Taking care of your mental health | Small Business Accounting NZ

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Taking care of your mental health

The last two years have been demanding and exhausting for many business owners. Are you one of them? The challenges have been relentless, and we know many small business owners have had to navigate unprecedented demands because of the pandemic and related government regulations as well as the recent severe weather events.

Burnout results from long-term stress and can manifest in emotional and physical exhaustion, which may affect your enthusiasm for running the business you once loved.

So, what can you do about it?

We understand that as a business owner, you have many responsibilities, and often you do everything on your own. The most important step is to acknowledge you feel burned out and need a break.

Take a break as soon as you can. Plan ahead for time away from the business. However, while getting some rest in the short-term will help, long-term stress will take commitment to recover from.

Strategies to help you recover from burnout

What can you do differently to avoid prolonging or retriggering the burnout?

Delegate – Look at the low-value tasks you spend time on and pay someone to do them for you. This will free up time and energy.
Re-energise – If you’re struggling with a lack of enthusiasm or purpose, talk to colleagues or a business coach for support. If possible, connect with people in the same industry so you can share among others who may be facing similar challenges.
Stand back – Take an objective look at how much you are working and how effective you are. For example, is it time to streamline your work activities and put boundaries around working hours?
Reassess your goals – Do you have clear business goals for the short-term and long-term? Either set some realistic goals or revise them if they are too difficult right now.
Commit to some regular self-care actions – Think about what you love doing outside your business that is nourishing. Regular exercise? Time in nature? Going on a retreat? Learning something for fun? Improving your diet? Get an app on your phone that reminds you to take mini breaks throughout each day. Whether that is movement, mindfulness or music, use technology to help.
Celebrate milestones and achievements – When overwhelmed with stress or exhaustion, it’s easy to forget the positives. Remind yourself of just how much you have done in the last year!

How to build a resilient workplace

As well as looking after yourself you also have a duty of care to your staff. Cementing wellbeing in the day-to-day work culture takes individual and combined effort. Here are some key components:

Take the lead – look after your own health and promote honest conversations with your team.
Increase awareness of wellbeing and remove stigma around mental health.
Ensure the work environment is safe and encourage staff to look out for each other.
Design work to support better work-life balance, e.g. involve staff in decisions on when, where, and how work is performed, and closely monitor workloads.
Invest in training programmes, e.g. mental health awareness, stress management, recovery, and self-care.
Provide organisational support, e.g. Employee Assistance Programmes that give employees access to trained specialists.
Offer exercise and mindfulness programmes to support health, e.g. step challenges or lunchtime yoga.

You’ll be better able to face challenges, run your business well and assist others if you are looking after yourself well.

Need extra support?

If you are feeling burned out and need some extra accounting support let us know.

We can help in managing your annual accounting, GST, payroll, bookwork or other financial and administrative management, talk to us today.

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