How to Deal with Stress of Running a Business

Are you a business owner who has been through a lot of stress these past couple months? Especially, when tax season is coming and you have no one to prepare your tax forms for you? Well, let us take a moment to tell you that, if you are reading this blog post right now, you are probably looking for someone to prepare your tax returns or looking for a CPA accountant who can do that work for you. In fact, we are a CPA firm in case you haven’t noticed!

Anyway, this blog post is not about how to hire an Orange County CPA, the main point of this blog is to talk about how to deal with stress when running a business. So how can you deal with it? According to Pratik Dholakiya, Co-Founder of E2M, he wrote an article called 3 Tactics for Dealing With the Stress of Running a Business, which talks about dealing with stress and said that an entrepreneur is always required to be involved in every activity that their business is undergoing, always taking on new challenges, and creating bonds and relationships while learning on the go. Of course, as Pratik mentioned, will be overwhelming, which is something that most entrepreneurs face.

Pratik listed out three powerful ways to fight against this overwhelming stress that will keep you on track with your business goals without going insane.

1)      Create a priority list, and list all of your goals in a list from most important to least important.

Sounds easy right? It is! If you actually take the time to do it. The overwhelming amount of work you have to do is actually not that bad if you know how to prioritize and focus through them on the entire day. Keep a list of priorities and keep a list of dates to make sure when to start on those, and when the deadline is for each of them. This is very important, as this will keep your mind organized, and you can keep a simple focused mindset without going off in a tangent. Complete the task that is most important, and then once that is complete, move on to the next one and complete that one, and keep going through them all until you have completed them all. If you have a reoccurring event that constantly needs to be taken care of, always keep that task in your list.

2)      Relax and clear your mind before you go to bed, go back into work mode the next morning.

Of course, every night, we all feel like we have so much information in our heads that we just want to explode. The endless thinking is killing us all, and we just want to keep thinking. Do not try to fight through this complicated matter, instead, clear your mind, and then set yourself up to think about first thing tomorrow morning. You will feel refreshed the first thing in the morning, and your decision making will be better than yesterday’s.

3)      Analyze and reassess your circle of control

Pratik explains how we should focus our energies on things that are directly in our control and how we should not be drawn to things where we have little to no influence over. He makes a good point about how most entrepreneurs start with a great idea of what their circle of control has, but as time progresses and they meet new business people, the circle will consistently change. Depending on the entrepreneur, the circle will either shrink or it will grow. The point is, it will not stay the same, it is always changing, so it would be wise to consistently, evaluate your circle of control. “When you are feeling hammered, and are struggling to keep yourself sane in the middle of your fast-growing business, it’s a good idea to take a step back and ask yourself, how much of that which you are contending with do you actually control?” (Dholakiya)