Episode 12 | How I Broke Free From The Entrepreneur Burnout Cycle

Today's episode unveils how I broke free from the entrepreneur burnout cycle without scaling back or worse quitting my business altogether. So that's all coming up next right here on Breaking The Entrepreneur Burnout Cycle Podcast. So. Stay tuned. Welcome to Breaking The Entrepreneur Burnout Cycle, your go to resource helping service based entrepreneurs break free from burnout.

Each week, you'll learn how to identify and eliminate subconscious habits so that you can create a thriving business with greater income, greater impact, and the freedom to live life to the fullest while having your time, energy, and health. This is Breaking The Entrepreneur Burnout Cycle.

Hey guys, welcome back. To breaking the entrepreneur burnout cycle podcast. Thank you [00:01:00] guys so much for tuning in to another episode. I'm really excited for today's episode because today I have an episode in store for you where I am going to be sharing how I was able to break free from the entrepreneur burnout cycle without needing to scale back in my business.

But before I even share, like how I broke free from the burnout cycle, I just wanted to ask you guys something. How many of you guys got into entrepreneurship because you wanted freedom, right? Like you wanted the time freedom, you wanted financial freedom. And not only that, but you wanted. Freedom to be creative and to express yourself and to solve problems just in a way that the traditional nine to five just can't give you.

And I hope I'm not alone in saying that, like, this is what I believed entrepreneurship was going to be like. I believe that if I became my own boss, that it was going to give me all that [00:02:00] freedom. That freedom was going to be the solution to my burnout. And in fact, I was actually so enrolled in this belief that entrepreneurship was the solution that it actually inspired me to quit my soul sucking nine to five job as a physical therapist back in 2020 to start my own cookie business.

And at first it was exhilarating. It was exciting. You know, it was freeing. I got to call all the shots and all of these things were new and exciting. And that was until it became my own version of a man made prison, essentially. And what I mean by that is soon enough, I found myself drowning just in never ending cookie orders.

And. You know, these aren't just the cookies that you can set and forget about. No, these are like the intricately decorated [00:03:00] royal icing cookies that really take time. Like you've seen some of those cookies on Instagram or on TikTok or even just on Pinterest where it's like beautifully designed um, royal icing cookies that have like custom names and custom details and that is what my business was about.

And that's not where the work stopped. It wasn't just the cookies that took the time. Like not only did I have the cookie orders to fulfill on time, but I was also struggling to juggle everything in my business. And by everything I mean, I was managing my own emails. I was taking orders. I was answering people's questions over the phone.

I was sending invoices. Heck, at one point I was even trying to learn how to do my own bookkeeping. And I'm sure that wasn't even, you know, scratching the surface of what the list included, because I'm sure if I were to look back and actually put [00:04:00] myself back in that situation, the list probably was a lot longer.

I share that because where I found myself in entrepreneurship was I found myself exhausted at the end of every day, just with nothing left in the tank, nothing left for my spouse or my fur babies, which was just leading to more fights almost every day over things as little as who forgot to take out the trash.

And it took me. Getting to a point where I found myself just sitting at the kitchen table at 2 a. m. royal icing in my hair, trays of cookies just stacked up all around me. It was almost like I was in my own little cookie bunker, you know, I, and I was staring down at who knows what number it was, but the 200th cookie that I was there decorating at that table that night.

And I was just wondering to myself. [00:05:00] Why do I even keep this business open anymore? You see, because what used to be my passion just no longer felt like a passion, but rather. It started to feel like a self made job and what made it worse was that it was actually worse than my nine to five because this time I had no one to blame but myself and I share this story because how many of you are also in your businesses just merely surviving, where you too are drowning just in these never ending to do lists, barely making it through the day, where you're so exhausted that you feel like the only way out is to either scale back in your business or worse, quit your business altogether.

If this is you, then I definitely want you to know that you are not alone, but I also want you to know that [00:06:00] there's definitely a better way. You see, The story that I just shared, it didn't end at that table. In fact, hitting rock bottom again was actually my wake up call. And it was my wake up call to look at myself and to look at the way that I was approaching success so that.

I could understand why do I keep ending up burnt out? Like, why do I keep ending up here at this place of, you know, absolute disaster where I'm exhausted, my relationships are on eggshells, all of these things. And I wanted to understand why this kept happening. And so where the story took me was I ended up just finishing those cookie orders and I actually ended up closing up shop just for two months to really look at what was at the root of all of this.

Because as many of you who are going through this know. This is just not fun on [00:07:00] all levels. It's not fun physically, it's not fun mentally, it's not fun emotionally, it's not fun spiritually. It kind of just bleeds into every aspect of your life. And it was during that time that what I discovered is that while I had changed what I did, I did not change how I was doing it.

And in fact, when I took a look at the way that I was operating within my business, I started to see a very common theme where in fact, the behaviors that I was doing in my nine to five was actually carrying over into my business. Like, and when I say behaviors that I was doing in my nine to five, I'm talking about behaviors where I was saying yes to every opportunity out of fear that if I don't, I might miss my chance to [00:08:00] excel in my career or to excel in my business.

Where I was squeezing people in on times that I did not want to work or that I did not have capacity for and that was leading to me staying up till 2 a. m. Staying up, you know, sometimes all nighters to try to get these cookie orders on time, or I was available for people 24 7 because I just didn't want them to think that I was ignoring them or that I didn't care.

And what I realized is that at the root of it all, there were these subconscious beliefs that were driving these behaviors that were keeping me stuck on the burnout cycle. And it wasn't until I got certified as a master neurocoach and learned brain based tools to identify and to change those subconscious habits, that was when I was finally And as I broke free from the burnout [00:09:00] cycle, those around me, especially my husband, they started noticing the changes that were happening.

Like they started noticing the change in my demeanor, the change in my energy, the way that I showed up in my business and life. Those were all changing. And, you know, I found myself. Creating time for date nights, and exercising, and getting back into hobbies such as gardening, and that all led to better relationships.

It led to more energy, and it actually led to a better improvement in my health where I was sleeping better, I was happier, all of these things had improved. And it wasn't just these things that improved, my business improved. Not only did my business become fun again, it actually ended up being my best year in revenue.

And it actually ended up, at that point, [00:10:00] when I made those changes, it led to skyrocketing my business to replace my PT income. Yeah, my cookie business replaced my PT income. This is the same business that my dad was saying when I first started this journey. Are you sure you want to do this? Because I don't know if cookies will pay the bills.

That was mind blowing that my cookie business replaced my PT income with just these simple shifts. And the reason that I share this story is because Every day I hear from burnt out entrepreneurs who are so at their wits end that they are considering quitting their business so that they can be free from the suffering of being stuck in burnout and the way that it's bleeding into their lives.

Every aspect of their lives and hearing this genuinely breaks my heart because it's like [00:11:00] watching a flame flicker out. It's seeing someone who has this beautiful vision and this beautiful purpose and these amazing gifts. that they want to bring to the world to help make the world a better place, it's like watching that die.

And I genuinely know from first hand experience just how it feels to be at that point where it, in a sense, it feels like a piece of your soul just dies and there's a little bit of a sense of grief and a sense of loss. What you thought would happen no longer is the vision, right? And seeing this and hearing this from entrepreneurs, like it inspired me to begin my coaching business.

And it actually is what is inspiring many of the changes that you might've already noticed and that you will continue to see in this podcast. In fact, I've actually decided to [00:12:00] change the name from Rewired to Thrive to Breaking the Entrepreneur Burnout Cycle. And the reason why I'm changing these things is because my hope is that it can serve as a safe place where any service based entrepreneur who is feeling burnt out, who is going through these exact scenarios that I shared above, can come to not only learn how to break free from the burnout cycle, but also to know That they are not alone.

And so I want to make sure that you subscribe to the show because every Wednesday, I'm going to be releasing episodes where either myself or myself and some occasional guest experts will come on to discuss burnout and entrepreneurship and to equip you with tools to help you start breaking free from burnout.

And if you're like me. You probably want a sneak preview of what tools just might be coming in the future episodes, and I'm very excited because [00:13:00] some of the things that you can expect to start hearing about are the exact neurocoaching brain based tools that I teach my clients to help them identify and eliminate subconscious beliefs.

You're going to start hearing about tools to help you improve your breathing and how to regulate your nervous system to decrease that stress and to decrease that overwhelm. You're going to start hearing about strategies that are going to help you get your time and energy back. You're going to start hearing about tools to help you boost your confidence to eliminate just kind of that indecision and that second guessing that, as we all know, eats a lot of our time and energy.

And so I can't wait to be taking the podcast in this new and exciting direction. And I'm very excited that you all are going to be joining me on the journey. And so I just say all of that to say you are not alone. You've got this. Thank you so much for joining me for another episode. [00:14:00] Cheers to breaking the entrepreneur burnout cycle together.

So I will see you on another episode next week. But until then, bye for now.