value insights

5 Hideous Causes of Entrepreneurial Burnout- Valutrics

Business is often a mad race against time: you have so many responsibilities and things to do that a 24-hour day seems to be woefully inadequate to accommodate for everything. With such a lifestyle, everybody finds their own tricks for avoiding burnout– or don’t stay afloat for very long, giving way to more robust entrepreneurs.

Some practice mindfulness, others build complicated strategies based on analyzing every aspect of their work, still others, on the contrary, try to keep things simple. But still, many entrepreneurs try looking for a solution without really understanding the causes and reasons of the problem. So what are the real reasons of entrepreneurial burnout? Can understanding them help us avoid it? Let us find out.

1. Unwillingness to Sacrifice Personal Time

Most people understand that becoming an entrepreneur means foregoing many habitual activities and pastimes, but few realize what it really entails. You may find yourself spending less and less time with your family and friends – and there isn’t much to be done about it. If you are not ready for this, business may not be the place for you.

2. Unwillingness to Delegate

When you start out you will probably have no other option but to do most things by yourself. But as your business stabilizes, you should find people you trust enough to delegate important functions to – if you try to do everything and be everyone for a prolonged period of time, no amount of determination is going to save you from burnout.

3. Wrong Partners

A bad choice of a co-founder or a member of your initial team may (and probably will) bury your entire enterprise in a matter of months. You and other partners may do your best, but if just one member of a relatively small team doesn’t apply themselves, they will drag all of you down together. Again, it is beyond logic – it is the way life is.

4. Skipping Meals

It may sound like a small thing, but this small thing can nibble at your health and, in the long run, bring you down. If you skip breakfast to get to work earlier, don’t stop for lunch, gorge yourself with junk food not to lose time on meals, you make yourself less productive and ruin your overall condition.

5. Setting Outlandish Goals

Aiming high is a good policy, but sometimes it can lead to unhealthy results. There is no such thing as immediate success, and if you find yourself regularly lagging behind your overly optimistic goals, you may start to get discouraged and annoyed with yourself and your team. And these feeling are a very poor fuel for success.

Entrepreneurial burnout isn’t fiction – it is a very real thing, and no amount of vision, passion and determination are going to protect you if you push yourself too hard for too long. Keep an eye on these factors, and you will give yourself a chance to keep going after most others have already given up.