It’s been said that an entrepreneur is someone who jumps off a cliff and builds a plane on the way down. Running your own business takes time and energy to plan, manage, execute, and, yes, worry. Even though worry and stress can be par for the course, Bernoulli Finance is here to help reduce some of the worries of having an independent business so you can focus more on getting the job done. We have listed below some tips to help keep anxieties in check.
1. Think Positive
Let’s start with the clichés that anyone who has been stressed has heard: if life gives you lemons ... shoot for the moon ... you have to look through the rain. Thinking positive isn’t just about making “bad” things seem like “good” things, it’s about reminding yourself of what is going right. Having high standards for performance and success is part of what drives business owners and entrepreneurs, but letting those standards make any action, plan, or response seem not up to standard won’t allow any room for progress. So, make a list of everything that is going right in your business and have it be visible to you daily. You could set a reminder on your phone for each morning, or place a list next to your work station.
2. Be Precise, Clear, and Detailed
If your stress is coming from insurmountable pressure of too many things happening at once, then take some time to sit down and break each problem down into tasks. You might find that you have less tasks to perform than you originally thought. Once each task is written down, circle the most crucial tasks and get to work.
3. Plan Ahead
Thinking forward can help eliminate future variables and barriers that you know will eventually arrive. Think six, nine, and twelve months ahead – are you taking more accounts, entering a new market, or merging? Knowing what lies in your company’s future will help you better take actionable steps to ensure you have the right resources, team members, and support.
4. Keep Records Up to Date
There’s a simple solution to fearing the unknown: making it known. Having healthy balance sheet, accounting, and cash flow monitoring systems in place will ensure you have a clear picture of how your business is operating. Check in with your accounting team or financial advisors regularly, or set up regular meetings, to have consistent and up to date information about the status of your business’ operations.
5. Recruit Help
Small business owners, particularly when their company begins to grow, can have a difficult time evaluating the strengths, weaknesses, and needs of their company. The more a business grows, the more time and commitment business owners give. External advisors, like Bernoulli Finance, can relieve business owners of their escalating commitment by providing essential evaluation and strategy that can help keep your company growing.
6. Manage Expectations
Expectations are an unavoidable part of any transaction while mismanaged expectations can cause stress. Before coming into any meeting or developing any strategy, ask yourself two questions: What am I going to bring to this arrangement? And what do I want to get out of it? Having a clear understanding of your own expectations can help you manage any outcome.
7. Learn to Say No
Small business owners are often subjected to the myth that they need to be available every second of each day. If you receive an email, you have to respond to it immediately. Constantly making yourself available is exhausting and can detract from producing quality work. Instead, create boundaries that preclude non-essential stress from entering your daily schedule. Don’t respond to emails after 7:00 PM, schedule meetings only three days per week, or turn off phone notifications after a set time. Creating consistent boundaries will help manage your time and, therefore, your stress.
8. Delegate
Many C-level executives in new small businesses often perform many tasks at once. As your business grows the demands on your time and energy increase. Delegating tasks to other team members or advisors can help reduce demands on your time and let you continue working on priority tasks. Connect a sales team member with a new client, reach out to a financial advisor for evaluation, or set-up team member training sessions to ensure your company can perform at its best.