Managing You (And Avoiding Burnout) By Kym Krey

Do you feel like you’ve been stuck on overdrive for the last few years? Whether you’ve settled into the ‘new normal’ with a new routine, or you’re still juggling like a circus act, the fact remains that things in business still aren’t smooth sailing.

Often managing with fewer staff on our team, and our existing staff wanting greater work/ life balance and more flexible lifestyles, we can feel like we are trying to do more and more with less and less, jumping more hurdles each week than ever before.

So, who is holding this altogether? You.

You have a business to run, bills to pay and a team to lead, and they’re all relying on you. At times the sheer responsibility can feel overwhelming., even for the most capable and determined.

Now, most small business owners I know are made of sturdy stuff. We can push through hardship with the best of them, but the reality is that it does come at a cost.

There’s a drain mentally, emotionally, physically, financially. In short bursts, most experienced owners will do what it takes and worry about themselves later, but when ‘later’ doesn’t come…something has to give.

When that holiday you’ve been promising yourself for 2 years now is postponed for the 4th time, when your long weekend plans are shelved because you have staff off sick, or when you sacrificed sleep and exercise somewhere in the blur of all this and haven’t quite got back into routine… the body, at some point… says ‘No’.

We can’t continue to do that forever, so ‘pushing through’ is not a long-term solution. Yes, there are still challenges in your business, but the reality is that this isn’t likely to change anytime soon, so ‘waiting for it all to settle down’ is a dangerous fantasy.

It’s time to learn to dance in the rain.

As the key person in your business, you are pivotal to its long-term success. You are the most important resource in your business. This is not the time to be a martyr. This is the time to be smart.

Hustle culture may have got you to this point, but it will also wipe you out of the game if you don’t recognise what’s happening and choose differently. Allowing yourself to burn out, as well as devastating your health, will have enormous upheaval on your business. called in sick, needed time off or generally took the measures they needed to protect their own mental and physical health, it often came at the expense of our owners and managers. You were the ones keeping the wheels turning and picking up the slack.

As the months rolled on, I saw exhaustion set in. Mental, physical, and emotional. You desperately wanted to stop, slow down or take a break… but felt it wasn’t an option and I saw the fatigue in your faces. I wanted to help. Over the last 12 months, I’ve taken a deep dive into the science of high-level performance, recovery and avoiding burnout to understand what we need to know to also look after ourselves in challenging times.

After many hours of webinars, online programs, books and video resources, here’s what I learned:

When the research was done on elite-level performers in the worlds of both sports/ athletics and business, the data was very similar. To operate at the highest levels, you will deal with high-level challenges, and push yourself to limits at times, and your body can achieve incredible things, but the key is in the recovery.

We must prioritise recovery. We must allow ourselves to stop, pause and regenerate regularly, so we can dive back in and go again. These are the 6 key elements proven to support your physical and mental wellbeing, resilience, recovery, and general self-care.

1. Prioritise your SLEEP. A cool, quiet, darkened room is essential. Turn devices off an hour before sleep, use blue blocker glasses to prevent disruption to your sleep cycles from computers and devices (www.baxterblue.com. au are awesome!), and try to maintain the same sleep & wake times each day to support your circadian rhythm. Develop a wind-down routine that signals to your brain that you are preparing for sleep.

2. Schedule RECOVERY. Book out a long weekend/extended break every quarter. Don’t ‘wait and see’ if you can get away. Lock it in as a priority- a big rock- and don’t move it! Do it at the start of the year (or do it now!), months or a full year in advance, and book everything else around it.

3. Switch OFF. It’s time to put a big red line through your diary. Arrange at least 1 day each month when you have nothing to do, nowhere to go and are free of schedules and commitments. It might be a family day, a trip to the beach, a spa treatment, the luxury of just reading a book or even just a day where you allow it to unfold as you feel. Because our working lives are ruled by time, schedules and appointments, finding the ‘off button’, even just one day per month, works absolute wonders.

4. Daily ROUTINE. What’s the favourite part of your day? That 10 minutes in the morning with your first coffee before the kids wake up? Your morning walk with a fun podcast? Running yourself a bath at the end of a long day? 15 minutes meditation before you go to sleep? Whatever it is, take a few moments every day to do that thing every day that calms, refreshes or re-energises you. This is preventative medicine. Prioritise you.

5. MOVE your body. Sweat, walk, run, ride, dance, skip... whatever floats your boat. Just move. Those endorphins are key to relieving stress, clearing your mind, making you feel good and setting you up for an awesome day.

6. Eat CLEAN. Your body needs to keep you going, particularly under pressure. Respect it. Feed it consciously. Ditch the energy drinks, the sugar, the caffeine, the processed food. Treat your body like the Ferrari it is. An hour or so of meal prep on a day off will set you up with a fridge/freezer full of healthy, tasty, nutritious food to get you through the week or utilise a healthy food delivery service and put your feet up. Either way, your health is too important to sacrifice to fast food and junk. Plus, going all day without food kills your energy, crashes your blood sugar and sends cortisol levels soaring. Hello weight gain and insomnia! Get organised and fill your work fridge with the good stuff.

There’s no avoiding that business can be demanding, and you will need to draw on all of your resources to get yourself through a crisis, but just like a bank account, you can’t only make withdrawals. You’ve got to ensure you make regular deposits by prioritising the steps above, so you have a good, healthy balance in place to draw on when needed.

You’re in this for the long haul. This is about learning to manage ourselves in the same way we must learn to manage our team, our finances, or any other element of our business to ensure that we have the energy, the clear thinking, the physical and mental resources we need to steer your ship successfully.

Do it now.

Kym Krey is a salon industry veteran with the runs on the board to help you get real results. She’s the gal you’ll want to have in your corner when things get rough or when you’re planning that next big, scary jump. Reach out at www.kymkrey.com.au or kym@kymkrey. com.au