Entrepreneur Guilt: Taking Weekends Off
Entrepreneur guilt is real.. and sometimes you cannot escape it. Taking weekends off sometimes feels like it adds to this guilt but in reality, taking weekends off is the best thing I could have done for my mental health. If you are in the early stages of this, I am sure you're going through this too where you work seven days a week, and then are borderline burn out. Here's how I got through this phase and now how I take a weekend or even a few days off.
Here's the thing about entrepreneur guilt, the larger your business grows, unfortunately the more this grows as well. There are higher stake things to worry about, in fact, there's always something to worry about. If you do not learn how to combat this worry, it will quite literally eat you alive.
In 2019 I was feeling this way and when the pandemic came, I felt even more inclined to work 24x7. There were very few weeks where I did not work seven days a week and I was burning out almost every other week. My energy levels were so far down and I didn't even like what initially drew me to starting my business. I couldn't turn my brain off so therefore I couldn't even sleep.
I think the first solution I created for this was to hire my first full time employee. I think if you can, even hire someone part time in the early stages of your business it is an amazing feeling. It feels like finally some weight is off your shoulders once your employee is trained and independent. This is really key because hiring someone is not instant gratification. I think what hiring someone does is forces you to become more organized, have more accountability, and forces you to constantly work ahead. Once you finally get ahead, the employee forces you to consistently be ahead which only helps the business.
Once I had hired full time, the growth of my business accelerated like no other. This allowed me to hire support staff as well as put systems in place for both clients and employees. By this point I was still working 7 days a week and finally I felt like I was just working to work and not because I was so underwater. I started with taking one day off, Saturdays, that felt comfortable. This went successfully, I finally had time back to spend with friends, family and with myself. I did this for a few months and then finally wanted to take Sundays off, starting with the morning half of Sunday. Finally slowly but surely I was taking the entire weekend off. This is not to say that my team also worked weekends, I made these boundaries for them but never myself... I know, weird.
Once I got a taste of what it was like to take weekends off, I continued to do it and now the occasional weekend I do work, if it's for an event, I feel like I need to take a day off midweek and best of all I feel no guilt about it. Okay, maybe a little, but that guilt never goes away, so the fact that its only a little is a huge improvement.
Taking weekends off did the following for me:
Gave me time back - and no I don't always use this time for other people, I spend one day every week just laying in my bed and catching up on TV. No I do not change out of PJs.
Allowed me to pursue other hobbies / spend time with people outside of work
Recharge my creative juices so that I felt fresh monday morning
Made my stress and anxiety way better and made managing them easier
Yes, I still take most weekends off, sometimes I don't have a choice but if you're an entrepreneur and you find yourself working ALL the time, take a break. I promise you the business won't crumble if you take one day off.