Let’s talk about business breaks; there are planning breaks, retreat/conference breaks, vacation breaks, self-care breaks, daily breaks OR unintentional burnout breaks.
If you don’t take some breaks within your business structure, you are going to end up in the unintentional burnout break. Which is a sucky break, because it feels yucky, depressing, and guilt-ridden, instead of fun/happy/refreshing/revitalizing.
It can take a while to figure out what breaks you need to stay at the top of your entrepreneurial journey, so don’t beat yourself up if you’ve had the bad kind, but hopefully, it’s given you some clues of what you need to look for to avoid that roadblock in the future.
Getting a business up and running takes so much work, tenacity, and consistency. And because of this, it can be super hard for entrepreneurs to hit that pause button even when it’s the best choice for their business, strategy, and sanity.
If you are feeling stress, overwhelmed, and frazzled it might be time to take a break. An intentional break is so much better than a freakout/burn out. Let’s talk about times you might hit pause.
To plan
It’s super easy to get caught up in the hustle of the day-to-day operations of your business that you can sometimes lose sight of your goals. You can also quickly fall into working harder over working strategically when you don’t hit pause and evaluate what’s working or not working in your business strategy.
This is why I think solo retreats are so important to entrepreneurs. Read more about that here!
To get ahead
We aren’t robots; we don’t live in a bubble, things happen (you get sick, your kid gets sick, things take longer than expected, the house needs to be cleaned). You get behind, you find yourself scrambling to keep up with client work or your marketing strategy. And each week you get further and further behind on what you needs to be done to run your business effectively.
Instead of staying on the struggle bus, skip a week of content/social media and use that time to get ahead. You can use it to get back on track with your marketing strategy or to reduce your stress in meeting client deadlines. Trust me a skipped blog post is better than a blog post written and half-assed promoted or an unsatisfied client.
To get a project done or jump-start one
Do you have a project that you can’t seem to wrap up or an idea that you feel FIRED up about? Consider giving yourself a timeout from your routine activities to take advantage of that flow or to finally get that project to your audience.
I did this back in April, instead of dedicating my time to crafting my weekly blog post, newsletter, and filling my social media schedule I hit paused and created a signature opt-in that I’ve wanted to create forever. I kept saying, “when I have time, when I have time” well time doesn’t just magically appear, you have to make the time.
And guess what? That opt-in (The Simplified Marketing Plan) published at the very end of April, and by the end of June, I’ve had 150 sign-ups, and two new clients mentioned they loved the approach I provided in that opt-in. So to me that was an excellent use of my time.
If you want to give this opt-in a try, sign-up below!
To set up systems
Just like hitting pause to complete a project might be necessary, it’s important to intentionally craft time to set up systems. Systems will save you time in the long-run, and help your business run better on so many levels. However, so many entrepreneurs push systems to the side until they have worked themselves into a hot mess.
As your business grows, it’s only going to get harder to get your systems in place. And trust me, when I say, you never really going to “find” the time to do it, you have to MAKE the time to do it.
Need help getting started? Here is my recommendation.
To reset
This one relates to systems and getting ahead, but I wanted to mention this one separately as well. There are times in your business things might get a little off the rails, you might have systems and processes, but when things get busy, you might start neglecting them.
You might be behind on a number of administrative things in your business or in general gotten to a place of disorganization (or even chaos). This is also a good time to consider hitting pause, and give yourself a day or two to reset and reorganize.
To reduce stress
This relates to getting ahead and really most of these, but sometimes you need a non-vacation break. Sometimes you can feel yourself getting burned out or losing your spark and you need to give yourself permission to hit pause and breathe.
I can acutely remember sitting on a mastermind call and starting to cry because I was SO afraid to hit pause –to take a break, but also feeling like I was drowning. At that time our dog was dying, I was feeling adrift with what I was offering, and had lost that spark. Everything was feeling hard.
And them giving me the encouragement/permission to take that break was the biggest gift, I’m truly not sure I would have taken it on my own, and I’m not sure how long I would have continued to struggle.
It was a valuable lesson, and one I have embraced. Breaks are now part of my routine.
One way I make sure that I have time for some of all the above each quarter is by incorporating week 13 into my quarterly strategy. Read more what a week 13 is, and how I utilize it in this blog post!
Sometimes purposely hitting pause can be the very best thing you can do. And embracing breaks is a necessary part of running your business strategically.
✨Your Action✨
❏ Schedule a break!! Seriously! Decide how you can better utilize breaks in your business strategy, and start embracing the pause button intentionally.
❏ Open your calendar and figure out some days or weeks you might use as a strategic break to do some of the above.
During break weeks, I do usually meet with my already booked clients, BUT I pause all new appointments and my weekly marketing schedule. A break can be what you make of it.