How to Become Resilient as A Business Owner

Over the course of a career, business owners will most likely face many challenges and obstacles that they will need to overcome. The challenges can come in a variety of forms, but over time they can tend to wear down even the strongest individuals. There are bills that are due, employees that have issues and products that are not selling as well as were hoped. Problems like these can drive business owner to the point of exhaustion or even quitting. To help combat this problem, one thing you as a business owner can do is to develop mindsets and practices that will help you be resilient in the face of problems and obstacles. Below are some of these skills that can help you develop resiliency.

Change Your Perspective on Problems

This piece of advice comes from an American Psychological Association's article on building resilience. As the article points out, you cannot avoid all the stressful events that life brings your way. Part of the nature of being a business owner is dealing with a certain amount of stress. That being said, what you can change is your perception. Instead of viewing the problem as unbeatable, change your thinking. As the article also says, view beyond the situation and how the future may actually be better. This can help shift your mindset and help you build resiliency.

Bounce Back

One of the characteristics of a great, and in the long-term successful, business owner is their ability to bounce back after failures or setbacks. The ability to successfully bounce back after a setback also ties in with the previous point of changing perspective. This point is especially true for entrepreneurs who are just starting out as well. While having a project or idea fail is almost always painful and discouraging, there are always ways to bounce back and continue moving forward.

Instead of giving into the discouragement of the moment, re-evaluate the issue. Where was it exactly that the idea or product failed? Can it be fixed by a small tweak, or does it have to go back to the drawing board? By evaluating the issue, perhaps even utilizing new products like a GPU database, you can set yourself and your business up better for getting back in the game.

Take a Break

This piece of advice comes from Rich Fernandez's article in the Harvard Business Review. As made clear in the article, research has shown that good levels of concentration and energy last only so long, around 90-120 minutes to be more exact. These tend to be cyclical in nature, and after this amount of time your energy and concentration levels will most likely begin to drop. Instead of trying to fight your way through decreased energy and focus, and thus wearing yourself down, try taking a short break. As Fernandez points out, research shows that these breaks can actually help you increase your focus and energy levels. As Fernandez states, by doing this you can help preserve energy and help keep yourself away from burnout.

In the end, there are many challenges and obstacles that you as a business owner will most likely face through the course of your career. These challenges can come in a variety of shapes and sizes. Some are large and come up suddenly, and others are small but piled on to one another. Whatever the challenge you are facing, building a resilient attitude and mindset can help. Changing your perspective can make the challenges seem surmountable, bouncing back intelligently can help get you back in the game and at times taking a break can be one of the best things you can do in the long run for your resiliency and business. Hopefully these suggestions can help you in developing your resiliency as a business owner.