Burnout does not only deal with the body but also with one’s mind and emotions. It’s likely to occur when you’re faced with repeatedly stressful situations — which is common for business owners who have a lot of responsibilities on their shoulders. 

Suffice to say that, as a business owner, burnout is something that should be prevented at all costs. After all, you not only have to take care of yourself but also the men and women that you have working under you. 

For David Seruya, who has started up several businesses, the stress of running a business is certainly not new. As a result, he’s cultivated his own methods of preventing burnout to ensure that he can continue to run his business smoothly:

5 Unique Ways to Preventing Burnout

Note that some of the methods listed below may or may not apply to you. Some may also work better for you than others. This is to be expected, as everyone has their own unique needs. So, take care when trying things out to find out what will work for you and your own circumstances:

1. Spend some downtime with family and friends

David Seruya’s preferred method of de-stressing and preventing burnout is spending time with his family. He stated that he’s always been a family man and that he’s long admired his father for being able to juggle his work and personal life so well over the years.

His goal is to become just like his dad in this case and, as such, has always reserved time to spend with his family during the weekends — going as far as to completely cut himself off from his work emails and messages during breaks! In this way, he’s able to relieve some of the stress from work and separate himself from the burden of his responsibilities for a time. 

It’s not a completely foolproof solution for some, as it doesn’t necessarily take care of the underlying causes of stress, but this method should at least help you start fresh mentally and be more prepared to deal with whatever is causing you so much troubles.

2. Organize your work and root out inefficiencies 

The previous method is actually closely related to this one. More specifically, you need to get yourself into a better state so that you can effectively get your work back on track. 

Most of the time, the reason for stress for business leaders is a failure in their own processes. This can take many forms, from something as simple as disorganized documents or rowdy employees causing trouble. Whatever it is, David Seruya suggests that you take the time to dig the rotten root out. By doing so, you can stand stronger and grow more comfortably.

3. Prioritize the most important tasks

Another thing that might be causing your issues is the fact that you have been inundated with tons of tasks and too little time to take care of them all. If so, then the first thing you should do is establish which of these tasks is most important to you and work on them correspondingly.

David Seruya stated that, if there is really no time to accomplish all tasks, then this would be the time to accept the fact that you won’t be able to get them all done. At which point, you should begin to look for alternative solutions or alert the client/customer accordingly.

4. Delegate tasks 

One of the biggest mistakes a leader can make is not trusting their team enough to let them take on some heavier responsibilities. If that’s the case for you, then you need to seriously consider the people under your charge and whether or not you’re lack of trust is a result of their own failures or a failure to choose the right candidate for the job in the beginning.

Whatever the case may be, you need to figure out how to solve the problem so that you can have people at your disposal that you can rely on when things get rough.

5. Review your end goals

If what’s making you burn out is your state of mind, then a “refresh” in your thinking might help more than the other methods introduced thus far. For this, David Seruya suggests that you take a look at your end goal and the reward awaiting along with success. In this way, you can hopefully start to reinvigorate your spirits and focus on growing your business.