Take a Break!
It’s summer at last. The kids are off school and everyone’s taking a break. So why not you?
Deciding to have a vacation, even a short break, is often a tough call for entrepreneurs and business owners, especially for the microbusiness or solopreneur where you are the business and the business is you. Even when you have a couple of employees who could hold the fort for you, it’s incredibly difficult to choose to detach, let go of the reins for a while and take some basic rest and relaxation.
There’s a bit of a myth out there in our tough competitive world that entrepreneurs can only be successful if they can boast long hours combined with a bit of burning the candles at both ends, and that they are always connected, available and in work mode. Most of us in business have been pretty well sold on that idea for some time, but the reality is that the benefits of taking a break far outweigh the benefits that you think you are getting from keeping your nose to the grindstone. Let’s have a look at some of these:
Everyone has to recharge those batteries
Even the most powerful machines have to plug into some source of power supply, and so do you. And you, especially, deserve to and need to. It’s not just about the body – that needs self-care, a bit of pampering, a bit of laying down the routines on the shore of a beach and soaking in the sea. It really is a lot about the mind. With a tired brain, you tend to get stuck, stressed, you lose your edge, your ability to think on your feet, make sharp decisions and any creativity falters.
Taking a break from your normal routine, making sure you get fresh air, connect with loved ones, connect with yourself and spend time doing those things you love that you can’t often get to do is like giving your body and mind a complete dust down and reboot. A full service and oil change, as it were. A control-alt-delete to the self.
Your business will benefit too. Tiredness is a killer of motivation. When you are recharged and reenergised you are better able to service your clients and the quality of your service will increase without you even trying. The boost in business energy on your return is often more beneficial than the struggle to keep going through exhaustion.Time out is time when inspiration flows in
One of the best ways of unlocking your creativity is to step outside of the humdrum routine that you often find yourself locked in: the Monday morning meeting, the afternoons spent on the phone, the session with your head in the books, the chat with the bank manager…
That vacation, even if it’s a long weekend city break, takes you to new places, meeting new people, exposing yourself to new sights. Your mind relaxes, allows itself to travel along with you to new places. That’s how new ideas are generated. One of our clients, Felicity, told us her inspiration for her business arrived suddenly, out of nowhere, during a caravan holiday in the west country.
“The kids were at the camp kids’ activities. They were busy, my partner was at the beach surfing, and I didn’t fancy doing anything at all. I’d been working ten-hour days for weeks as a partner in an HR consultancy and I knew I was exhausted, stale and had lost all enthusiasm. I had no signal on my phone, no wifi (this was before 3G let alone 5G) and all I fancied doing was pottering. And it was tidying up the kids’ stuff that I found myself linking up paperclips together into a necklace. And that was it. I’ve been making and selling my handcrafted jewellery on EBay and Etsy ever since.”Trust in your team
Your team are the people you are paying to help you run and grow your business. They are as invested in your business as you let them be. The business leader that is constantly hovering and taking on work that team members should be doing, is an utter dampener of enthusiasm, commitment and creativity. Your business can only truly grow if your team grows with you.
A business owner has to wear lots of hats, but as your business grows, you have to delegate, or outsource, and trust those people to be committed to helping you run your business. Learning to trust is not always easy, but the benefits are an empowered team of employees who want the business to work for their benefit just as much as you want it to work for yours, so the goal is the same – you all want your business to work.
Taking a vacation forces you to trust your team, or to delegate some of the work to an outsourced team, such as Athena, even if only temporarily. Learning to trust others means that you can free up time and energy not just for vacations, but to do dream up your next success.
The final point is perhaps the most important.
If the business relies fully on you, and you never take a break, what happens to the business when you burn out?
Burnout is the inevitable result of working intensely without a break for a prolonged period. If you, as a small business owner, burnout, your business burns with you. So, if you haven’t already, book at least a few days away this summer. Get out in the country, up a mountain, in the sea, treat yourself to rest, relaxation and a full recharge. And if you need someone to lean on while you’re away – reach out to Athena. We’ll check your emails, respond to clients, write those blog posts, keep those messages loading up into Insta....