The best way to help your business to thrive? Put your own wellbeing first!

It is so easy to get wrapped up in the hustle. Wellbeing for business owners often drops to the bottom of the list, even more so when you’re a parent managing the day-to-day juggle of everyday life! This is something I’ve spoken about so much since launching Your AJency and I know something that many of us face as female entrepreneurs.

What I’ve learned is that we really need to keep ourselves healthy, mentally and physically if we want to succeed. That’s why I’m so pleased to welcome Suzy from Peppermint Wellness to the blog this week to share 6 ways to improve your health and wellness if you’re a business owner.

I was lucky to meet Suzy at Photo Club - a fab networking group - and I loved her attitude to life and story of how she made wellbeing a priority. She took herself out of agency life to launch a business with purpose and she’s on a mission to help more people feel their best. 

I hope you can use her fab advice included in the blog but if you’re looking for more tips, she has lots of amazing resources, including her own app, on the Peppermint Wellness website.

How to Stay Healthy and Thrive as a Business Owner

By Suzy Glaskie, Founder of Peppermint Wellness.

Being a business founder hoovers up a lot of energy and headspace. It’s hard to switch off – you’re “on” all the time, brain whirring, ideas brewing. With work so all-consuming, self-care gets relegated to the bottom of the to-do list…even when you’re in charge of your own time. It can be tempting to sign up for yet another business course, begin another qualification or invest in more software in a bid to bolster your business. But don’t lose sight of your single biggest competitive advantage: you.

You are your greatest asset – so it makes absolute sense for you to prioritise your own wellbeing.

In his classic book, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, Franklin Covey talks about “sharpening the saw”. You are the saw. Boosting your own wellbeing is the best way to help your business to flourish. That can seem counterintuitive to those of us with a “crack-on!” mentality who’ve been trained to graft every waking hour and neglect our own wellbeing.

Back in the days when I was juggling a relentlessly stressful career in PR with looking after my three kids, my self-care didn’t get a look-in. And it showed. I was coming apart at the seams. I made so many mistakes because I was exhausted, my brain was foggy and I frequently went into a meltdown.

Now that I’m a health coach, I understand how we unwittingly sabotage our own energy levels, mood, productivity and overall health through the small lifestyle choices that we make every single day.

The good news is that you can change those lifestyle habits: here are six ways to ensure you’re at your sharpest, most creative and most effective:

6 Easy Steps to Improve Your Health and Wellness as a Business Owner

• Start the day with a morning routine that builds your emotional resilience.

  I used to wake up to the news (always anxiety-inducing) but now spend some time doing a gratitude practice and journaling before I pick up my phone. For tips on how to start your own morning routine, check out my 7-day morning routine toolkit here.

• Stay hydrated.

  It’s all too easy to get through five cups of coffee a day to “keep you going”. Although this might seem to be giving you an energy boost, it will leave you feeling jittery and anxious. Try green tea instead for a milder lift without the downsides. Keep a glass of water on your desk and make sure you drain it several times a day. Research has shown that even the mildest dehydration of only 1-2% can affect your ability to concentrate, your alertness levels and short-term memory function.

• Blood sugar crashes sabotage the effectiveness of even the most competent entrepreneurs. Make sure that your first meal of the day (whatever time you choose to eat) includes a high quality protein and some good fats. These will keep you feeling full and your blood sugar stable. For me, switching up my breakfast was transformational: it allowed me to concentrate all morning for the first time in my life.

  Here are four delicious breakfast recipes that will keep you full until lunchtime.

• Get into the habit of saying “no”.

  Respect the limits of your energy and be choosy about what you commit yourself to. Recognise that if you take energy out of your energy bank, you then need to put some energy back in! Schedule me-time into your diary and be strict about it. Whether it’s going for a walk in nature, or having a long soak in the bath, honour your body’s need for regular downtime.

• Prioritise your sleep and make it sacrosanct.

  There will always be more jobs for you to crack on with – but sacrificing your sleep to get them done will sabotage your productivity, your health and your emotional wellbeing. Close your laptop, draw a line under the day and grant yourself some screen-free downtime before bed. Choose a calming activity (such as lying with your legs up against a wall or reading a novel in bed) to transition from the busyness of your day and allow your mind to prepare for sleep.

• Learn tools to calm your nervous system – and get into the habit of practising them daily.

  You can learn simple self-calming tools on my 5 Days to Calm programme. These are the self-calming tools that I practise myself and that I teach to all my clients. They’re super quick to learn and they all work within minutes. You can access 5 Days to Calm for free via my Wellness Unwrapped app (find it here: www.peppermintwellness.co.uk)

Remember, you are your most valuable asset: treat yourself like a precious investment and your business will reap the rewards.

Suzy is a former PR boss who left behind an award-winning career in marketing to retrain as a health coach. She has first-hand experience of burn-out, having struggled to juggle running her business with looking after her three children. She now leverages her experience to empower others to look after their own health – mentally, physically and emotionally. She is the founder of Peppermint Wellness and host of the Midlife Illuminated podcast. In her Freshly Minted membership, she gently guides stressed-out women to care for their own wellbeing – and start to thrive.