Self-Care Is Not An Option for Women Building Their Businesses

How often do you skip lunch on workdays? Maybe you grab a protein bar or something similar to get you through the day.

How often do you rely on a near-constant stream of caffeine (whether it’s tea, coffee, energy drinks, or some combination thereof) to power you through the workday?

How often do you skip exercise because you don’t have time for it on workdays? How often do you work after dinner, even though you were in the office all day?

If your answer to any of the above is “often”, “a lot”, or “nearly always”: How sustainable do you think this is, for you personally?

In my experience, many people think things will magically slow down “someday.” Until then, they keep grinding on, believing that they’ll achieve more by ignoring their body’s needs, which works until it doesn’t.

If you want to work smarter instead of harder, you’ll need to unlearn these habits. Smart work is how you prevent burnout and manage stress. Working harder and longer without getting anywhere is stressful and leads to burnout.

Why hustle culture is a harmful hoax

What’s your biggest asset as a business owner? It’s not your computer, your team (although valuable), or your systems and processes. The biggest asset in your business is your brain.

If that’s your biggest asset, then you should care for and maintain it like it’s important and valuable. To be fair, it has more needs than your computer does.

Computers can do a lot, but in some ways they’re not as powerful as your brain. After all, one computer can’t manage its blood flow, heart rate, and breathing while guiding it as it walks and talks with friends like your brain does for you.

A computer can’t direct its body to heal muscle micro-tears, leading to bigger muscles. A computer can’t direct cellular toxins to be flushed out every night. A computer can’t make sense of chemical signals that let it know when the stomach is full, or when novelty excites it. These are just a few things that your brain does for you that a computer can’t.

A computer can definitely calculate faster than your brain and communicate with other computers faster, too. A computer is a good tool for business owners, but your brain is still more critical to your success. Unfortunately, hustle culture forces you to work against your brain.

Habits that are bad for your brain

• Going hours without rest isn’t a flex; it’s ignoring what your brain needs for peak performance.
• Immediately dropping one task to work on another drains productivity because switching from one task to another fatigues your brain.
• Attempting to “multitask” is not possible from the brain’s point of view; it just switches back and forth between the tasks and tires the brain out in the process.

Hustle culture fatigues your brain faster than if you were working with your brain instead. Working with your brain provides it with what it needs, even when that takes time away from work tasks.

Remember if you defer maintenance on any piece of equipment for long enough, the machine will schedule its maintenance for you by breaking down. In the brain’s case, you might get physically sick and/or burn out. However, equipment that’s kept in good working order can function well for longer, and the same is true of the brain.

How caring for your brain and yourself builds a sustainable business

Many business owners, especially women, believe that caring for oneself is selfish or luxurious. But if your brain is the most important asset in your business, then doesn’t it make sense to take care of it?

While the brain is more powerful than a computer in some ways, it has different needs that must be met to perform at its best.

• Adequate sleep. A lot of processes happen overnight, like muscle building, toxin flushing, and learning.
• Rest (after hard thought/long work time). Actual rest, which can be a 10-minute walk, but not scrolling through social media, newsfeeds, or emails.
• Nutrition. Your brain is about 2% of your mass but uses up 20% of the energy.
• Exercise. The brain needs oxygenated blood flow for peak performance, and moving your body is the way to make this happen.
• Human connection. Our early ancestors survived by cooperating with each other, and this need is baked into all of us (introverts may need a little less than extroverts).
• Active fun. This isn't consuming other people's content, but crafting, hobbies, adult sports, etc.

If you want to achieve your goals and stay in your business as long as possible, your brain needs all this care. When you’re hustling, you’re ignoring many of these requirements. You can get away with ignoring your top asset for a while. But you’re risking your health and the long-term success of your business by doing so.

When I work with my clients, we often use their calendar to make sure their priorities get their own blocks of time. Treating these blocks like your best client helps ensure your blocking sticks.

If your best client made an appointment with you, would you reschedule just because another task came up? Of course not. Would you allow someone to just drop in to the conference room where you and your best client are meeting? Or pay attention to an email that just came in? Absolutely not.

Been skipping lunch?

Block out a minimum of half an hour (preferably a full hour) for lunvh on your calendar. Treat it as an important client: Nobody gets to interrupt it or move it around the calendar, including you. To really unwind this habit, schedule lunches with friends or business colleagues so you have to get out of the office.

Relying on caffeine?

This could be one or both of the following: You’re not getting enough sleep and/or you’re not eating enough. Roughly 99% of adults need seven to eight hours of sleep for the brain to complete all its overnight tasks.

Not only does not enough sleep make you tired, edgy, and lead to bad decisions, it’s also linked to an increased risk of dementia. You also may not be getting enough nutrition to power your brain. A brain short on energy because it’s short on fuel will be fatigued, which is why you might be reaching for caffeine all day.

Skipping exercise?

Even if you’re the perfect weight, you still need to exercise because your brain depends on richly oxygenated blood to work properly. You might need to offload some chores onto your family or pay for a maid/cook/housekeeper/whatever to make sure you have time for it. If you need to, block it out on your calendar (including travel time) and treat it like an important appointment you can't miss.

Working too many hours?

If you’re in the office all day and still working after dinner, you’re working too many hours. Some business owners take off work early in the day to be with family or care for others, then work after dinner when the kids are in bed, which is perfectly fine as long as you’re not working the whole day.

You only get peak performance out of your brain for about half a day (four hours). Off-peak, you can still do things like admin and emails for a few more hours. However, if you’re working nine or more hours a day, you’re wasting a lot of it because your brain is out of gas. Instead of trying to hustle through, give your brain the recharging time it needs and come back the next day ready to focus.

How to maintain working WITH your brain

To break these hustle culture habits, you need intention. What can you do with the work hours you free up by recognizing that too much work every day is harmful in the short term and the long term?

• How much time can you spend with friends and loved ones?
• How much time can you devote to your favorite activity or hobby?
• How much time could you use to learn something you’ve always been interested in?

It’s paradoxical to a hustle-and-grind mind, but remember that we’re dealing with a powerful brain that has needs a computer doesn’t. You get more done in less time, so reducing work hours actually helps you achieve more.

That’s why rest and fun are important, because they’re important to the biggest asset in your business. Self-care is taking care of that important asset. It’s neither optional nor a luxury. It’s a necessity.

Take a minute now to think of what you want more of in your life. If possible, block time for it on your calendar and treat it as an important appointment, because it is. Honor your needs physical and mental health needs so you can continue to serve your clients as long as you can.

Read a related article by Jennifer "JJ" Jank:

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