If you’ve reached the point where you’re ready to scale up your start-up, firstly – get you! You’ve come along way already and we know it’s been anything but easy to get to this point. You’ve been moving heaven and earth to get this thing off the ground, and that’s why anxiety amongst entrepreneurs, business owners and start ups is all too common. Here are four tasty tricks to help you manage while you scale up.
Your work life balance is key
Ok, we know ‘work life balance’ is a phrase that’s getting bandied around a lot. But if you’re an entrepreneur scaling up a business, it’s probably truer for you than it is for the average Joe. As you’ll know all too well, this process can be all consuming, and it’s just not healthy to be thinking about work 24/7. You have to be strict with your working hours and force yourself to do things that aren’t work related. Whether it’s playing sport, walking the dog, or reading a book – you have to give yourself a mental rest each day.
Try mindfulness
Here’s another word that you see everywhere now – mindfulness – but for good reason. If you’re scaling up your business, you are probably juggling what feels like a million things at once, your head is fizzing like a bottle of champagne and you can’t keep up with your thoughts. Mindfulness teaches you to focus on the here and now and to recognise thoughts and emotions as momentary things. It’s been proven to reduce anxiety and you’ll find it’ll calm your mind and help you feel more focused.
Don’t compare yourself to others
Every start-up journey is different. Don’t fall into the trap of anxiously thinking that just because another start-up is hiring staff, moving to new premises or redesigning their logo, that it would be the right decision for you at this moment. This is especially true if you’re based in a co-working space or business accelerator hub and are surrounded by other entrepreneurs all day, where the atmosphere can get overly competitive. See your journey as unique to you and it’ll be a less anxious one.
Allow yourself to fail
Trying to get everything right first time is stressful, especially if this is your first business and you’re making it up as you go along. You need to accept that there will be wrong turns, false starts and mistakes along the way. But as long as you learn from them for next time, you shouldn’t be afraid. Remember – it takes ten years to become an overnight success.
Big shout out to our super-cool marketing expert & photographer, Lauren, for sharing these top tricks for managing anxiety. Such great advice.