What “self-care” really looks like for an entrepreneur

I remember coming out of my first-ever launch feeling like my body and mind had been a piñata at a five-year-old’s birthday bash. Things that used to excite me — exploring new restaurants, responding to messages, or even working out — instead made me feel apathetic … and just blah.

It was clear to everyone else but me: I was burned out.

Worse, I pretended that burnout was the default stateof being an entrepreneur. We all know we need to “hustle” to make things happen, but do we actually need to put ourselves through that?

It took me a long time to claw myself out of my hole. The experience left a deep impression and a lesson: I knew that if I was going to do this entrepreneur thing long term and not be miserable, I had to actively let myself rest, aka focus on self-care.

And the very FIRST thing I learned about self-care is that…

Self-care does not make you weak

We’re taught to celebrate the entrepreneur who works 18-hour days. We’re made to feel guilty that they’re doing all this work on three hours of sleep.

Oh, you’re sleeping four hours? What a slacker!

This iswhy the hustle-and-grind mentality of entrepreneurship makes people susceptible to depression, ADHD, substance abuse, and bipolar disorder. The occasional high-stress situations to meet deadlines and do product launches may be necessary, but no one could sustain going 100 miles per hour, all day, all the time, without experiencing serious ramifications to their health, work, relationships, and life.

“Many entrepreneurs are also leading teams, setting an example for everyone else. If you are burning out, chances are that your employees are burning out too,” says Cherry Rose Tan, a speaker and coach who specializes in mental health and emotional resilience for entrepreneurs.

I like to think of my mental energy as a health bar from a video game. Everything I do — writing sales pages, checking and double-checking our funnels, talking to customers, even thinking about work, etc. — will steal a little chunk from that bar until it gets completely depleted, at which point it’s “game over.”

So rather than looking at self-care as this optional luxury that makes you think “it’s nice to have but not now, thanks,” think of it as the magic potion that helps replenish your health bar and gear you up for the emotional and mental strain of sustaining your chaotic entrepreneur life over the long run.

Self-care is NOT simply “taking a break” from work

Self-care, or a recovery period, is one of those words everyone sort of “gets” but doesn’t really know what it looks like — kind of like healthy eating. Vegetarian? Paleo, dairy-free blueberry muffins? Eating nothing but boiled chicken breast and sad-looking broccoli for three meals per day?

The reality is, what constitutes healthy eating isn’t universally the same for everyone. Same with self-care.

I didn’t know it at the time: my idea of self-care was anything but. In-between whatever work I could manage at the time, I’d sleep (or try to … insomniac here). I’d work out. I’d eat nutritious foods. And I’d spend time with friends to decompress. But something was wrong. For whatever reason, I was still exhausted.

It turns out that merely “stopping” work doesn’t count, especially when you’re already feeling drained. As this Harvard Business Review article points out:

“Mustering your resources to ‘try hard’ requires burning energy in order to overcome your currently low arousal level. This is called upregulation. It also exacerbates exhaustion. Thus the more imbalanced we become due to overworking, the more value there is in activities that allow us to return to a state of balance. The value of a recovery period rises in proportion to the amount of work required of us.”

In other words, rest and recovery are not the same thing.

Just because I’m not actively working doesn’t mean I am actually recovering. I know because I’d try to step away from my laptop, thinking that I’ve stopped work — only to have my mind drift back to thoughts about what I have to do later; or I was wrestling with solutions, ideas, and my anxiety over how “unproductive” I’m being.

So if stopping work is NOT recovering, then what is?

This is what self-care REALLY looks like

“There are many misconceptions to self-care. Oftentimes people associate it with larger actions, like taking vacations,” says Cherry Rose.

But that’s, ironically, a small part of what self-care is. At its core, self-care is any intentional act and decision that places you and yourneeds at the forefront. You get to focus on YOU and what YOU want to do, without compromising because you feel like you have to for someone or something else, including your business. For most of us, including myself, this is something that you’ll probably resist at first.

Maybe because you feel a pressure to please others. Maybe because you have something to prove. Or maybe because you feel you don’t “deserve” it.

First, realize that self-care isn’t taking ridiculously extravagant vacations, where you are hand-fed grapes in your silky bathrobe. There are other, less involved forms of self-care, like:

• Maintaining a daily gratitude journal to help you celebrate your wins each day
• Eating a meal without your phone
• Going for a run each morning

That’s not all. People overlook these other forms of self-care:

• Getting a massage just because (not waiting around until you need one)
• Hiring an assistant and delegating tasks as needed so that you’re not overstretched and stressed out all the time trying to do everything yourself
• Saying no to social engagements or opportunities that you are not excited about but would otherwise agree to because you want to please everyone

Essentially, the idea of self-care can be anything that makes you feel good and happy. If you want to order a gluttonous buffet of foods from four different restaurants on Uber Eats, by all means go buck wild, champ. (But maybe also do this sensibly and in moderation…)

Self-care turns the compass’s needle toward yourself, for once. Most of us are so good at taking care of others and things other than ourselves. We tend to neglect our emotional and mental needs in the pursuit of greater conversions, more leads, one more blog post, and a five- or six-figure launch.

It’s time to change that and think about what’s good for us in the long term.

Leave a comment below and tell me: What’s the easiest thing you can do for self-care right now?