Starting a new business is not unlike bringing home your new baby: The sleepless nights, the fatigue, the constant attention to someone else’s needs to ensure it’s survival. Starting a new business is stressful.
Here are 4 steps for managing the stress of your new business. It’s the same advice I gave a group of young moms about managing baby stress recently. It’s good advice for you too if you are nurturing a baby business.
1. Check your expectations. Starting a new business is hard. There are bumps in the road. There will be amazing moments, but there will be really awful ones. Celebrate the good stuff, and don’t let the difficulties catch you by surprise.
2. Ask for help. To own your own business, you have to be good at a lot of different things. But you don’t have to be good at everything. You can ask for help. Find a group of like-minded business owners. Find a mentor. Get a business coach. Subscribe to The Daily Blur. Let friends and family in on your challenges.
3. Find an outlet. Find something you love, that energizes you and make time for it every week. Do you love to run? Do you build? Paint? Garden? Sing? Don’t loose track of who you are in the process of building your business. Keep your creative energy. It makes you a better business owner.
4. See yourself as perfect for the job. You are uniquely qualified to do what you do. You saw the need. You took the risk. You sign the checks. You can do this!
When you are pacing the floor in the middle of the night, following these steps will help.
You know what else will help? Knowing that one day your big grown up successful baby, will be perfectly equipped to take care of himself. Sniff.
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