Looking after your wellbeing is crucial to success in business. You have a duty to yourself, your family, your staff and are responsible for ensuring that your company delivers excellent outcomes to its clients. By not looking after your wellbeing, you could be putting your business at risk. If your team of advisers can’t trust you, the head of the company, to look after yourself, to spot the warning signs, and do the right thing, what kind of an example are you setting, and how can your employees trust you to look after them? Setting an excellent standard by looking and taking care of yourself radiates across your business. How can you authentically say that you care about people, that you want the very best for them when you’re not caring about yourself? It’s leadership by example. It’s much easier to perform at your very best if you look after your physical and mental health. Running a business can be rewarding and exciting, but it can also be exhausting and demanding. It can be tempting to neglect yourself to pursue business growth, but you could be setting yourself up for failure.
To perform well, you must find the right balance. A certain amount of stress can help you boost your performance, and there is a clear link between the two. The trick is to find your sweet spot. If you have low stress, you stagnate, are in your comfort zone, and are potentially bored. However, on the flip side, if you have too much stress, your performance is hindered. Too much stress can leave you feeling overwhelmed, under pressure and distressed. All of which are not conducive to providing excellent advice and running a successful business.
At their peak, think of professional athletes; they describe a state of optimum mental performance as being ‘in the zone. There is a flow; things come naturally and perform at their best. To perform well in business, you need to understand the right stress balance and stay within the parameters to find your zone. If you find your stress levels tipping in the wrong direction for a sustained amount of time, take some time to find balance.
It can be challenging to know when the balance is tipping in the wrong direction; however, several indicators can be very telling. Irritability, lack of sleep, and becoming quiet/withdrawn are warning signs. Everybody is different, and everyone has their own set of indicators, but you or someone close to you must know what they are so you can identify when things are going in the wrong direction.
Ensure that you find balance for the good of your health, business, customers, staff, and family (not necessarily in that order). The consequences of neglecting yourself are far too significant to ignore.
