The Entrepreneur's Dilemma
1.18.10
So, you’re an entrepreneur, which probably means that you accomplish more by than most people accomplish in a week.. Your to-do list most likely creates a series of flutters in your stomach every time you pop it out to add yet another task. And the “fires”…oh, the fires. How many do you put out in any given day? How frequently do you start your day out with great intentions only to be pulled in many different directions hosing them down?
As a psychologist by training, I receive brochures on a weekly basis about what I like to call the “shrink’s dilemma.” More specifically, how can helpers help themselves? Exercise, a healthy diet, a balanced life, peer supervision and support sprinkle the pages of these brochures. And, if you act now, for 285 dollars, you can take the workshop to find out more by the master psychologist who has evidently mastered it all.
It is great advice to incorporate these self-care behaviors into your daily routine as preventative measures. But we all know that these measures don’t always work. In fact, we often lie to ourselves (and others) saying that we do take great care of ourselves, when we really don’t. For example, how many times have you said, “I need to schedule a massage/vacation/(insert your release here)” and never really get around to doing it? Sometimes we say the “we should” so much that we start believing that “we have”.
Whatever your circumstance may be, no matter how much or little self-care you engage in, the truth is, as an entrepreneur, this is probably your weakest link. It’s hard to get yourself to eat an apple and some spinach when you are in the middle of a crisis, or run a 5K when you are having a meltdown because you have finally realized that you can’t be in 5 places at once because you haven’t yet developed that superhero power of self-replication, or take a relaxing vacation and balance your life when you are fighting for the future of your enterprises. Of course these self-care recommendations are supposed to be ongoing and preventative, but what happens when you forget to take care of yourself along the way?
First and foremost, know that you are not alone. It’s happening to all of us. Our pursuit of the possibilities and opportunities of the life of an entrepreneur (freedom, flexibility, independent decision-making, unleashing the power of the non-traditional work life, the ability to watch your ideas grow (and sometimes fail)) is a wonderful one; but not without its tolls.
So, how do you cope with the entrepreneurial dilemma? How do you deal when you just can’t deal anymore? Drinking, smoking, binge eating, crying, angry outbursts, isolation and hibernation, engagement in extreme sports? I personally sit in my car with the rationalization that if I sit in my car, I can’t be in my office or my home office doing work AND since I’m in a car, I shouldn’t be using my blackberry to make phone calls or text or check my emails, so I pretty much sit there. We all have our coping strategies. But maybe we can learn a thing or two from all of these psychology workshops, and, for a limited time only, if you send me $285 (just kidding)… You see, there is only one thing that gets me out of my car. And that’s reaching out to my personal crisis management team. What? Yup. A personal crisis management team.
As entrepreneur’s we should all have our own personal board of directors. The person that helps you organize your ideas, the person that helps with your finances, the person that helps you network and promote yourself, the person that forces you to shut your phones off, and now, my recommendation to honor the importance of self care during the entrepreneurial dilemma, is to require yourself to have your own personal crisis management team/person sitting close by on your personal board of directors. This person/people are the ones you have identified that probably know you the best. They know your default actons and emotions when things get rough. They know how to talk you down from the hypothetical ledge. Most importantly, they know you well enough to know that your meltdowns are not a sign of being nuts but a sign of being successful because without these intermittent meltdowns, we would not be capable of understanding our own limits and our ability to push through and push on. Identify these people now. Let them know that they have become your “go to” people in times of crisis. Let them know the value they serve in your life because without them, truthfully, the meltdowns wouldn’t evolve into the most valuable lessons of our entrepreneurial lives.
