Stress

When running a business, especially a startup, one of the greatest challenges is simply how to manage all of the stress so you don’t ruin your life. The stresses of running a business are tremendous. In addition to all the stresses every working person (yes, stay at home moms count here too, that is a tough job) face, there are additional stresses like:

• Meeting payroll.
• Keeping clients happy.
• Keeping users happy.
• Making sure there is enough new work in the pipeline to keep paying the bills.
• Payroll taxes.
• More emails than anyone can reasonably handle.
• Finding new employees.
• Firing employees.
• Keeping employees motivated (hopefully happy).
• Keeping business partners motivated and happy.
• Making a profit.
• Getting everything done.

I’m sure you have your own list.

Managing that stress is one of the most important skills for any person to learn. Sometimes a person can get so stressed out that (s)he doesn’t even know how stressed (s)he is and needs a friend to point it out to them.

Here are some things one can do to relieve stress. Not everything on this list will work for everyone, but here are some things we try to do (having a business partner is great, by the way):

• Talk things out.
• Help each other see the big picture.
• Help each other see which things don’t matter and can be dropped.
• Go for a twenty minute walk.
• Take the night off, or a day off.
• Actually stop to smell the roses (for me it’s looking at the clouds).
• Exercise.
• When you see your kids do something really cute, take an extra moment of pause to reflect on the wonder of the moment, your love for your child and how these are the moments in life that really matter. Try to burn it into your memory.
• Jump in the pool.
• Close the computer for a few minutes and rest your eyes.
• Take a few really deep, slow breaths, focusing on your breathing.
• Meditate.
• Close the door and scream for a few moments.
• Close IM, twitter and email for a day or a few hours so you can focus.
• Take empty beer bottles and go throw them off of a dam or in your fireplace.
• Craft a really funny tweet.
• Go buy something nice for yourself.
• Have a drink.
• See a shrink.
• Build and launch something small but satisfying with no profit or business motive.
• Paint something.
• Take a nap or go to bed early.

What’s your favorite way to deal with stress?