Its summer! Pools are open, kids are out of school, and we are right at the cusp of vacation season. We have talked in the past about how important it is to encourage employees to take vacation, about the pitfalls of burnout and the advantages of well rested and motivated employees. This week I am talking to you though, the business owners. Do you have a vacation planned for this summer, this year? If so good … if not, why not?
As business owners it can be difficult to take a step back and realize that just like your employees you can and do get burnt out. Vacations are important to your sanity, and let’s face it your sanity is important to the success of your business. While your business will not implode if you turn off your phone and step away from your email for a week not taking time for yourself can have a strong negative impact. Stressed out, run down, and fed up owners are much more likely to make poor decisions…to react too quickly or to feel overwhelmed. You need time away to put things in perspective and refocus yourself.
Let clear this up, I am very aware that a business owner’s work is never truly done, nor is there very often a good stopping point but at some point you do have to stop.
You have to stop each day to sleep, you should stop and take at least one day off each week and you should stop at least once a year for at least a week for a proper vacation. Now this may sound ridiculous to those of you who don’t know how to let a call go to voicemail or can’t just flag an email for follow up tomorrow instead of having to tackle every single thing that comes across your smartphone no matter how small at any hour of the day. (Yes there are lots of you!)
What I want you to realize is that this is not sustainable. You simply can’t do everything all the time, and let’s face it there are very few people out there who are actually saving lives day in and day out…most of what we stress ourselves out about in any given day is not nearly as dramatic as we make it out to be. Being overwhelmed is a choice…really it is. Prioritizing is hard I’ll admit, but when you sit down and list out everything you have to do in order of importance your sanity should always be near the top. If you honestly feel that you can’t take a day off each week maybe it’s time to get some help.
Help can come in many forms. Whether it’s a personal assistant; a temp to take over your administrative work for a week or two while you get caught up; someone to listen while you get the weight off your chest after a particularly long day…or an outsourced firm to handle the HR stuff on your behalf so you don’t have to worry about it *wink wink*. But seriously, my point
here is that you need to take the time to take care of yourself in order to take care of your business – because I know you have put way too much into your business not to take care of it.
So go out and have some fun, take a vacation or a staycation whatever you want, just take the time to disconnect from your everyday and have some fun… or else!