Intensity and Exhaustion in Business

I know a lot of business owners who don’t mind working hard or being stressed out – that’s really part of the excitement of growing a business. So when I get out there with my “simplify your life – reduce the overwhelm” speeches – they aren’t interested. Sometimes intensity is what drives your passion, and you need it. It’s kind of like needing a deadline to jump into creative mode.

I used to really enjoy talking with my friends about “what makes people tick”. I would spend hours dissecting why so and so might have done this, and what he or she might have meant by that. This conversation exhausted some of my friends. They would tell me, “you worry too much”, or “you take this stuff too seriously”, or “you get really deep and intense”. For them, the intensity of the conversations was draining. But for me, pondering all the different scenarios didn’t seem so much like “fretting” as a fun game or puzzle to figure out. I finally found a friend who loved these conversations as much as I did, and we were a great fit – we spent hours talking and truly enjoyed it.

To me, that kind of intensity is analogous to what an entrepreneur feels in the first few years of a new business. While on the outside it seems like the 14-hour days are going to kill him or her, it’s actually quite energizing and addictive to the entrepreneur, and this is the kind of passion that enables a new business to survive.

But at some point the cycle changes. The 14 hour days have become habits, the entrepreneur gets bored and tired, and wistfully dreams of family and vacations. Work is now “work” and not so much “fun”. But it has also become a trap, because there isn’t anyone else to process the orders, make the decisions, or handle the clients. At this point, many business owners get stuck, and can stay stuck for years. Revenue pours in, while joy leaks out.

One of the most important things I do with coaching clients is work with them on becoming more self-aware. This is why it’s hard to separate business coaching from personal coaching. I believe your level of self-awareness has a huge impact on your business. It effects how clear you are about goals, how effectively you communicate, how quickly you make decisions, how confident you are in your negotiations, and all of these things affect the bottom line.

And the first step to self-awareness is knowing what energizes you and what drains you. Just knowing this can make all the difference in the world, because as soon as something in your business begins to drain you, you can deliberately find a way to get rid of the drain. You either stop doing it, you get someone else to do it, or you change the way you do it. And you continue to pay attention to your energy levels and make adjustments, so that by the time you reach that place where it’s no longer fun to work 14 hour days, you have systems in place and can reduce your hours.

That way, when it’s time to take a vacation – you take one. And when you are involved in a new initiative that energizes you, you happily immerse yourself, even if that means not resting. When you are immersed in activities that energize you – you don’t need as much rest.

Here’s a ten minute exercise you can do to apply this concept – try it and see what changes you make:

Get out a sheet of paper and make a brainstormed list of everything going on that bugs you – even a little bit. We call this the “What are you tolerating?” exercise. It can be a certain person, a way something is being done, a fear, a disorganized desk – anything. Sometimes it takes awhile to compile your list and you keep coming back and adding to it, but that’s OK – the point is to have a list, so you can be aware.

Rate each item on your list by how much it drains you. Top priorities are items that drain a little bit of your energy every day. Lower priority items are those you usually don’t notice, and only drain you when they are brought to your attention.

That’s the exercise – it’s a simple way to bring you to a higher level of awareness around your own energy. And usually, the added awareness will motivate you to make some changes in the way you manage your business and your life. Your goal is to get rid of as many “tolerations” as you can.

If you’d like, you can even make a game of it. Get a team of people together and have a competition around who can get rid of the most “tolerations” on their list. This is not only fun, but it increases the overall energy level of the group – and is an easy way to pull out of a temporary “low” cycle.

If you do this exercise – I’d love to hear your comments on it!

Copyright ©2006 Nahid Casazza and Aspyrre www.aspyrre.com