In June of 2017, I wrote in my journal I feel like we’re on the brink of something–both with [Business name] and Jonathan’s job. The crazy thing is, my intuition was spot on. The bad thing is, I didn’t realize then that we were on the brink of calamity. It was only five months later that I wrote this entry:

November 15, 2017: I feel numb. I finally shut up long enough to listen rather than ask. And I was told to let go. I know leaving [company name] is the right move, but it doesn’t mean this is easy. This has been a doozy of a year, and I am ready for whatever 2018 has in store.

In the months between those two entries, my whole world got flipped upside down. My husband lost his job. My mom, who is my only remaining parent, had major back surgery and I came home to care for her, and my business grew so quickly that I was buried in work. Buried.

I feel like the breakdown came on suddenly, like the flu. One minute I was fine and the next I just wasn’t. But the reality is, the breakdown was a result of all the tiny little things compounding; a game of Tetris I was slowly losing. I was happy doing all the things and being everything to everyone. But somewhere along the way, a turbo switch got flipped and I was powerless to slow things down, much less stop them. Like a tire with a slow leak, eventually, I had nothing left inside. Deflated, exhausted, sick and useless.

I couldn’t breathe. An old GI illness flared. And I constantly felt like my heart was going to blast right out of my chest. Despite feeling the worst I ever felt in my life, I couldn’t slow down. I couldn’t take a sick day or a vacation. I couldn’t find reprieve. And the worst part is: I’d done it all to myself.

WHAT WENT WRONG?

Probably not unlike a lot of you, I started my business to build in the flexibility my life required. Also probably not unlike many of you, when the company first started, I was obsessed with it. I couldn’t work enough. I was never tired. I collected clients like kids of the 90s collected pogs. If someone was willing to pay, I was willing to do the work. I was eager to prove to myself and everyone else that I could, in fact, really do this thing. The problem is, once the thing really took off, I didn’t have anything in place to protect myself. The business didn’t crash and burn. I did.

WORTH ENTANGLEMENT

The first thing worth mentioning, which I believe is at the root of this entire issue, was that I measured my worth by my productivity. This is an easy trap to fall into as an entrepreneur because typically, our dollar bills are literally attached to the amount we accomplish. And I was so desperate to make the thing work that I threw myself into the business 100%. Dedication and discipline are great qualities as an entrepreneur, but you have to draw the line somewhere, and I didn’t. I was my business. My business was me. And that entanglement, my friends, will derail your life. You cannot and should not attach your worth to the success of your business, your productivity, or really anything that can vary day by day. It was this entanglement that fueled everything for me.

FLAWED SYSTEM

As a client-serving business owner, you wear all of the hats. You are the client relationship manager, the admin, the billing specialist, oh…and you have to actually like deliver the work they’ve paid for. A ton of work goes into a client relationship. I thought I did a good job trying to anticipate all the things, but in reality, I’d never actually run a business before. The first year in business was a huge learning curve. Establishing precedent and systems for all the things took up a lot of time. Doing all the work also took up a lot of time. And mind you, these things were getting established on the fly as issues came up.

I was also terribly unaware of bandwidth. Because I’d never done this before, I had no idea what the average lifecycle of a standard client was or what that relationship would actually look like. So while there were systems in place, those systems ultimately didn’t really serve or protect me–just the client.

HALF-BAKED BOUNDARIES

Here’s the thing. The business wasn’t without its structure and boundaries. There were things like client communication guidelines and standard procedures in place, but there was one major critical error: I, personally, didn’t have any boundaries with the business. The structure and procedures that were in place were solely looking out for the client and our standard business operations. I honestly didn’t know enough about running a business to understand that I also needed to set these things up with myself in mind, too. It’s important to note here also that this company launched in the age of hustle glorification. I believed in order to be successful that I had to be slightly miserable. Dreams don’t work unless you do, after all. 🙄 HEAR ME WHEN I SAY THIS, PLEASE:

YOU DO NOT HAVE TO HUSTLE FOR YOUR WORTH!

I didn’t know about my go-hard tendencies yet. I wasn’t in-tune with my working preferences or my most productive hours. I didn’t take the time to get to know myself as a business owner and establish a process that allowed for me to best serve my clients and protect the way I preferred to work. I haphazardly threw procedures into place as issues would arise never once considering what those things would mean for me as a business owner.

I introduced zero white space. I was scheduled to the max and completely overloaded. I took on every client that came my way and went above and beyond for each and every one of them. I woke up working. I fell asleep at my desk. I came home after a 20 hour day at the hospital where my mother just had major surgery and hopped in a Zoom call to launch a client’s website. I. Had. Not. A. Single. Personal. Boundary. In. Place.

It’s hard to envision business ownership as anything other than a sprint, especially when you’re first getting started. Establishing effective policies and procedures takes a lot of work and effort and good googly moogly, they aren’t sexy in the least. Taking the time to understand who you are, what you prefer, how you actually want to work and the potential issues that might arise won’t just set your business up for success, it’ll set you up for success in your business.

There are so many things I would have done differently with my first business, but implementing this foundation is at the top of that list. In fact, it was this foundation alone that gave me the courage and confidence to give entrepreneurship another go. After my experience with burnout, I’m sure you can understand my hesitation. But I’m happy to report that 1.5 years in, this foundation is still solidly in place and offers not just me but all of my clients as well the freedom we so desperately crave in our businesses.