Starting and running a business takes a lot of time and energy. Being busy building your business is necessary for most business owners – but there comes a time when you can become overwhelmed. If this is not addressed, then it can lead to burnout.

By definition, entrepreneurs are self-motivated and have a ‘can do’ attitude. You probably work longer hours than you did when employed and are happy to do so, but taken to the extreme the “can do” attitude can lead to an “I can’t do it any more” feeling!

Beating overwhelm is essential if you are to keep yourself and your business healthy.

Business owners are often juggling too many balls at once – the difficulty with that approach is that one mistake will mean that you drop a ball.

If you have too much going on in your business, in your diary and inside your head, then it is almost impossible to maintain the right level of focus on the right things.

Maintaining perspective is important to enable you to focus on the right things. There is no point in trying to do too much and making no progress at all. Better to do less, do it better and actually achieve something tangible.

There is no doubt that when you are running a business, the buck stops with you. You have to be self-reliant and resilient to succeed.

You may also be the bottleneck in your business, with seemingly every decision coming to you – and the larger your business, the more complex the problems! You end up making decisions in a hurry without all of the facts and making poor and inconsistent choices, which can in turn create more problems down the track.

Feeling stressed, having trouble sleeping, falling ill and being unable to switch off are all warning signs.

Listen to yourself when you’re feeling stressed and address the feelings of overwhelm.

If you are building a business for the long term and are planning for years or decades, then maybe you don’t need to go quite as full-on at growing your business. Maybe you can ease off the new projects or park them until you have more time and resource to do them properly.

Building a long term business is a marathon, not a sprint – and you certainly can’t sprint for the whole of a marathon! Having a sustainable growth plan is essential – for you and your business.

I have often said that the first duty of a company director or business owner is to make sure that you are still here next year. Looking after your health and the health of your business has to come first, otherwise there may be no long term future.