I wanted to talk about creating your own boundaries, and protecting your mental health, because as business owners we can literally work every single day that we are awake. Do you have the feeling that there's always a massive to do list, there's always more things that you could be doing? There are always more emails to answer, more clients to find? The work never stops because when you run your own business you're constantly looking to create more work, to expand your business, to try out new things, to learn new skills. It's a constant thing.
Here's my advice: create boundaries. You have to create space where you can have time off for yourself, time off with your cats, time off with your family. If you go on holiday, you want to have that time off on holiday. It's really, really important to allow yourself to switch off. For your health, for your mental health, for your physical health, because burnout is a massive, real thing, and it can lead to all sorts of terrible things. Stress, cancers, heart attacks, let alone the fact that sometimes when we're burned out, we stop spending time with our loved ones, and we stop spending time with people that we love. It's really important to create those boundaries.
When I first started my business I worked every single holiday, and I worked probably two, three hours every morning of every holiday that I had, which meant that I never had time off.. When I was in Morocco vomiting and being ill and still having to work, I think I was ill on that holiday because that was the first time that my body thought that it could have a rest and it just crashed. Does anybody else experience that when they go on holiday?
The reason I'm talking about this is because I recently had an opportunity to get involved in a new project; however I didn't find out about that new project until the end of last week. We have to deliver a case for the new project by the end of this week but I had already decided as it was half term that I was going to spend that time with my family, with Robin, with my grandparents. I was going to switch off, to go for walks in the countryside, have a nice gin and tonic in a beer garden, those kind of things. And because I wasn't working on that project, I might have missed that opportunity - but do you know what? I'm totally cool with that, because I prioritized the time for me, and the time for my family.
When you're in your business, and we're coming up to holiday time, I really want you to think about where's your level of ‘no’? Where do you decide to draw the line where you actually get time to switch off from your business, and invest in yourself, and a bit of peace and quiet?
And actually, just say "No", no matter how much pressure is put on you, or how much people want you to do things, to just say "No, this is what I've decided to do, and I'm going to stick to that." That's okay. One of the reasons that I think I got cancer is because I never stopped saying "Yes", and I felt like I had to do everything on my own. I just wore myself out to the point where my body just collapsed. My immune system went completely haywire. From that experience, I've learned how important it is to say "No" and to shut down and to switch off.
Sometimes you might miss out on opportunities, but what you get in return is time, and time is the most valuable thing in the world, and so is your health.
I want you to know it's okay to say "No." It's okay to say that you don't want to do something, or that you've got other priorities because you've got time off, and to protect that like a lioness protecting her cubs, because time and health are more valuable than anything else.
