As a small child you are always told to work hard and put in effort.
“If you work hard you can achieve anything”
They even award effort prizes at school.
The problem is when you apply this philosophy to your working life, you run the risk of never stopping, and a feeling of guilt if you do.
This is particularly acute if you are a Founder. You are more likely to end up staying a bit later than you should or need to. You carry around a phone in your pocket that means you are accessible 24/7. You constantly check your emails, slack, WhatsApp, Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn. When you are with your friends and family you think about work and check your phone when you can. If you ever find yourself with some spare time you start to feel guilty about not working.
I became aware of this being an issue recently during a meeting with a very senior corporate professional who has worked across a number of companies over the last 25 years. He also openly discussed a time when he had a break down and needed help.
We were talking about business and our growth and plans and then he asked me a simple question
“That’s great, but tell me, how do you look after yourself and your team’s wellness?”
It was a simple question and one I did not have an immediate answer for.
We spoke for a bit and while it’s an incredibly complex topic one thing became clear.
You have to let people have time off and that includes yourself.
This doesn’t mean just letting people take their holidays. It means making it very clear that when they are off they need to have some time where they totally switch off from all aspects of work.
This is, of course, is more challenging for startups than for larger companies, but given how critical everyone is in a startup it’s actually more important to get this right as quickly as possible
This will also make your company more resilient in the long run. By making people take a break you have to put in place back-up processes, reducing any single point of failure. It makes you stronger.
While, as a leader you need to ensure your team all do this, it is also vitally important that YOU do as well.
It may not be possible to take an entire week off (although you should aim to be able to do this one day), so start small with even an hour or two, then a day then a few days.
Everyone is different but having spoken to a few people here are some ideas you can try:
- short periods of meditation (I am personally not really into this but many are)
- exercise without earphones in to let your mind just drift
- take up a hobby — painting, reading, writing, sports, language etc… anything that forces you to focus on something else
- volunteer to help
- spend 120 mins in nature each week — studies show how important this is and this can be a walk in the local park right through to climbing Everest
- cook — lots of people swear by this as it is something you have to engage with and it makes you forget work but also a chance to chat and share with friends and family.
It basically doesn’t matter what you do but you do need to do something that means you have to put down your laptop or phone and engage with something else.
Even doing some of these things for short periods will allow you space to reset, think, and importantly relax. Remember most overnight successes take many years of graft so it is important for you and your company that you and your team are there for the duration.
Build up to being able to take off a day or even more over time.
In order to be successful you will need to work hard, you will need to make some sacrifices but you also need to take breaks. Be open and talk about it with your team.
Make sure they realise its ok to take a break and do other things outside of work. Encourage it. Reward it. Not only are you taking a step towards supporting yourself and your team’s wellness you are actually also building a stronger company that is more likely to succeed.
Good luck!
