As a small business owner you probably started your business with passion and motivation powering you. But as time moves on you realise that you are putting so much time and energy into your work that your work-life balance can start to feel like all work and no life. Your business is your brainchild and it may seem hard to take time out from running it, but without downtime, you burnout. And if you burnout, so does your business.

What actually is burnout? I am acutely aware that burnout is increasingly becoming an overused term amongst the (without sounding too generalising) tik tok generation to conform to society, in that some start to forget what its true meaning actually is. It’s a common misconception that burnout is simply working too long, or too hard. Burnout is characterized by ongoing stress when we feel overwhelmed and unable to meet constant demands, which impacts how we think and socialise. Work-related burnout is a type of stress – a physical, emotional, or mental exhaustion combined with doubts about your competence and value of yourself and your work. Apply this to your small business and you have decreased productivity, increased personal leave, and more errors and accidents in the workplace.

If you feel like your business is losing the joy it once brought you, it is time to put some boundaries in place. This idea is gaining some traction in the Fair Work Commission as they try to legislate business owners being fined if they continuously contact workers out of hours, entitling workers to ignore phone calls and work emails out of hours. Whilst I think this idea is far more complex then the proposal suggests, I do believe it is nuancing the main cause of burnout, and that is lack of boundaries.

So here are three things I am suggesting you do to keep your both your business and your passion alive.

SIMPLY SET BOUNDARIES: If your business allows you to limit your hours on the weekend, then do it! If not, then find your ‘weekend’ of limited hours mid-week. You could choose to only be contacted by email at these times, you could choose to not be contacted at all. Those who respect you and the work you do should/will understand these boundaries.

THE WORD NO IS A FULL SENTENCE: I find this one particularly difficult but if you have got too much on your plate already, you don’t always need dessert. Saying no can help you prioritise and delegate effectively

STOP WEARING ALL THE HATS: This one is unique to small businesses. You are the CEO, CFO and VA of your own business but you aren’t getting any extra points by doing all of the things, and this is where we start to see work-life balance tipping into work’s favour. Running your business shouldn’t mean running yourself into the ground. If budget allows, outsource where possible. If not, re-visit your processes and see if there is any new technology out there that can help streamline your processes.

It sounds easy from my soapbox, preaching about how boundaries are simplistic to implement. But if we take thoughtful, considered approaches to our boundaries we aren’t just honouring ourselves and our family, but we are also honouring our business and allowing it to become it’s own entity without any obtrusion into other facets of life.