When to Hit Pause. Let’s Talk about Burnout.

In the culture of entrepreneurship and the corporate world in general, the concepts of continuous commitment, unrelenting dedication and stressful effort are promoted and encouraged. Entrepreneurs are expected and praised to put in most of their hours into their business. The border between business hours and daily life becomes exceptionally blurred. But even the most budding of entrepreneurs have a finite capacity, and knowing the limits of that capacity is as integral to the company as any other order of business. Here’s why …

Real Life Scenario: Towards the end of the year, the entire Concept Me team joined for one call over Zoom. Nina Parvaresh, Founder & Chief Vision Officer, had reached a certain checkpoint regarding the direction of the company. She knew that her capacities were being stretched, that if they were stretched any further, the quality of the work would be jeopardized and the joy she found in doing the job would diminish. The team and Nina discussed the different responsibilities that would be shifted, realigned and changed in order to maintain the workflow without any disturbance. In that meeting, the options were either to press pause on the whole process or to move forward in a completely different direction.

Nina’s decision to take that step and proceed with that meeting was a result of an accumulated decade-in-the-making sense of burnout. As the founder and manager of Concept Me, she truly is a one man show. From heading the Design Department, the Finance Department, the Marketing Department and site supervision along with handling client relations, it is actually quite impressive that it took her 13 years to reach a point where she understood that a pause in the current modus operandi was necessary.

Burnout is a very common and recently discussed topic in the business world. It may have taken a pandemic on top of the daily stresses of work to bring attention to this universal sense of burnout, but there is a lot to learn from it. Burnout is not something that entrepreneurs and employees should fear, it is something that they must accept and process. It is a natural byproduct of hard work, perseverance and simple human nature.

From that call with Nina, there were two key points that resonated the most with the team. The first was that clicking the Pause button when you know your performance is not at its peak is integral to helping you recharge and reclaim your focus. Many in the entrepreneurship circle will maybe look onto hitting the pause button as a sign of weakness or a lack of committed will. In holding that attitude, we must consciously remember that everyone has different capacities and that, no matter what, any jar will eventually fill up and overspill, so it’s logically and universally agreed upon to empty it out every once in a while.

The second important taking from that Checkpoint Call is that, entrepreneurs who run their company must understand that their personal well-being is tied into their sole proprietorship’s well-being. So, if hitting pause, lounging on a beach for a month or going on a business retreat is what they need to do to recharge and revitalize their energy is what’s good for them, it will directly translate into being good for the business itself.

So, for all the entrepreneurs and employees out there, if burnout is making its way for you - accept it and deal with it by simply hitting that pause button.

Click it!