the feeling that if you're not instantly available, your business will collapse into flaming rubble.
The hard truth is that if you're always on, you'll eventually fall off. Set some boundaries and actually stick to them. Post your office hours, mute your notifications, and stop answering emails from your pillow. Just because you're a business leader doesn't mean that you have to have your business switched on all of the time. You are the boss, so set boundaries like one.
Systemise the boring stuff so you never have to think about it again.
One huge source of stress for business owners is decision fatigue, the exhausting parade of tiny daily decisions that slowly melt your brain like a forgotten popsicle. Systems can save you here. You need templates, checklists, automations, workflows, and do the processes that you keep setting up other people to do.
You need to make how you do things clear enough that someone else could follow along, even without you explaining it 87 times. If a task is repetitive, systemise it. If a task bores you, automate it. If a task confuses everyone, standardise it and if it scares you, well, see the next section.
When in doubt, outsource that sucker.
We talked about outsourcing to stress free IT companies, and there's a reason for that. Business stress often comes from not knowing, but from pretending. You know, while Googling frantically on a second monitor. You don't have to be the master of every domain, and you don't have to become an expert in payroll, cyber security, marketing, analytics, HR, compliance, tax law, existential philosophy, and on and on it goes. Instead, you can outsource the things that drain you, especially the ones that carry consequences, like IT, finance, or legal matters. Hiring experts isn't a luxury, but is protection for your time, sanity and your business. Stress is expensive. Outsourcing is an investment.
Running a business is always going to have its moments of chaos. With boundaries, delegations, systems, rest, and a healthy dose of outsourcing. You can tame the alligators, upgrade the tightrope, and maybe even swap that flaming torch for something less hazardous. Like a latte. You've got this.
