Self-Care, Your Business, and Why They Should Coexist

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Running a business is a lot of work, and sometimes the passion and self-confidence that sparked your entrepreneurship aren’t as strong as they were at the start. But don’t worry. Our emotions shift from day to day, and burnout can cause a lot of doubts to creep into our minds.

Fortunately, many of these doubts can be addressed by engaging in self-care practices, which is really just taking the time to treat our minds and bodies as the temples they were created to be. In doing so, you may just find that slowing down is the best way to grow your business. Today we offer a few tips for business owners on how to practice self-care.

Give Yourself the Gift of Time

Time is the best gift that we can give ourselves. It is all too easy to deprioritize our own needs for the sake of our business, family, or other needs. But doing so is actually very harmful to your well-being.  So take any opportunities you can find to reduce stress and free up some of your time.

One quick tip here is to reduce the amount of time you spend communicating with your workers, freelancers, and vendors. Instead of sending long emails, use a more practical PDF format, which lets you collaborate together with everything from on-document text and drawings to animations and more. Click for info about using a free online PDF editing tool and start saving time!

Let Go of Stress

The American Psychological Association explains that money is the top cause of stress, so it makes sense that financial stability would be a big concern for most business owners. While we cannot necessarily remove all of the anxiety and worry that goes along with running a business, we can take steps to check some worries at the door.

If you own multiple businesses, for example, convert them to Limited Liability Companies (LLCs). An LLC is a business format that reduces the possibility of intermingling your personal funds with that of your business if you happen to find yourself in legal trouble. Use a formation service, which you can find online, to research your local regulations and file yourself to save.

Engage in Quiet Time

Make a point to give yourself quiet time each day so that your mind and body can relax. Quiet time might include meditation, reading, or even something as simple as taking a long bath in the evening after the kids have gone to bed. If you choose the latter of these suggestions, Kohler recommends keeping the water between 90° and 105°, which will help you sleep better and relieve tense muscles.

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Other Self-Care Ideas for Business Owners

There are countless ways that you can engage in self-care practices. As long as it makes you happy, then it’s self-care! But if you need some ideas to get your wheels turning, here are a few:

• Take a vacation each year so that you can bond with your family and reconnect with nature. Travel + Leisure explains those are some of the best benefits of getting away.
• Hire help when you need it. Your mind was not built to be a workhorse 24/7. Put good people into your open positions so that you don’t have to worry about business being taken care of when you are unavailable.
• Be charitable within your community. As a business owner, you are in a position to do good within your community. When you give to others and take care of those less fortunate than you, you will see your business grow and thrive in ways you could have never imagined.
• Start a small garden or simply get a few plants to care for in your house or apartment. Being in nature is great for your mental well-being. You may find that you have a green thumb!

Engage in Self-Care – You Won’t Regret It

As you can see, self-care does not necessarily look like what you would expect. Instead of things like massages and manicures, business owners may be better off putting their time and money into pairing their business with the right structure, such as an LLC, and using alternate means of communication to save time. But you also don’t want to count out quiet time and any other thing you need to take care of your mind, body, and soul.

Sheila Johnson once enjoyed a very successful career, but her health was another story. She left the corporate world to start her own business on her own schedule. She found a routine that balances work life with taking care of her mental, emotional, and physical health. She created Well Sheila as a place to not only share her story but inspire others to put their physical and mental health first with a regular wellness routine and daily self-care.