This week is Mental Health Awareness Week 2022 and the theme for this year is ‘Loneliness’. The Mental Health Foundation is encouraging the exploration of loneliness in life, how it impacts mental health, and what we can do as a community to fight it. This couldn’t be more true for business-owner mental health.
MHF have said that loneliness affects millions of people in the UK every year and is a key driver of poor mental health. Their ‘Mental Health in the Pandemic‘ research found that “loneliness has been exacerbated by the Covid pandemic. The Foundation has been tracking loneliness levels in the UK during the pandemic and found the experience has been much higher with devastating impact.”
The feeling of loneliness can lead to higher levels of distress because people feel isolated, finding it hard to connect with others, and business owners are no different. Running your own business, especially if you work from home and don’t have regular contact with clients or other staff, can be incredibly disconnecting.
Although this is the theme for 2022, for business owners and the self-employed, this isn’t new. Occupational loneliness and burnout have been underlying issues that have been detrimental to mental health for a while now. In 2016, Science Direct published a paper on ‘The psychological costs of owning and managing an SME‘, which discussed not only occupational loneliness, but also job stressors, entrepreneurial orientation and burnout.
Science Direct proposed “that job stressors lead to burnout through a feeling of occupational loneliness” and that this suggests “that the need for connectedness is a basic ingredient for psychological growth and well-being.” Makes sense, right? The link between job stresses, burnout and the disconnection from peers, from support networks, from people who understand how hard it is to run your own business, is a link that is worsened in a world that is now more closed off than ever.
In this article, we’ll be talking about how loneliness affects business-owner mental health and ways to deal with it. Here are a few ideas that have helped the Chuffed team keep connected with the outside world and not get lost in the whirlwind of self-employment.
Go To Networking
Put yourself out there and make real-world connections. We need to connect with each other outside of a screen, even if it’s just for a brew and a biscuit.
You can find a community and support networks at networking events, not just business links and connections. If you want to find the ideal networking event for you, it’s worth looking around at various locations and types of events, as not every network will suit what you need. It’s a bit like dating and sometimes you need a few first dates before you find someone you connect with.
Co-working spaces are also an absolute God-send and by spending a few hours a week in a public space, you can re-capture that office feel and chat to new people as you go about your business.
Don’t Forget About Yourself
There’s a saying that we live by here at Chuffed, and that is “you can’t pour from an empty cup.” In other words, you can’t help others if you aren’t looking after yourself too.
– It is important to get enough sleep every night – we literally work out what time we need to be in bed to get 8 hours.
– Make sure that you take time to eat throughout the day – no skipping lunch because you’re too busy.
– Don’t spend all day chained to your desk. Take some time to get a change of scenery, stretch your legs and give your brain some breathing space.
– It can be easy to lose yourself in a business. Remember the things that you love outside of work that makes you who you are, that set your soul on fire, and that help you to unwind.
Combine Your Work & Passions
Work and your personal life are separate, right? But, do they have to be? Think about how you can support the causes you’re passionate about and add some extra drive and excitement into your work-life. According to Medium, the key is to seek out companies within industries of real interest;
“Find that company or organization within an industry you’ve had your eyes on, and seek out a healthy, sustainable balance of both work and underlying passion.”
Being of service can boost your self-esteem and give you a sense of purpose, as well as social contact.
There we have it, some suggestions for improving business-owner mental health and taking the edge off the intensity of running a business in a world changed by the pandemic.
Being a small business can be so wonderfully rewarding and exciting, but also incredibly tough – trust us, we know how you feel. But businesses and business owners look out for each other. Therefore, if there is anything that you are struggling with business-wise, or anything that you want to see more information on, contact us with a topic suggestion and we will look at adding it to our blogging schedule to get you some answers.