Three ways to ease business-related anxiety during the holidays

As we are just a few days away from Thanksgiving, emotions are running high for almost everyone. Business owners are trying to balance the need for holiday sales and Black Friday deals, giving team members time off and finding time for themselves. 

The example you set as a business owner also sets the tone for your staff or colleagues. Without clear boundaries, good communication, careful scheduling, and balanced priorities, the business (and your people) suffer.

Let’s look at three ways to ease your business-related anxiety during the holiday season.

Choose your yes carefully

One of the best ways to reduce anxiety around your business is to be extremely selective about the commitments you agree to take on and avoid overcommitment. As you become more visible in your business and collaborate with other business owners, the opportunities to take on more activities or promotions also tend to increase. 

Learning how to evaluate those opportunities through the lens of your long-term goals is essential. For instance, if your long-term goal is to create an online course and go down the road of passive income, saying yes to partnering with other successful course creators may be a wise move.

On the other hand, if you’re constantly getting pitched to do speaking engagements or publish guest posts, it may be hard to draw a direct line from those activities to publishing a course. 

Your flexibility to accept or decline projects may be dependent on the type of business you own. For example, if you’re running an independent bookstore with just a handful of employees, you’re likely to have a good bit of autonomy over your commitments.

However, if you’re a franchise owner or just starting, you may have less control over your business. 

One of the best phrases you can learn is how to decline a request politely. One of my favorites is, “Thank you for thinking of me. Unfortunately, however, I am unable to take on any new projects at this time.” 

Experiment with your schedule

One of the most significant changes I made in 2021 was to analyze how I could streamline my schedule to reduce my anxiety during the week. With so many projects on my plate and different types of work, I found myself stressed out doing simple tasks like creating graphics for my blog or trying to squeeze in client website updates. 

I started by making a list of the types of work I needed to schedule: design, writing, admin, and communications. 

Next, I did some time tracking to see how long my typical workload took to complete each week. (It turns out I had been overestimating how long several things would take.) Then, I reorganized my weekly schedule to batch my work and plan according to the type of work, instead of by project. 

For example, I scheduled all of my writing work for one day of the week, even if it was writing for multiple projects. 

The result was a big reduction in anxiety over how to get the work done and even left me room to take one day off each week for most weeks. 

Set goals that have nothing to do with revenue

Confession: I have a filter set up for emails that mention money or launches in the subject line. And that filter sends them straight to my trash can. So while many business owners are motivated by money, and all business owners need to make money, that doesn’t mean that sales must drive every goal you have. 

In fact, the number one way to reduce some of your anxiety around the holidays is to set goals that have nothing to do with revenue. When you can refocus on the goals that go deeper than income and expenses, you activate the part of you that wanted to start a business in the first place. 

Is there a new market you want to expand into? Is there a new product you’ve been dreaming of adding to your inventory? Do you want to start giving money away as part of your mission to be more philanthropic? 

Maybe there’s an area of your business you’ve wanted to begin outsourcing, like chat-based IT support or hiring a VA? Or, a conference you want to attend next year that requires some savings from this year’s revenue? When you find those motivations that move you and excite you, the anxiety starts to fade away.

Takeaways

Business ownership is nuanced in so many ways and looks different for every industry. For some, the holidays may be a time to slow everything down and begin to plan for the following year. For others, it might be the busiest time of year that makes or breaks the year’s numbers. 

Either way, however, reducing business-related anxieties is a must for creating a sustainable, profitable business doing the work you love. 

Until next time,

Andrea

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