As a business owner in the year 2022 life can become severely challenging and at times it can really feel like one is drowning. As a business owner in this day and age after COVID I feel pressured to make business decisions that would help all my contractors and not just my own business.

There is a real sense of investing in my contractors’ mental health as their levels of anxiety and stress impact the running of my business. In order to help them I have started a support system where individuals feel they can lean on the business and that there is an open door policy so that there is transparency which allows individuals to ask for help, express their feelings and difficulties. This I believe helps with untangling the trapped feelings of stress and anxiety.

One of the biggest hurdles I have encountered is that there is a real resistance for employees to return to office spaces. Some express fear of catching COVID as they have had it themselves with the consequences of being really ill or have lost family members and friends due to the pandemic. I get asked on a daily basis for motivational letters stating staff can’t return to work as they are petrified not just of COVID but also of the ethos in companies. (Some are saying that COVID was a complete overreaction and that if you are concerned wear a mask but there are no forced testing, mask policies, sanitizing, spacing, etc).

Even though I do believe COVID was very much real I do believe that companies are ignoring the impact isolation and COVID have had on their employees. Underlying the return to the office is the biggest debilitating fear of having to interact with people again, this fear creates severe anxiety and stress.

With my clients and contractors, I encourage them to take small steps to return to the office. Employers need to be understanding and compassionate towards their employees’ stress and anxiety. Employees that are stressed and anxious find it extremely difficult to concentrate, connect and work. Even those employees that look like they are coping are in fact not… those are at times the employees to keep an eye out for as they are pushing aside very difficult emotions.

Some of the small steps is having their phones with them so that they can keep in contact with a close friend, family member or counselor. A person they can text throughout the day for encouragement and understanding.

With my contractors, I suggest they take as much time as they need for self-care, supervision and counselling. We all need someone we can talk to.

As a business owner myself, I have an intimate small group of individuals I talk to daily. I see my own personal therapist twice a week. I do a minimum of 10 min of yoga a day and at least every second day do a 40 – 60 min yoga session focusing on the Vagus nervous system which allows for distress anxiety and trauma. Funny enough I also take 10 min breaks within every hour to walk outside, take a screen break and ground myself. Getting caught up in the world of binging on work, increases anxiety and stress which we thrive off and often make the most successful business owners but the most terrible, begrudgingly leaders who expect our employees to have no personal lives. I believe those days are long gone and there needs to be investment by an employer to help encourage and assist employees.

We all strive for balance, I look for the grey area, where I am not seeing the world in black and white. Easier said than done…I know….anxiety is everywhere….we overeat, drink too much coffee, drink too much, online shop too much or completely freeze and procrastinate. My biggest advice in stress and anxiety is to give yourself a break, get unstuck, push through the resistance and talk to someone outside of your work environment for input, processing and sharing the burden of anxiety and stress. Feeling that as a business owner you have to carry the stress and anxiety on your own to me isn’t the ingredient to success. If your employees are able to see that you yourself as their leader have difficult days with stress and anxiety they would be a lot less reluctant to ask for help when they themselves feel stuck.

Stress and anxiety are part of owning a business however I want to reiterate that this does not determine the success of a business. I once worked for a very business owner who believed that commitment to the business meant you worked the day before you went into labour. He would repeatedly tell us in staff meetings that that was real dedication, and what would lead us to greatness… We all burnt out every couple of months and were consistently unhappy. The environment was ridden with stress and anxiety.

Burnout should not be part of a businesses ethos and we should be pushing ourselves as business owners and our employees to take time for self-care, families and time out.

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Elza runs www.therapynow.co.za – a virtual service where individuals, couples & corporates can book counselling online, on their terms. TherapyNow’s stress & anxiety counselling is an invaluable service as we as business owners and individuals face the day-to-day stresses of work.