Looking after your own wellbeing and resilience

You can’t make good decisions in your business and lead your team if you’re under a weight of pressure or struggling with poor mental or physical health. This article looks at ways to deal with stress and build your own resilience.

When you’re busy running a business, it can be easy to overlook your own wellbeing and mental health.

Stress can have a serious effect on your ability to function and you can’t make consistently good decisions and lead your team if you’re under a weight of pressure or struggling with poor mental or physical health.

So let’s take a look at being resilient in the face of challenges and effective ways to support your own wellbeing.

Dealing with pressure

There are 2 key steps to handling a tough situation:

1. Recognise - take a step back to work out what’s causing the issue, whether the situation is exceptional or something that regularly causes problems.
2. Respond - try to respond when you are calm, can triage the situation, and decide if you can handle things with extra effort or assistance, or if you need more help to navigate a solution. Sometimes, If a situation is toxic or unsustainable, walking away may be the best option.

Developing resilience

Research shows there are a lot of things you can do to build resilience, both physical and mental. Getting regular exercise, ensuring you eat and sleep well, and making sure your work practices are safe will help minimise stress and your ability to deal with it. Mental resilience involves learning behaviors, thoughts, and actions that enable you to change the narrative, face fears, and seek help when you need it.

Try doing 1 thing differently

Building positive habits is the key to effective, sustainable change, but rather than making an impossibly long list of changes, try just changing one thing in your regular routine every month, such as getting more exercise, eating more fruit or vegetables, meditating, practicing gratitude, or volunteering at a cause you care about.

This article takes a deeper look at the effects of stress, tough and toxic work environments, and strategies for supporting your physical and mental health so you can be at your best.

Xero Assistance Programme

Xero provide access to free and confidential mental health counselling and resources through the Xero Assistance Programme for all starter, standard and premium plan subscribers. Check out what subscription you have the via your "My Xero" page.

We’re here to help, so do get in touch.

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