4 Ways Female Business Leaders Should Practice Self-Care

Running a business is no small feat. Between sourcing clients, marketing your product, and managing a team, life can get difficult. This impacts your physical and mental health, not to mention it ultimately leaves you feeling tired and alone.

But there are ways to combat your fatigue. Focus on these four tips and watch your business (and your wellness) benefit.

1. Spend time away from your desk.

Working through lunch with a sandwich in your hand is accepted (and even celebrated) in many workplaces. But this is antiquated, unsustainable approach leads to mental exhaustion and, ultimately, burnout.

Even business leaders need to take time away from their desks in order to recharge. Small breaks and quick exercises can combat low mood and anxiety. Therefore, consider walking around the block during your lunch break and reconnecting with nature.

2. Join women’s networks to help your business succeed.

For a long time, women were underrepresented in the world of business. Male-dominated industries sidelined women, and they were often relegated to menial roles. Thankfully, all that is changing, and with it comes an abundance of women’s business support networks.

Support networks like Women Who Startup deliver a plethora of benefits for female business owners. With a staff of experienced and successful women, these groups provide useful advice for first-time entrepreneurs and open doors with their business connections. By making these valuable connections, you’ll feel less alone and feel supported when times get tough as an entrepreneur.

3. Lean on tech and tools to ease your stress.

Every business has its share of demanding tasks, but when these pile up, our anxiety piles up too. Thankfully there’s no shortage of technology to help us streamline our daily processes.

Project management tools are designed to help you stay on top of tasks and collaborate with the rest of your team. My personal favorite, Trello, uses kanban-style organization that lets you drag and drop tasks into boards and columns. This keeps you on top of your progress through an intuitive top-down dashboard — perfect for visual thinkers.

More administrative tasks, like accounting, can also benefit from technological input too. Quickbooks is a popular bookkeeping choice, but don’t treat it as gospel — shop around. For example, Wave is a free alternative that offers a lot of the same features.

4. Make time for downtime.

In this day and age, we are at the mercy of our smartphones. Although this helps us stay abreast of work updates, it also means that our minds are always focused on work. This disrupts our downtime and ultimately drains us just as much as our smartphone battery.

So when you leave work, turn your push notifications off. As difficult as it may seem for a business owner, there’s actually very little that can’t wait until morning. If you want to take this a step further, schedule tech-free downtimes into your daily schedule. This helps you focus on important tasks without being at the beck and call of others.

Owning a business is a rewarding but demanding task. There’s a lot resting on your shoulders, but don’t forget to focus on your happiness and well-being. Follow these tips and let your wellness flow through to the rest of your business, too.