“Today’s society makes us believe that we can only be successful when we work incredibly long hours, and ‘sacrifice’ our health, our personal time, and our relationships. This can’t be further from the truth, for what is success when we lose our health, our inner connection, and our relationships with others?”
Genny Ghanimeh, Understanding Entrepreneurial Burn-out (And How To Deal With It)
When we first started talking about wellness at the LEC, one of the most common topics that came up in many conversations among students and community members was burn-out. Chronic workplace stress, or a state of emotional, mental, and often physical exhaustion brought on by prolonged or repeated stress, has not been successfully managed.
The path of entrepreneurship can be incredibly rewarding, yet the endless demands of startup culture can often lead to unhealthy lifestyle habits despite the level of passion for our work. Late nights, not enough sleep, poor food choices and lack of social interaction are just a few of the unhealthy habits that can develop.
In this second edition of Well Entrepreneur, we wanted to start to scratch the surface of this topic and focus on supporting you. The goal is to help you identify signs of burnout while also offering a practical tool for deepening awareness as a skill towards cultivating healthier lifestyle habits and choices.
Common signs of work-related burn-out may include:
- Attaching sense of self-worth to accomplishments
- Overworking and inability to “switch off”
- Difficulty concentrating and/or being productive
- Lack of joy in your work
- Feelings of energy loss or depletion
To cultivate healthier ways of being in our work and in our lives, we first must be willing to meet ourselves exactly where we are in the present moment. Awareness is the first step to change, and the power of our awareness as a tool to create new habits and patterns can guide us along the way. By developing and deepening awareness of our physical, emotional, mental and energetic states of being, we not only build resilience towards stress, but we can empower ourselves to make choices that are transformational for our health, well-being and entrepreneur endeavors.
To support you in this process, here is a short mindfulness practice that you can use any time of day to learn how to deepen awareness and feel centered in yourself on your path of well-being.
This initiative is a project in partnership with Amelia Coffaro, a licensed yoga therapist with a mission to make integrative health and healing accessible to everyone. Amelia was a part of the I-Corps cohort in 2019, and the 2019-2020 Student Start Up Challenge Cohort at the LEC. You can learn more about her here.