The motivating lie you hear in your head that keeps you going into the wee hours of the morning as a business owner.  You know your business will boom once you get this last thing in place, right?  You are working all day, every day, and are quickly annoyed when someone asks you to do anything outside of working.

Does this sound like you?  Yeah, me too!  That’s why I wrote this post, to let you know that it’s better for you to take a day off periodically. I let this motivating lie small business owners tell themselves control me the entire first year I was in business, and I paid for it, dearly.

I know it’s scary to think that you may miss something, and you need money yesterday.  However, what you are truly doing is putting yourself in a situation that is bad for your health.  I know what you’re thinking right now, and you are right, I’m not a doctor.  I am, however, a business owner that thought that advice was #facts when I heard it initially, and I PAID THE PRICE.

What price did I pay? Well, I started working from 8 AM to 2 AM or sometimes 3 AM and waking back up at 6 AM.  I was doing that for about 1.5 weeks straight, and then it happened.

I crashed, really bad.  It started a few days before, with me seeing black spots, short-term memory non-existence, and that “walking around in a daze” feeling.  When I went to bed that night, I just slept for almost a day and it frightened my family.

My entire world revolved around this motivating lie that small business owners tell themselves.  When I crashed, it caused a MAJOR disruption in my household, and to make matters worse, I frightened my son.  This isn’t the way to be in business, and I’m going to have to use a cliché here, but your health truly is your wealth!

I was the biggest naysayer out there on that one, I’ve never had medical problems in my life!  However, I’ve also never worked those hours prior to starting my business.  The worst part of all, my work suffered greatly.  I had to completely re-do my builds and re-take the training I was in at that time.

It was an infuriating setback for me, and I realized I wasn’t anywhere near as productive as I thought I was.  I couldn’t retain anything I was learning and I was not very pleasant to be around.  This kept me in a constant state of frustration and feeling completely stressed out.

After that happened, I knew I had to get on the mend and change my ways.  So I started to drink more water and work out.  Then I had to set and keep a bedtime, which required me to structure to my days and remove as many distractions as I possibly could.  We all know this is impossible when your schedule has to include a kid on summer break, especially if summer camp just isn’t in the budget.

Building and or maintaining your business can be extremely stressful.  In addition, when you are tired and stressed, you tend to make more mistakes than you normally would.  Basically, you’re not being productive, just believing the illusion that you are.  This is dangerous within itself because re-doing your work increases your stress level, and puts you in a negative frame of mind.  This turn of events starts you on a dangerous spiral of working in that negative space consistently.

If you don’t take anything else away from this article, I want you to understand what lack of sleep will do to your body, and how it will hurt your business building efforts.  Learn from my mistakes, and please don’t repeat them.  Take care of yourself, and build your business with a clear head full of positive energy.  Stress is a very real part of being in business, but it shouldn’t be the constant frame of mind that you are working in.  Remember, get some rest! Has this happened to you?  How did you overcome it?

SHARING IS CARING:

If you like what you read, share this out and subscribe to our blog to learn more about building the website you deserve.

SOURCES:

My life experiences.  Coding is hard, but the end result is worth the struggle.

LEGAL STUFF: