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FIGURE 1: Out-of-balance cycle impacting many entrepreneurs.

If you are an entrepreneur on your learning path to growing your business, you will find yourself juggling many roles and suffering countless setbacks including lost business, disputes with partners, increased competition amongst countless other issues.

You are likely to be working at least 60 hours a week, eating either too little or too much. Not getting sufficient sleep and, as typical with many entrepreneurs, failing to exercise and making enough time for activities that recharges and energises you.

I call this the viscous out-of-balance cycle (Figure 1). I have seen that when insufficient attention is made to getting back to balance, a disconnection, and an imbalance can happen diminishing ones’ capacity for personal resilience and effectiveness.

It is essential to develop and implement an effective wellbeing strategy to support you in your daily challenges; and absolutely crucial to utilise such a strategy as a resource for your work effectiveness, reaching your goals and elevating your personal power.

I have put together a list of the top six activities that you could implement today to get you started on your path to better well-being, resilience, and effectiveness.

• Stay connected and make time for your family and friends. These relationships can be a powerful source of energy and empowerment. Such activities can also help to stimulate creativity and problem solving.

• If you are experiencing symptoms of significant anxiety, post-traumatic stress disorder or depression don’t be afraid to seek help and talk about it. Be open about your feelings and emotions to the people around you.

• Get professional support to help you set limits to your financial risk and financial exposure and to manage your cash flow. Inappropriate financial management can rock not only your bank account but your stress levels as well.

• Schedule time to exercise daily. Ideally, 30 minutes of walking or 20 minutes of high-intensity training at a gym depending on your personal fitness goal. These activities will fire up your brain function and support you to be at your mental best for effective decision-making and problem solving.

• Ensure that you get sufficient sleep every night. Although this will vary from one person to the next, the recommended hours of sleep is 7 – 8 hours. Lack of sleep can lead to elevated levels of the stress hormone cortisol and disrupt the function of hundreds of genes involved in stress, inflammation, and metabolism.

• Schedule time for fun activities and work on things that make you feel successful in areas unrelated to your work. Your good health can be one area! Ensure that you are on a healthy eating plan that supports your work demands.