A gentle framework for healing from business burnout
Just in case you need it…
Before I dive in: just a little reminder that the doors are currently open for my group program, Your Simple & Spacious Business, until Friday 24th May if you’d love to never do business alone again and feel deeply supported to bring more ease, joy, and intentional growth into your work and life. I’d be so honoured to welcome you inside 💫
This week I was a guest on the latest episode of one of my favourite podcasts, Off The Grid.
Listening back to Amelia’s insightful questions held space for me to really sit with how far I’ve come these past few years in my business, how much I’ve been able to move through deep business burnout towards more spaciousness and ease and flexibility in my work and life.
Like I say in this interview, for so many years I facilitated my own business burnout through a lack of boundaries and also just not knowing that I was safe and allowed to put my needs and desires on the table in my business.
Before having my son in 2020 I had spent the previous few years gently reshaping my business to work best for me by increasing my prices (I facilitated a lot of my own burnout in the early years of my business by being very afraid to charge more!) and reshaping my workweek to work best for me as a chronically ill human but then I became a parent, my health became much more challenging, and it was same old business but brand new me.
So then everything had to change.
My business looks so much different now than it did just a few years ago - I work less hours, I have way less calls in my schedule, I evolved my business model and offers, all whilst continuing to make my enough number as I’m the breadwinner for my family so I couldn’t just burn it all down but instead needed to make this evolution at a gentle and sustainable pace.
I dive in much deeper in the Off The Grid episode about the decisions I made to reshape my business to honour my capacity and desires in this season and today I want to share some gentle guidance if you’re currently deep in burnout and struggling to find your way through.
Step 1: Rock bottom
This is where we start when we’re recovering from burnout - by recognising that we can’t go on like this anymore. Our minds and bodies are telling us that there has to be another way, that this can’t be the working life we choose for ourselves moving forward, that something deeply needs to shift and change.
Rock bottom feels awful, but it can also be the invitation we need to do things differently from now on.
Also a caveat: you don’t need to be at rock bottom to want to radically reshape your business to work best for you. You’re allowed to put all of your needs and desires on the table whenever you want to in your business - in my humble opinion we should all be doing this if we want to be able to do our best work and stay in the arena long term too.
Step 2: Rest
If you’re deep in the exhaustion of burnout, rest is usually the essential next step. But if you’re not exhausted and just know that you’re ready to reshape your business to work best for you? You can skip ahead to step 3.
But if rest is what you need then rest is what you need. Because we can’t to-do list our way through deep burnout. It took time for me to evolve my business after having my son because I was just so exhausted from sleepless nights and I needed to protect my working capacity for the clients I was showing up for in that season.
Sometimes we just have to do our best to create a little more space for rest in our schedule, perhaps even make some tough but necessary decisions to push back projects or goals to create the space that we need. I didn’t record a LFAHC for 3 years for example because I just didn’t have the energetic resources to do so!
And the messy truth? Sometimes rest takes longer than we want it to. I’ve worked with clients who have experienced deeply painful burnout in their business and it’s taken them months, sometimes years, to recover from it. And that’s okay - it can feel frustrating and inconvenient but sometimes we just need the rest we need.
Step 3: Process
Once our nervous system is ready for it we can start to process this experience of burnout in our business. We can reflect on what led to it, what we can learn from it, and support ourselves to heal through any trauma that we experienced through it too. Some questions to ask yourself at this stage:
What is this burnout here to teach you? What is it teaching you about your needs, boundaries, and desires in your work and life? What is it telling you is no longer working for you, or perhaps never truly was? What is it illuminating to be prioritised more in your work and life moving forward?
What needs to be different now? What are you no longer willing to tolerate in your business? What boundaries are essential moving forward?
What desires do you want to honour moving forward in your work and life? What do you want to allow to be true for yourself moving forward in your work and life? What desires and needs do you want to put on the table in your business?
Step 4: Recalibrate
This is where the magic starts to happen: in re-imagining what your business gets to look like for you. This is the step that really changed everything for me and I talk a lot more through the journey in the episode with Amelia.
My free Simple & Spacious Deep Dive Kit is here to support you through this stage - it will hold space for you to clarify your vision for your business, how to intentionally design your business model around that vision, plus guidance around the simple and spacious approach to marketing and your workweek and routines too.
There’s also a coaching session inside my group program YS&SB all about putting your needs on the table in your business to support you that you can get free access to this way.
This stage is all about giving yourself permission to want what you want next in your business and to start to look at your business with fresh eyes and explore what a simple, spacious, and joyful business gets to look like for you.
Step 5: Rebuild
Once you know what you want your business to look and function like moving forward, then you get to rebuild.
This may look like reshaping your offers, diversifying your income streams, solidifying your boundaries, perhaps evolving your workweek and routines to work best for you.
And it’s okay if this step takes time - I didn’t evolve my business overnight. It took time and patience and courage to take all the steps forward I needed to take but it was so worth it to make it to the other side.
My biggest encouragement? Make a plan that feels good to you - if we can see the next steps forward, even if it’s going to take time, we can hold onto hope that what we desire next will be our reality soon.
And my biggest encouragement of all? Trust that there is always a way through business burnout.
Even if it takes time, patience, compromise and courage to evolve our work to truly work best for us there is always a way forward and through.
You are worthy of a business that honours your humanness, that doesn’t make burnout and exhaustion the trade-off for entrepreneurial growth.
I hope these steps and resources can support you if your struggling with business burnout in this season and encourage you to know that there is a way forward and through.
And if you’ve worked through a season of burnout in your business I’d love to know in the comments what supported you most to make it through to the other side 💫
Until next time,
Jen