I want to talk to you about self-care ideas for small business owners. I’ve been a small business owner myself for 15 years and self-care is one of the things I’ve been learning about far more in recent years.
Perhaps its an age thing, or a woman thing. Or even a mum thing. Perhaps I’m just learning to look after myself more. I do know that starting my podcast early in 2024 gave me a push. That’s because TWO of my first THREE guests had strokes. Both Women and both under 45 at the time. That was a scary statistic for me as I knew I’d been working hard for many years and juggling kids and work and sometimes the stress gets a bit much. You can find out more about the ladies and their stories here. Episode one and episode three.
I was always bottom of the pile when it came to wants and needs. My kids and husband always came first. Since getting divorced and meeting my new husband (not that new, its four years this year). I’ve been getting much better at making sure my own needs are met too. Don’t get me wrong, I still put myself at the bottom of the pile from time to time. But at least when I do that now, its a conscious decision.
Because we wear so many hats in business and in life, I want to share some of my self-care ideas for small business owners with you too. I think some of them can be far more simple than we imagine. And the thought of how hard it can be put us off giving it more of a go.
Self-Care ideas for small business owners – The Basics!
Self-care ideas for small business owners doesn’t have to be complicated. Firstly what we need to realise is, its a journey. You can’t go from zero to self-care hero overnight. It just isn’t sustainable. We will lose all motivation and give up if we set that bar too high. If you have every tried a calorie controlled diet you’ll know what I’m talking about. We’ve all been there, I’m sure.
1. Be realistic
I bet that came as a surprise after what I just said?! It is sooooooo important to be realistic. I know so many people who work at home or in an office and do under 3000 steps on an average work-day. We know the well known figure of 10,000 steps a day being the figure to aim for. So people set that and expect to manage a 333% increase in their daily steps. Just from a time point of view it is highly unrealistic.
It isn’t just steps we do this for either. Oh no, we often add a few of the below self-care ideas in…AT THE SAME TIME! And wonder why we didn’t stick to it. And then we beat ourselves up for being useless…Not healthy behaviour or mindset but so common.
2. Move more
Not to get stuck on steps. But this British Heart Foundation article talks about how many steps we should be doing and to get increased health benefits it isn’t as high as you’ve probably heard. You get extra benefits per 1000 steps increase though.
However if walking isn’t your thing, you can do so many other things as a a self-care idea. How about a kitchen disco? I’ve done this a lot lately. Put the tunes you used to love to go out to, on in the kitchen and have a boogie. You’ve done the walking to the dancefloor dance before haven’t you? You know you have. Well I’ve been doing the ‘walking to the cooker dance’ a lot recently, and the sink! The kids think I’ve cracked up half the time but I don’t care. If I can get a bit of self-care in and feel better whilst singing and dancing along to ‘Rhythm is a Dancer’ or Avril Lavinge, then I’m happy.
3. Have a bath – or maybe not!
That one is controversial! Is a bath basic hygiene or is it self-care? This causes divides everywhere. Some people think bathing is just sitting in your own dirt and some think its the best way to end or start a day. The point here is, You do You! Choose something you think is self-care and do it. What I would say though is don’t leave it till 10pm so you don’t feel the full benefit of taking the time for you.
I’m a water baby, always have been so for me a bath is self-care, a shower is hygiene. For me a bath is about taking the time out to read a book or watch a programme on my phone. I don’t watch a lot of television usually but ‘Married at First Sight’ is back on and I can’t resist. But if bathing isn’t your thing, curl up with a book on your favourite chair instead and read something you want to. Not just personal development.
Maybe even do a puzzle or light an aromatherapy candle and meditate. Perhaps you could have an hour long natter with an old friend. Good luck with keeping it down to an hour. The point here is, do something to fill your cup! As business owners its so easy to put ourselves at the bottom of the pile and that won’t help you to keep motivated.
I’m a devil for working after the kids are in bed so when I have a bath its about STOPPING for a while and recharging. So you can think of having a bath as a metaphor for doing what fills your cup instead.
4. Get outside
There are loads of studies that say that being outside is good for our health. Being out in nature, the grounding effect of being outside with our feet on soil. You can of course include it in your ‘move more’ self-care idea too but even if its enjoying a cup of coffee or drink of choice in a morning, you’ll feel the benefit.
I quite enjoy a spot of gardening which also kills two birds with one stone. You can certainly feel you’ve done it. I’m some way off entering the Chelsea Flower Show, and spend most of my time fighting against brambles. But the physical and mental benefits can’t be ignored.
5. Get to know yourself
This is an interesting one for me. Because I’ve realised this year that I have ADHD. Knowing this has helped me to understand myself more. I’ve realised I have a very busy mind and can end up thinking about work a lot. Not helped by having multiple businesses and, as a consultant I think about clients’ businesses too.
I used to beat myself up a lot that I wasn’t tidy. However, this year I’ve cut myself a little slack and realised that, living in a house of 4 boys plus a husband who almost certainly has ADHD too I’ve got no chance. How can I have a tidy house? I have a cleaner every week so that helps but we will never have a show home!
But I also realised I have a busy mind, so I decided to try crochet and knitting again. I used to do it as a child with my grandma but because she always set me off and cast on for me, I’d never entertained being about to do it on my own. How silly that was, YouTube is an amazing place for any hobby you want to try.
So, because I got to know myself and had a self-care idea around keeping my mind quiet I now knit again. It had a secondary benefit of keeping my hands busy too. Now, I don’t pick my phone up and scroll social media nearly as much and I can watch my programme when I don’t fancy a bath too. Without thinking of all the ‘jobs’ I could be doing instead or working at the same time.
Could you get to know yourself a bit better to give you some self-care ideas?
6. It takes a village!
If it takes a village to raise a child, how are we adults any different? In Covid the lack of connection for many people was the bit problem. Those who lived alone for example. I naively hoped that life would stay a little calmer post-Covid. I think we can all establish I was wrong! Is it me, or does life feel busier than ever?
Most of my close friends seem just as busy as me this year and we’ve hardly got together at all. I’ve met some awesome business women in the last year too so fitting everyone in has been tough.
But, there are so many ways to connect with people now. In fact, last week I had a 3 hour Zoom with a friend, for the first time since Covid. It was brilliant, I felt like I was in the room with her. So I’m going to do more of that, even if my friends are only 5 minutes down the road. If we are all on child watch of an evening and they are in bed, we can Zoom to our hearts content and stop each other doing jobs or working every waking hour.
There are so many groups of people you can meet now, with likeminded interests. Or you could just get a bit more creative with those already in your circle. The benefits of community is not one you want to overlook. Laughter is the best medicine you know.
7. Mindful activities as a self-care idea for small business owners
This is another one where you can get creative. No one else is in control of what you think is a mindful activity. The way I think of it, is its about being present in the moment.
I particularly enjoy the benefits of yoga but I also have done mindset walks or swims too. For me, when I swim my mind wanders. Especially now I don’t have to count lengths as I’m not doing a distance challenge at the minute and my Apple Watch takes care of the counting when I am. But if I’m trying to take part in mindful swimming I bring my mind back to the activity as soon as I realise its wandered off. Again, this is to be expected, not least because of ADHD so I don’t talk negatively to myself about it, I expected it to happen remember.
I know meditating isn’t an easy one for me to master, but I was intrigued about Reiki and ended up completing a training course on that. Which had the wonderful benefit of including guided meditation. When I perform Reiki though it gives be the benefit of meditation but feels like it had an additional purpose to it. Have a think about what activities you could include as a mindful activity as a self-care idea.
8. Practise Gratitude
I’ve never had a gratitude practice before, although I am an optimistic person which has always helped me. The reason I’ve never done it is because I’ve always heard about it being included in a journaling practise. I KNOW ME enough to know I’d do it a couple of times and then stop. My writing has never been neat. And doing it on my phone or PC wouldn’t work to reduce the screen time either.
BUT, what I’ve found in recent months is, you can do it in your head and it be highly effective!
I’ve spent time every day thinking about what I’m grateful for, sometimes at the end of the day, or first thing. Usually just 1 or 2 things. But because I do it in my head, I’ve also done it whilst waiting for the kettle or whenever things are feeling a bit much.
I’ve had some work and personal battles in recent months that have been testing me to say the least. On top of losing our beloved 11-year old Labrador , Danno on the last day of our holiday. A holiday where I worked quite a bit because of some of those work battles I talked of.
Do it how it works for you!
It has been the single biggest thing that has worked to improve my health in recent times. It isn’t about sharing your thoughts with anyone either. The great thing about not writing it down is, you don’t remember what you said last time. Well I don’t always anyway! That means I always feel grateful and it doesn’t matter if I have though the same thing each time or a new thing altogether. I seriously recommend you try it.
You don’t have to worry about anyone seeing what you put because it is all inside your head. Therefore, you can also do it anywhere at all! Whenever you need a little lift.
9. Celebrate your wins
This is one I’ve always struggled with and I can say there is no way we do it enough. We tend to overestimate what we will achieve in a short time – say a year or even a week. How often do we have more things on our to-do list than we can cross off?
But we underestimate what we will achieve in a year or 5! If you don’t believe me, just think back 5 years and tell me if you are further along than you thought you’d be. Or perhaps you never thought you’d do something that you are comfortable with now…For me, I never thought I’d have a podcast and we are just having a break before season 2! I also was terrified of swimming in the wild because of fish, the unknown or the thought of anything at all touching my foot. I’ve gotten much more comfortable now and even swam round a quarry that’s very blooming deep (35 meters) ON MY OWN a few months ago.
10. Get some boundaries
Boundaries are so important in your business and life, so this self-care idea of small business owners is definitely useable in all parts of your life.
Business wise – how often have you been told that your price is too high? Did you reduce it and regret it later?
How about making yourself available at a time that wasn’t convenient to you, only for your client to not turn up?
How did that make you feel? I’ve been working on ‘no’ being a full sentence in recent years. Not that I use it in such as way very often but it certainly helps me to say no. I’m a people pleaser and on the whole don’t think its a bad thing. But only because I know myself and work around that trait. I price to allow me to over-deliver for example.
So I highly recommend you have a look at your boundaries and whether they serve you because you’ll feel much better when you start to implement tougher boundaries too, I’m quite sure of that.
Self-care ideas for small business owners summary
Many of these self-care ideas are suitable for everyone, as you’ll have noticed. That’s because we business owners are just people at the end of the day. Unfortunately, we are people who are often overlooked by many others. They think we are special in some way, or earning shed loads of money so bring it on ourselves.
2024 was a tough year for so many business owners, off the back of 2023 being similar for many. What I’ve seen in my dealings with business owners is, the tough times keep coming. We have to have a resilience above seemingly all others. And in the most part we do, but we are all people, with feelings and looking after ourselves really makes a difference when times are tough.
If you want any help I have Business Breakthrough Sessions which can be super powerful to get you back on track. As you many have noticed, I’m fiercely passionate about us ‘doing business a healthy way’ so I bring that to all of my sessions. If that sounds good to you, I’d love to chat.