Launching and sustaining an online business can be highly stressful. It doesn’t really matter if you are in a secure job and looking to get out or freshly unemployed and striving to make enough money to pay the bills — stress can always rear its ugly head.
However, if you are fully committed to your business then it can be a real culture shock to pull away from the predictability of a 9-to-5. You can feel like it might be worth giving the whole thing up and getting a job, as if you’re just not built to be a businessperson. Doing so would be a horrible shame and to be quite honest it sickens me to think about it.
Fortunately, there is a way to defeat stress and operate on a far more relaxed plane. You can defeat your negative emotions, resolve your issues and build your business into something successful. And that is exactly what I want to talk about today.
Being in Business is Different
The first thing I must say is that owning a business is very different to being in a 9-to-5 job.
If you grant any entrepreneur the opportunity to explain why being one isn’t the complete fairytale that some people would have you believe, they’ll probably chew your ear off. The fact is that there are benefits to having a regular job:
- You can leave your work at work (granted, this is not always the case)
- You don’t have to worry as much about taxes, health insurance, and all of the other complications that accompany owning a business
- You can rely upon a steady pay check
The list goes on. My point is this — if you are a “new” entrepreneur then it may come as a shock that the grass isn’t quite as green on the other side as you might have imagined. Don’t get me wrong — I love what I do and I have never looked back in regret, but this life aint perfect folks. There are ups and downs like any other.
This “culture shock” can take hold of some people — it can lead you to believe that you’re perhaps just not cut out to be a business owner. It is entirely understandable that you might feel that way. However, to be blunt, these feelings are almost always generated by a lack of profitability. You won’t find many wildly successful businesspeople who dream of going back into full time employment.
A Real Life Story of Stress
The inspiration for this post came from a Leaving Work Behind reader: Nida Sea. I always ask subscribers to my newsletter what issues they would like me to cover and she made a suggestion:
You know what I would like to read? How to not go insane while freelancing. I have days (recently) where I’ve broken down or stressed out so bad I can’t eat. I know I shouldn’t be stressing that bad, but I worry when I don’t hear back from editors, potential guest bloggers, or get any new clients. Is there a way not to stress while doing freelance writing? I don’t think I’ve ever stressed out from a job this bad, and I wonder sometimes if this career path is worth pursuing after all. If you could do a blog post with some remedies, that’d be great.
Reading Nida’s personal account was pretty distressing — after all, we don’t launch businesses with the intent of getting ourselves into such an unpleasant emotional and psychological state of mind, do we? So I scheduled a call with Nida and we talked things over.
It turned out that Nida’s story was pretty typical — she had been a freelance writer for some time, had started working with content mills and was struggling to make the transition to writing for clients who would pay a decent amount per article. After Nida had filled me in on her story I already knew that I could distill my advice down into one key sentence.
“Don’t Fix Your Stress — Fix Your Business”
You can’t “fix” stress. You can reduce the effects through medication but there is no direct cure. What you need to do is resolve the underlying issues. If you make the cause of your stress disappear, the stress goes with it. It is both that simple and that complicated, depending upon the cause of the stress.
When it comes to business-related stress you need to diagnose the issue and then work to resolve it. If you’re working too many hours then you need to figure out how you can work less. If you’re working too few hours (i.e. you don’t have enough clients or custom) then you need to work on that. If you’re not making enough money then you need to make more. I could go on but I’m sure that you get the message.
In Nida’s case it was absolutely clear what the cause of her stress was — her business wasn’t performing as well as she would like. She worried when she didn’t hear back from editors or prospective clients because the very sustainability of her business was at risk. In order to prove my theory I asked her a simple question: “If your business was operating profitably and you had more client and prospects than you knew what to do with, would you still be fretting over responses from editors and prospective clients?” Her answer was of course no.
Once you have diagnosed the problem you can then move onto resolving it.
Improve Your Application
Before you take practical steps to improve your business you need to ensure that those steps are built upon strong foundations. What I am talking about is your motivation and level of application to the task at hand. Few things are more important to a business owner than the amount of motivation and willpower they have to draw upon (tweet this). That’s the difference between springing out of bed in the morning and hitting the snooze button on your alarm clock and rolling back over.
If you feel like more of a snoozer than a springer (something I occasionally struggle with — I really love my bed) then you need to figure out how you can increase your reserves of willpower. There are a number of ways in which you can do this but for the purposes of this post I have some key tips:
- Set clear goals
- Be productive with your time
- Regularly remind yourself what you are trying to achieve and why it is so important
- Embrace the “Do It Now” philosophy
- Surround yourself with likeminded people going through the same process
- Read blogs like Leaving Work Behind
- Join or form a mastermind group and hold yourself accountable to your peers
Don’t just stop with the above if you feel that you need more. I cannot stress how important it is that you learn to apply yourself effectively — the actual planned steps that you make to improve your business simply won’t be properly executed if you’re not in the right frame of mind to do so.
Once you do have a good well of motivation to draw upon to get things done, it’s time to figure out how to fix your business (and your stress).
Fix Your Process
Given half a chance I will tell people that one of the keys to running a successful business is in understanding that everything you do can be broken down into a process. If you have that feeling that owning a business simply “isn’t for you,” like I mentioned above, you need to understand that the problem is not with you — it’s with your process.
So in order to fix your business you must fix the faulty process(es). You do this by breaking down your business into its constituent parts (e.g. your product/service, marketing, pricing, customer service, etc) and objectively analyzing each one. Investigate each “moving part” in your business and figure out where the gremlins are. If possible run each process by an experienced friend or peer to get a second opinion (you’d be amazed at what you can miss). Once you have identified the faulty processes you can set about fixing them.
In my relatively brief conversation with Nida I was able to understand some areas in which her approach was pretty good, and others in which her business was not operating quite so well. She was already reaching out to a few prospects per week which is more than many freelancers do, so that was encouraging. However, the link in her email signature led to a barren website that would have turned off any interested prospect. I would be surprised if a single prospective client replied to her having clicked through to her site.
Her website was the weak link in the chain — if she improves that then she has a far better chance of success. I am not saying that Nida’s stress can be resolved just by her improving her website (I’ve hardly done a full business review), I am confident that she can succeed if she fixes the faulty processes in her business. The same applies to you.
Forget About Stress and Focus on Success
Remember — the key to resolving your issues of stress is in fixing the underlying problem. If you fix your business you fix your stress.
In order to do this you must have a solid base from which you can work from. You need to make sure that you have ample levels of motivation and willpower than can be drawn upon whenever necessary. You need to believe in your ability to succeed in business and ideally call upon friends and peers who can encourage you and hold you accountable.
Finally, you must then turn to your business. Understand that nothing is unresolvable — it is just a case of breaking down what may seem complex into manageable chunks and analyzing each one in turn. When you do that — when you locate and replace the broken links in the chain that is your business — not only will your stress dissipate, you’ll be taking a huge step closer to achieving everything that you want.
Photo Credit: puck90
John Whiting says
Fantastic article! I definitely agree with ‘don’t fix your stress – fix your business’ statement.
Tom Ewer says
Thanks John!
Daniel DiPiazza says
I just had a conversation with myself about many of the points in this article. So here’s the beautiful paradox of self-employment: it’s all on you. Whether you succeed or fail (to a large extent) is in your hands.
In the traditional work environment, you can’t really control when you’ll get a promotion, when you have to go in, how much work you’ll have to do, how much money you make. There’s a huge amount of “security” in that — but for most people with the entrepreneur mindset, security usually creates a sense of stagnation.
Benjamin Franklin said it best: “Those who would trade freedom for security deserve neither”.
However, on the flip side — when things go wrong, you have very little time to dip into the “woe is me” mindset. You have to act to fix the business, then the stress will alleviate itself. In months where I’m raking in money hand over fist, if you were to ask me about going back to my 9 to 5, I would laugh hysterically at you. In months where it’s slower and I’m worried, I might think “yeah…maybe, just for a few months…find a secure job.”
But in the end, I know if I fix my business, I fix my stress. So I go to work on that.
It’s not easy though.
Great post, Tom.
Tom Ewer says
Thanks for sharing your thoughts Daniel!
Jon Pedlow says
Thanks Tom for a great post as always!
Have been following you for around a year now and always love your topics and seeing your growth.
Have used your ideas and principles in other areas online (not freelance writing) and the results have been great. Now work full time in various areas to do with WordPress by applying some of your ideas!
I too now have regular income online and am pursuing residual streams like you 🙂
Will keep recommending your blog to friends and colleges.
Have a great day.
Tom Ewer says
Hey Jon,
It’s great to read that you’ve taken some of my ideas and applied them to areas other than freelance writing — this is something I’ve heard of people doing a few times now and it’s really encouraging. Thanks for recommending!
Cheers,
Tom
Jamie Alexander says
One word: emergencyfund!
Tom Ewer says
That might be two words Jamie, but then I think you already knew that 😉
An emergency fund is of course a great idea but it is only a delayer of stress, not a preventer.
Cheers,
Tom
Jessica Kihara says
Great idea to fix your business rather than fix your stress. I honestly think it’s much easier said than done, though. Even the process of fixing flaws in your business is bound to be a little stress inducing.
Tom Ewer says
I think that depends on how you choose to look at the process Jessica. If you see it is as a positive thing — as a huge step closer to resolving your stress issues (which it is) then analyzing your business’ weaknesses and resolving to fix them can be rather liberating.
daniel says
Fantastic post you have here on how one can beat stress.
I’ll bookmark this
Thanks
Dan
Tom Ewer says
Glad you like it Dan 🙂
Michal says
Great article Tom. Just what I needed to hear right now. I have failed hundreds of times because of the fact that I was a “nervous wreck”. The problem with stress is that it has “paralytic effects” on one’s efforts and it is usually very difficult to do anything valuable while stressing yourself to death. Perseverance is the key to success. I have learnt, often the hard way, that small differences make big changes. This is why we all should have a plan and stick to it despite of the fact that everyone tells us that it will not work or that we stand no chance.
Tom Ewer says
Absolutely right Michal. Persistence is (and always will be) the key.
Sandra says
Patience and persistence. Be laser focused, put in the time and things will improve.
Great post as usual. Thanks Tom.
Tom Ewer says
My pleasure Sandra 🙂
Bree says
So this is eerie because my husband and I JUST had a discussion this weekend about our combined stress about my freelancing business. Thanks for the timely article, though you had no idea about our talk, I’m sure!
One thing I plan to do this next month is work harder on a) figuring out the best way to find/contact blogging clients, and b) spending more time coming up with story ideas to pitch to magazines instead of sending out LOIs (which I’ve had a low return on despite claims they work).
Tom Ewer says
Don’t worry — I’m not stalking you — it was pure coincidence 😉 Best of lucky with your plans!
Joan Harrison says
I love your writing Tom, however in this instance I disagree with you on the point of stress. Stress begins with thoughts. Thoughts are manageable.
I have just come through a major stressful situation and for the first time in my life was able to manage it moment by moment by monitoring my thoughts – sounds simple, but its not easy.
Once we start on the negative thought path, we attract more negativity – just the way it is!
I totally agree with your concept of ‘chunking’ issues down and then dissecting them to find where the problem lies. Works every time.
After visiting Nida’s site, I agree, it does not invite the visitor to stay. This was sad because I enjoyed her writing!
Tom Ewer says
Hey Joan,
I certainly don’t disagree with you but I don’t think your position is incompatible with my way of thinking. Some people are certainly more prone to stress on the basis that they “think too much,” but on the assumption that your stress is rational (i.e. based upon something that would generally be considered to be worthy of causing stress), the cure is to resolve the underlying issue.
Cheers,
Tom
Steve Rice says
Love this advice, Tom: “If you fix your business you fix your stress.” This is such great advice. It was the most powerful part of the post to me, because I think it’s true in multiple areas of our lives (finances, relationships, etc). If you fix the source, the stress dissipates.
Thanks so much for sharing such great insights. As you indicated, I think that a lot of people can really sympathize with Nida’s experience.
Tom Ewer says
My pleasure Steve 🙂
Olatunji Femi says
Hey Tom,
Nice post,but seriously with statement like this “don’t fix your stress – fix your business”…………..i see more of a motivational personality in you. 🙂 words like this obviously could move mountains. If i were to be Nida Sea, i would ensure that i have rich contents on my blog that can compel a client to hire me instantly.
Tom Ewer says
I do try to motivate if I can 🙂
Nida Sea says
Oh man! I totally missed this post! Sorry for the late comment, Tom. The conversation we had was wonderful, and I’m in the process of hiring someone to redo my site. For now, I’m linking to a blog I’m working on.
I love the post and the suggestions for stress work much better. I’ve seen more success as of late and stress much less than I did before. Thanks again, Tom. I promise to check in more often. 😉
– Nida
Tom Ewer says
No problem Nida! It’s great to read that you’re making progress 🙂