Our top tips to lighten the load

By Diana Piggott

There is no question it’s a challenging business environment at the moment. People are doing it tough. Businesses are making hard calls. Every day there’s another headline of a company shutting up shop. Sales are harder to come by. Bills and staff need to be paid. It can be a heavy weight to carry if you’re a business owner. 

Here are our top tips for lightening the load and looking after your mental health – not just during Mental Health Awareness Week (23-29 September), but the rest of the year too:

Focus on what you can control

Government policy, the Official Cash Rate, tension in the middle East, inflation levels – they may have an impact on your business, but can you directly control any of them? The answer of course is no. Here are some of the things you can control though, and this is where your focus should be:

• Financial management and ensuring you’re making informed decisions

• Processes that maximise efficiency and improve productivity

• Your product and/or service offering

• Your values, team culture and attitude

• How you treat and engage with your customers and staff

Focusing on what you can’t control quickly leads to feelings of anxiety, powerlessness and overwhelm. Shift your focus to control the controllables. Doing so puts the power back in your hands and turns the dial down on stress.

Choose your response 

A buyer pulls out of a deal, an employee lets the team down, a weather event cuts off your normal supply route – any number of daily events can trigger a response in us. In the split second between something happening to you and your response, you have a choice to make. Will your response be productive? 

It’s natural to feel frustrated, angry, stressed. It’s what you do after that which determines whether your response leads to a productive outcome. Try reframing the situation with questions like:

• Do I have the facts or am I making assumptions?

• Is there another way I could look at this?

• Am I making the problem bigger than it really is?

• Can I find an opportunity somewhere within this challenge?

• Would I benefit from a 2-minute breather to allow me to handle this better? (Spoiler: The answer is probably yes)

Put your own mask on first

There’s a reason a flight attendant tells you to put your mask on first before helping someone else. Without your own oxygen, you’re no good to anyone else. The same is true for any business owner. Prioritising your wellbeing is vital, not just for your own health but the health of your business too. Leading a business is no joke and if you’re trying to do that while running on empty, it’s a recipe for burnout. Here’s some of our practical tips for wellbeing – find one that fits for you!

• Set some micro goals that help you get quick wins. Examples might be making it home for dinner with your family at least three nights a week, identifying two key tasks at the start of each day and making them your priority, stopping for lunch, not checking emails after hours…

• Know how to recharge your batteries. Start with thinking of the times you’ve felt most energized and begin there. For some, that’s diving into a good book, for the active relaxers amongst us, that may be going for a surf or a bike ride. It could be cooking a meal from scratch, having coffee with a friend, watching a documentary, playing with your kids. Figure out what works for you and make it a priority (the set in stone kind of priority).

• Tell guilt where to go. There’s a high chance you’ll feel guilty about prioritizing your wellbeing and it’s a mindset we need to shift as a collective. It’s not easy though when you’ve probably got a task list as long as your arm and not enough hours in the day. Prioritising your wellbeing might not feel like the most productive thing you could be doing but nothing could be further from the truth. A healthy, refreshed leader is more resilient, equipped to deal with stress, make sound decisions and set a better example to their team.

A little dose of perspective

The key to perspective lies in the very first sentence of this article. Things are challenging – at the moment. It won’t always be this way and it’s helpful to acknowledge that. Reframe your situation in a way that allows you to remember that while it’s hard, it’s temporary and it’s only hard for now. You will make it through the other side.

And finally…

Talk to someone

If you’re struggling, please talk to someone. Below is a list of great resources including contact information for various helplines. And our Sudburys team are here to help too. If you’d like to have a conversation about any of those controllables we mentioned earlier, that’s the stuff we live and breathe, and we’d love to chat.

Resources we like:
https://mentalhealth.org.nz/helplines 
Access help through various helplines 24 hours a day

https://www.xero.com/nz/xero-assistance-programme/
If you have a Xero membership and depending on your plan type, you may have access to two free counselling sessions.

https://www.business.govt.nz/wellbeing-support/brave-in-business-e-learning
Fantastic resources for business owners including tips and templates to facilitate better wellbeing.