The Fierce Business Babe Podcast Ep 188: Burnout & How to Get Your Motivation Back

Today, I am diving into something that many entrepreneurs face at some point in their journey: burnout. I am going to share with you my own experiences with burnout and how to get your motivation back if you ever face this challenge.

Burnout & How to Get Your Motivation Back

By: Melissa Lin

Welcome back to another episode of The Fierce Business Babe Podcast. Hello and happy start to quarter two of 2022. I honestly feel like this year is just flying by. I'm so excited to be starting Q2. Q1 was such a great quarter, there were so many things happening in both my personal life and business-wise as well. As everything goes as planned we should be moving into our new home, my partner Ryan and I, during quarter two. It will probably be towards the end of quarter two, more mid-to-late quarter two, but it should be happening and we're so excited. We've been working with our interior designer and starting to get things packed up, it’s so crazy. It’s been such a journey and I'll definitely record a podcast episode all about it once we do finally move in and take that next step. For those of you who have been with me during this journey, it started back in December 2019, so it's exciting for it to finally be wrapping up so that we can finally move in. I’m so excited for that and also excited to get into today’s brand new podcast episode.

Today’s episode is something that I have talked about before the podcast, however, I typically only talk about the burnout side and signs to look out for. Today I really wanted to get into how to get out of the burnout and how to get your motivation back after you hit some type of burn out. The goal is to avoid burnout, of course, to not hit it if possible. If you do hit it, it’s okay, sometimes it happens. Sometimes we hit a lull or a slow period or just a weird business funk. I get it, I've been there too. I want to give you some tools to try and get yourself out of that burnout and get that motivation back if that does happen. There's this huge stigma and this hustle culture that has been created in the online space and in business in general, which I am definitely not a big fan of. I want to really support you with moving away from that. Is starting a business a lot of work? Definitely, especially if you are doing it while in a full-time job like I was when I first started years ago. Your business is not built by itself overnight. If only it were, right? If only you had a magic lamp and could make a wish for that to happen. Unfortunately, it doesn't work that way. That also doesn't mean that you need to spend 12 hours a day 7 days a week in your business for it to grow either. I actually spent my first few years in my business part-time. I was growing it on the side while I was still in my full-time engineering job. There is no right or wrong timeline. It gets to be your timeline. If you're feeling behind or if you feel like things aren’t moving fast enough, just know there is no timeline for you to compare it to. Your day one is your day one, your day two is your day two. You cannot compare your day ten to somebody else's day 1,000, or whatever the numbers are. Your timeline is your timeline and it does not need to burn you out. You get to have fun along the way. It’s kind of like that story that you may hear so many of us talking about; I didn't want to stay in my 9 to 5 so that I could finally start enjoying my life after I retired. I didn't want to start traveling when I retired in my mid fifties or sixties or whenever that would have been. The same thing goes for your business. You didn’t start your business so you could work 80 hours a week in it. You are allowed to have fun while building your business. To be honest, the more fun and the more enjoyable it is, the easier it will be for it to grow. In today's brand new episode I'm going to be going into how I knew I had hit burnout, boundaries I've sent in place to avoid burnout, how to get your motivation in your business back, and so much more.

I really wanted to get into this episode today and talk about this topic because it's something that I see come up every single day in the online space. I was actually chatting with a client about this last week. I had a client that was feeling in a bit of a funk in her business. Again, as I mentioned earlier, this is something that definitely can happen. I've had quite a few different business funks and lulls. I’ve had a few burnout moments that I’m going to share about today. Some homework that I gave her was to really give herself some space and take the entire weekend off. So many of us feel that we have to be in the business 24/7 and there is no separation from business and life. I really challenged her to take the weekend off social media and to turn her phone off completely. If you're going to do an event and you need to contact somebody, yes, turn your phone on to get in contact with somebody. You can also just keep it on do not disturb all weekend long. You can let people know you're going off the grid for the weekend. Really ask yourself, when was the last time you did this.

I typically do this when I'm in an airplane flying as I am traveling, I'm always offline. It's really funny because when I first started my business back in 2014 and 2015, my first year or two, I definitely felt that I needed to really, really hustle in order to grow my business. That definitely led to one of my big first burnout moments, which I'm going to share about today. I used to always work on the plane. Every single time I traveled, I made sure I got the best WiFi I could on the plane and I worked the entire time. Now it's funny because it's the complete opposite. I do not do any work on the plane anymore. I really use it for some R&R time. I love catching up on some movies, listening to some music, and catching up on some of my books that I'm reading. I will not do any business on the plane anymore. Between flights I'll definitely hop online and check in with my clients because I do want to make sure that my clients are supported. However, on the plane zilch, not any more. That’s a total 180 from how my business used to be and how I looked at business versus personal life, so I'm really excited to go into this. Anytime I challenge my clients to take a step away from their business and to go do something fun, to treat themselves, or to do some type of self care, the minute they come back into their business things start to light up again. They’ll sign their next client within hours of stepping back into their business. Things just start to click, things start aligning.

My Experiences with Burnout in my Business

We're going to definitely get into that, but before I do I want to first get into how I knew I had hit burnout and what my big burnout moments have been in my business. I've actually had two really big moments that I've hit burnout in my business. I've definitely had more than two, however, these were two big ones where I actually needed some time away from my business to recover from the burnout. They were such big burnout moments.

One was much closer to the beginning when I was first starting my business. I was still at my full-time job. I was really under charging, I was working seven days a week in my business, and when I say zero boundaries, I really mean I had zero boundaries. I did not have business hours. I shared my personal cell phone number with clients for unlimited texting support with me seven days a week. I felt like that was such an amazing perk to give and I did not even realize it was a lack of a boundary in my business that I had had. I thought it was such a cool perk and loved it for the first six months to a year that I had it, but then things started to happen. Clients would start calling and texting me in the wee hours of the weekend. This was before do not disturb existed for iPhones. With different time zones it’s difficult to catch people at the right time sometimes if there are no boundaries. I definitely had some 2 a.m. calls and 5 a.m. calls. A lot of entrepreneurs feel that when big things happen it's an emergency that needs to be fixed right away. I know that there are no emergencies in business. Everything is fixable, everything is figureoutable. It's something that we get to overcome and really work through, but there's never a real emergency. If there's an emergency you should probably be calling 911 or getting some help that way. There really is never a true business emergency and I just did not even realize any of this is.

So again, I gave my clients cell phone access, texting access with my personal cell phone. Just a quick side note, please do not do this. This is your permission slip to add this boundary in right now. If you are providing your personal cell phone either get a business number or a different line. You can definitely buy a different line on your phone through multiple apps. You can even use software that is out there. I use a platform, or an app I suppose, that you can also use on your computer, it's called Voxer. It's pretty big in the coaching space and online industry. I use it to communicate with my private clients and my higher-level Fiercely Scale clients. You don't have to share your personal cell phone number, but you get texting access and also voice messaging access. It’s definitely one of my favorite ways to communicate with clients, especially if it’s one-on-one or private coaching, so I highly recommend it. I highly recommend to move away from sharing your personal cell phone number and really start to add in some boundaries.

So this was one of my first big burnout moments. I knew I had hit it because I had pretty much gone into obsessive behavior around my business. Anytime a notification came through my phone I had to stop what I was doing in order to either get back to that social media item or get back to a client. It was because of my lack of boundaries that I had. I had no boundaries set in place and no expectations and place between me as the coach and the client. I hit my first burnout because I really couldn't separate personal life and business. I was thinking about my business 24/7. I couldn't sleep at night because I was thinking about it 24/7. I was working on it 24/7, which I personally did not believe was healthy anymore. I was not getting much sleep, I was saying no to friend functions, family functions, get-togethers, and birthdays so that I could work my business. Yes, I do believe there's a time and place for that. If there’s a huge launch that you’re working on and you don't go to that happy hour that you wanted to go to so you can wrap some things up that’s okay. However, you don't necessarily need to be missing everything. You started your business so that you can have that time freedom and your business is still going to be there when you get back that next day or whatever that looks like. Anyways, back to that first big moment that I had burnout. I was working seven days a week, my phone would not stop ringing, my watch would not stop pinging, and I started to feel a lot of anxiety around my business, so I hit that first big burnout moment.

My second one was about a year or two later after my business had grown some time. It had already hit six figures and I was still doing almost everything in my business by myself. I was wearing so many different hats. I may have had one team member at the time, but I really did not have any separation still between personal and business. I had a few boundaries, more boundaries than I had when I first started. I wasn't sharing my personal cell phone anymore, I had more expectations in contracts, however, I still had not really separated my personal and business life. I really didn't have any hobbies outside of my business. I knew I had burnt out because it had started to really impact my relationships, so my friendships and also my romantic relationship at the time as well. My partner could feel the impact. Instead of me really enjoying and connecting and being there with my partner on the couch and watching a movie, I would literally be on my phone or my laptop working instead of spending that time with him. That was the moment that I had realized, “wow, I really need to have more boundaries set in place.” Again, I had some, but not nearly enough. When you start to think about your business and you don't see anything outside of your life that truly makes you happy or that you can really connect with outside of your business, that was a big “ah-ha” moment for me.

I really didn't have any hobbies outside of my business. I did not want my life to be my business, so that was a big moment for me. I started getting into more hiking, I got my sailing certification, and I started skiing a few years ago. I started getting more hobbies and so much more outside of my business. I love my business and also I love my life outside of my business. You definitely get to have both. I would start to think about that because I do see a lot of entrepreneurs attached to their business so much that when they don't have some of these things outside of their businesses, they really can't detach. I want you to really start to get into some things outside of your business. If you don't have anything, let’s hard to find some things. When I did hit those two big moments of burnout it took me a few weeks to really get back into my business in a way that felt good. I'm going to be going into more of that and how to get your motivation back for your business a little later into today's episode.

Boundaries to Avoid Burnout

I first want to get into some boundaries that I have sent in place to avoid burnout. I really haven't hit a big burnout moment in quite a few years, and I don't see it happening. You never know, it can happen, however, I have so many things set in place that it is very unlikely for it to happen. I have quite a few boundaries with my personal life and also with my business life. Personally, I have quite a few non-negotiables. My morning routine is one that I have every single day. It’s my time for me. I make sure I've got some type of self-care every single day in my personal life. Whether that's going to the gym, whether it's me getting some movement in with a walk outside, whether it's me going to feed the ducks down the street. Don't worry, I've got organic duck food, I’m not feeding them bread. I definitely got the right food for them. I get some type of movement every day to make sure I'm getting out of the house and doing things for me. Again, listening to a podcast, going on a walk, reading my book in the morning, or I’ve been getting back into crocheting and doing some of that in the evening. Again, it’s time for me outside of my business. I highly recommend it, especially as you continue to grow and as your business continues to scale. Taking care of you is going to be one of the most important aspects. If you can’t fill your cup, if you're not taking care of you, it makes it very difficult for you to support your clients and hold space for your clients as well. You get to be your number one priority. I would say start that now. Create that habit now.

Then I definitely have a lot of boundaries in terms of business. I've got work hours, and it's not just about creating work hours, it's also about sticking to them. My clients know what these work hours are, my team knows what they are, and I stick with them in both cases. Again, my clients are fully aware of all of our boundaries and all of the expectations in place. I'll share about that in just a minute. I also have certain work days where I focus on CEO activities and content activities. I have certain days where all I do is coach my clients. I really separate my business and personal life as much as I can. All of my softwares that I use are only on my computer, unless I'm traveling. If I am traveling, that is kind of a gray area because I do want to make sure I'm able to check in with my team and support my clients as I travel, so I may have Slack and Voxer or Asana on my phone. Usually Slack, Voxer, Asana, Airtable, email, whatever the platform, are only on my computer. This way at the end of the day when I shut my computer down I’m clocked out, I’m done for the day. My phone and my watch are typically always on do not disturb, especially during my work hours. Even after work hours I typically leave it on do not disturb and then I go in and get back to people and check things at certain times of the day, even with my personal life.

This is a big one, if you're not doing this, please, please, please let this be your permission slip to do so. All notifications are completely off. Social media, client notifications, even Voxer and Slack, no notifications are allowed on my computer, my phone, whatever I’m using. I’m very intentional about when I go into social media and also my programs to support clients. I will actually hop into my programs two to three times per day to support clients at certain times of the day. They know this, they know the expectation, they know how that goes. If you're wondering how to let clients know about your boundaries, our client expectations are first shared in contract terms and conditions, and then also during our onboarding process so that clients do see it multiple times. It’s in the welcome email and then in all of our coaching programs there is an onboarding section inside of the course hub as well. We do let our clients know what the expectations are and what that looks like. This really supports you in creating a very seamless onboarding process so that claims are not asking, what is this? What is that? What is this? What is that? You want to make it as seamless as possible. We do have those expectations. Very quickly off the bat it’s one of the first things they see before they get started in the program so they know what those expectations are and what that looks like. Again, be very intentional.

Some other things, I take one entire week off every single month. Typically in December I'll usually take at least two weeks off. That means zero calls with my team, zero calls with clients, time completely away from the business. That's another big thing I add in and it’s a non-negotiable for me personally. Not everyone wants that and that's okay. Your business gets to run the way that you want it to run. You get to have the boundaries that truly do feel good to you. Lots of boundaries that I just mentioned there, so start adding a few in. You're going to start to feel a difference and also see a big difference as well. Start to take note of some of the patterns that you have. One of the big things for me is that I can get distracted easily. If I have a lot of different platforms up or different softwares up. That's a big reason why I need to have do not disturb turned on almost all day long, especially if I'm working. I know that I will pop into different things and I know if a notification pops up I will go and click on it. Again, I get so easily distracted by the things that pop up, so I know that I need to have that do not disturb on and notifications off. You will start to feel a difference and you’ll see it too in productivity and other things. I definitely recommend that you give it a go. Give it at least a week or two and I am fairly confident that you're going to feel a difference. Let me know how it goes, I can't wait to hear all about it.

Getting Your Business Motivation Back

Now let's talk about how to get your motivation back in your business. If you are feeling like you're in a business funk, or maybe you're just drained, or you're in a lull, a slow period, whatever it may be, let yourself feel into it. Let yourself feel the blah, feel the funk, whatever that is, and really experience that feeling. Then see what, if anything, sounds fun to you. What in your business would sound fun? Even outside of business. What would sound fun to you? Start with that and then after that momentum will follow with other things personally and also in your business. Another thing that you can do if you're in some type of burnout or funk is get really clear on why you’re in it and how it’s serving you. How is it serving you at this moment? Then ask yourself what you need and give yourself that. Sometimes we just need a day or two away from social media. Maybe you need to go and binge Gilmore Girls or Gossip Girl for the day, give yourself that. Then start to lean back in and see what's going to excite you, and again, momentum will follow.

If you're wanting to journal through it, I'll give you some journal prompts to start to dive into. If you’re in a slow period or a lull and just not sure how to lean back in the business, journal through it. Ask yourself, what am I feeling right now? What are some of the emotions, some of the physical sensations, and the things that you're tying those to as well? Are you anxious? Are you nervous? Are you worried? Are you feeling some type of guilt? Then journal through what’s subjectively true here. Start to build consistency around some of the daily actions that are more business-oriented. Give that a go if that's something that feels better to you.

I'll go into one more just in case you’ve tried some of these other things already. Really ask yourself, what can you do that is a pattern interrupt for you? Go do something that's really, really fun or really inspiring like a cooking class, or hot yoga, or maybe some pottery. Ask yourself, what is something that can help you create some type of physical Interruption from what you're doing right now? Sometimes when the mindset work isn't landing, trying a shift of your physical state. Maybe that’s the thing that's going to start to move things forward for you. At the end of the day, boundaries are key. Know that you're allowed to give yourself grace. You're allowed to take days off when needed. You're allowed to slow down in order to speed up.

I know we've covered a lot today. We’ve touched on how I knew I had hit burnout, different boundaries that I've set in place to avoid burnout, how to get motivation back in your business, and so many other things and tips and tricks I added in there as well. We have the next brand new episode coming out Thursday for you, it’s one of the micro episodes that we've been creating. Again, we have two new episodes every single week. We have another episode coming out next Monday, a week from today. There are lots of new episodes, go have fun, go binge, go take lots of action. You know we've got lots of action steps in all of our other episodes as well. We will see you Thursday for another brand new episode of The Fierce Business Babe Podcast.

Topics we cover include:

Burnout in business
Avoiding burnout
Getting your motivation back

And so much more!

Times to check out:

(11:26) How I support clients with burnout

(14:34) When I knew I had hit burnout

(22:52) Boundaries to set to avoid burnout

(29:40) Getting your business motivation back

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