5 Simple Strategies to Soothe Your Overwhelmed Entrepreneur Brain
Do you lie awake at night agonizing about your business? Do you feel so overwhelmed that you’re not sure you can keep going as an entrepreneur?
You’re not alone. Being an entrepreneur puts an enormous toll on your brain. But just like anything else, you can learn how to take care of your mind so you have the energy and focus to manage your business and enjoy your life.
If you are looking for an easy introduction to mental wellness, Declutter Your Mind by SJ Scott and Barrie Davenport is a great beginner’s resource.
5 Simple Strategies to Soothe Your Overwhelmed Entrepreneur Brain
1. Manage your negative thoughts
If you’re like most entrepreneurs, you experience bouts of negative thinking that are demotivating, distracting, and draining. Rather than allowing negative thoughts to control you, you need to learn to control them.
When you find yourself in a negative thought spiral, the first step is to simply catch yourself and recognize that your brain is spiraling. Then try these strategies to shut that cyclone down.
Recognize your negative thoughts for what they are – just thoughts – not reality. By labelling them as no more than thoughts, it’s easier to move them aside and get back to work.
If you need something a little more active – when you start negative spiraling say “STOP” out loud. Then say something positive like, “I’ve got this.”
If those strategies don’t work, try distracting yourself with something that makes you happy. Fill your brain with a podcast, song, or quick comedy clip. Usually, we just need a few moments of happiness to get out of a negative spiral.
2. Stop comparing yourself to others
As entrepreneurs it is so easy to get caught in the comparison trap. We see business owners with more followers, more customers, and more money—it can feel deflating when you are working hard, and growth is coming slowly.
Rather than comparing yourself to the current state of other entrepreneurs, remind yourself that when they started no one knew who they were, they didn’t have many customers, and they weren’t making much money.
Then completely push aside your comparisons and focus on you. Accept yourself for who you are today. Wherever you are as an entrepreneur, celebrate the progress you have made.
You’re doing great!
3. Overcome procrastination
Many people become entrepreneurs because they want freedom. But when you gain freedom, you lose enforced deadlines, and this can lead to a lot of procrastination.
Procrastination often results in subpar work. Or worse, you may put off essential work indefinitely because you have no deadline to meet. This failure to execute creates guilt and anxiety which drains you mentally, stealing the motivation you need to get your work done. Procrastination creates a vicious cycle of poor productivity.
If you are a procrastinator, here are some strategies to help you execute your key tasks in a timely manner:
Before you wrap up your day, write down the top thing (or things) you need to accomplish the next day and leave that note where you will see it first thing.
Then, when you start to work the next morning, move your phone and any other distractions out of the way and turn off alerts. Don’t open your email and close all unnecessary tabs.
Finally, overcome the inertia holding you back from getting started, and just go. Don’t worry if it’s perfect, don’t plan out the whole process. Start. Once you get over the inertia hump and start working, you can go back to edit and clarify your process.
4. Banish clutter
You may not realize it, but physical and digital clutter can prevent you from focusing on your work.
When your physical environment is messy, not only is it difficult to find things, but visual distractions pull your brain away from your work. Keep your office and desk organized and serene, so your brain can stay attuned to the task at hand.
Digital clutter can also cause you to lose focus. Whether your desktop is a sea of files, or your email has thousands of unopened messages, if you don’t keep your digital space organized, you will waste time searching for things and create unneeded stress.
Set aside 5 minutes every day to move files from your desktop and Downloads to appropriate folders. And when you go through your inbox rather than skipping over unimportant emails, spend just a few minutes to delete them, or even better - unsubscribe. Then you will only have important emails in your inbox that won’t get lost in the clutter of spam.
In about ten minutes a day you can create an organized digital experience.
5. Take care of yourself
This is a message you’ve heard before, and it’s one of the hardest things to do as an entrepreneur, but you must take care of yourself. Working too much will slow you down and decrease your ability to run your business. You must find time for joy and relaxation.
Make time for the people you love. Human interaction and relationships are the key driver of happiness, and happiness improves your ability to face the challenges of the day.
Make time for experiences out in the real world. Go out to dinner, see a concert, or take a walk. Close your computer, put down your phone and engage with the actual outside world.
Finally, make time every day to do nothing. Whether that means soaking in a bath, watching the sunset, or sitting in a comfy chair – give yourself permission to do nothing for a little while every day.
Taking care of yourself does not mean you’re lazy – it means you understand that you can’t thrive as an entrepreneur if you aren’t thriving as a human being.
Declutter Your Mind: Small Business Book Review
My overall review of Declutter Your Mind by SJ Scott and Barrie Davenport is 3.5 out of 5 stars for small business owners.
It has some valuable takeaways, though I have read other wellness and productivity books that I preferred. There’s nothing here that is unique or different than the standard lessons on mental wellness.
That said, if you haven’t done any learning in this space, then this would be a good starter book. It hits lightly on a lot of topics, so it’s a good introduction to the concept of taking care of your mental self.
If mental wellness is something you have explored, then you’ve probably learned about these concepts before. But knowing concepts and enacting them are two different things, so giving this book a quick read could be a good reminder of practices that can improve your life and your business.
