Managing a business while navigating chronic health challenges is no small feat. As an entrepreneur, you may often feel like you’re juggling two full-time jobs: running your business and managing your health. But with the proper support, strategies, and mindset, it’s entirely possible to create a sustainable business that empowers your well-being and even creates space for healing. This blog explores how entrepreneurial support can transform your journey and help you thrive despite the obstacles. The journey begins by applying these concepts of entrepreneurial support for those with chronic health challenges.
The Rising Need for Support
Six in ten Americans—more than half the population—live with one or more chronic health conditions. These include conditions such as heart disease, diabetes, arthritis, and autoimmune disorders. If you’re a business owner living alongside these types of health challenges, you know the stakes of unmanaged health challenges are high.
Balancing the demands of a business alongside health issues can lead to burnout, unmanaged symptoms, or even business failure. However, with proper strategies and support systems in place, you can achieve better-managed health and a more successful business.
Why Balancing Health and Business Matters
When you prioritize both your health and your business, you lay the foundation for the sustainability of your success. Managing your business in a way that supports your well-being offers several benefits:
- Sustainability: A balanced approach ensures long-term success without sacrificing your health or your business.
- Improved Health Management: By integrating wellness into your daily routine, you gain agency in reducing flare-ups and improving your overall quality of life.
- Business Growth: The healthier you are, the better equipped you are to make clear decisions that enable you to lead effectively and from a place of inner confidence.
Building a sustainable and successful business takes time. Doing so alongside health challenges requires enhanced personal self-awareness and business skills.
~from 7 Business Decisions for Improved Well-Being and Less Stress
Implementing Entrepreneurial Support Strategies for Those with Chronic Health Challenges
1. Build a Strong Business Foundation
A solid foundation is key to managing uncertainties related to health challenges. Focus on creating efficient systems, processes, and workflows to support flexibility in case of flare-ups or setbacks. Consider tools like the BalanceUP® Lifestyle & Business Assessment to measure the strength of your foundation.
2. Time Blocking for Productivity
Set non-negotiable time blocks on your calendar to manage both work tasks and self-care routines. Creating separate and decisive time blocks helps prevent overwork while ensuring you dedicate time to recharge. Scheduling flex-blocks as a safety net to manage your well-being in the event of a flare-up of symptoms increases your ability to manage your well-being and business with peace of mind.
3. Delegate Tasks
Build a “Dream Team” around your needs and goals to ensure you have the best support for your business and well-being. Doing so safeguards your well-being and enables you to delegate tasks that drain your energy while freeing time for strategic decision-making. Download this guide, BalanceUP® Your Dream Team, to determine the first person to add to your dream team today.
4. Prioritize Self-Awareness
Slow down and listen to the signals your body shares with you daily. This level of self-awareness is critical in identifying and adapting to triggers that lead to your flare-ups. Taking this first step is key to creating actionable plans to mitigate symptoms that impact your work. For example:
- Focus on managing the ‘worst’ symptoms rather than trying to address everything at once. I refer to these as your ‘RED’ flags – the symptoms that most interfere with your work.
- Develop strategies to address the triggers of these high-risk symptoms proactively.
- Create a flare-up management plan that addresses the high-risk symptoms to reduce the impact on your business.
5. Create Boundaries
Set strong personal and professional boundaries that honor your limitations while protecting your work-life balance. Boundaries help prevent burnout and ensure you’re operating from a place of self-compassion.
6. Choose Health-Conscious Business Models
Select a business model and strategy aligned with your abilities and lifestyle goals. Flexibility is key—whether it’s remote work options or reducing hours during challenging periods.
Personal Strategies for Well-Being
The personal strategies you incorporate into your work, your day, your habits and routines are critical in providing yourself with the entrepreneurial support that you need, that are for all those with chronic health challenges.
1. Embrace Self-Compassion
Self-compassion allows you to honor your needs without guilt or shame. It’s about accepting limitations while celebrating progress.
2. Integrate Wellness Practices
Incorporate practices like meditation, gentle movement, or mindfulness into your daily routine to help manage stress and improve focus. Slowing down can lead to greater clarity and healing.
Download this free eBook, “Live a More Balanced and Joyful Life with Compromised Health,” to learn five daily actions you can take to make each day your best day! You’ll receive five coaching emails over the course of a week to support you in building a daily routine that serves your needs and goals.
3. Build Your Support Network
Surround yourself with people who understand your journey. This is important in your personal life activities and around your business, such as the memberships and mentoring programs you participate in.
Sign up for one of our interactive BalanceUP® Activities and find an open, supportive environment focused on helping you operate and plan from a place of balance.
Closing Thoughts: Take One Action Today
You have the power to create a lifestyle that supports your business and a business that supports your well-being. Start by taking one small action today: block off time for self-care or delegate a task weighing you down. Small changes add up over time, leading to improved health management and sustainable business success.
Sign up for BalanceUP Community News for ongoing inspiration, tips, and strategies for creating and living a life of balance and well-being alongside business success.
