Overcoming Mental Health Roadblocks to Self-Employment
As much as self-employment can wreak havoc on a person’s mental health, it can also support positive mental health if they’re proactive about their care.
For example, self-employment can be empowering. It can be a huge confidence booster for someone who was told they wouldn’t achieve much, as many people living with mental health challenges are told.
In addition, when business owners openly living with a mental health condition work with others with mental health challenges, it helps normalize mental health in the workplace.
Even with the positive impact self-employment can have on your mental health, there are still roadblocks self-employed individuals living with a mental health challenge may face initially.
Potential Roadblocks for Self-Employed People Living with Mental Health Challenges
Starting a new business can be exciting and crushing at the same time. You go through a rollercoaster of emotions thanks to various workplace stressors. Navigating the highs and lows of entrepreneurship is one of the biggest potential roadblocks for someone self-employed living with mental health challenges.
If you aren’t careful, the ever-changing nature of self-employment can inspire bouts of mental health challenges that result in physical, emotional, and behavioral symptoms that ultimately hinder your business.
It’s also important to note the difficulty you may have with health insurance. If there’s one thing you’ll miss about working for someone else, it’s how easy it was to sign up for health insurance.
Self-employed people living with mental health challenges must have adequate medical, dental, and vision insurance. You’ll quickly find out how helpful this support is to your success in self-employment.
Let’s say you fend off these roadblocks. You’ll likely start thinking about growing and expanding your business. Yet, your mental health challenges remain. The question then becomes, how can you expand your business and nurture your mental health challenges?
How to Expand Your Business and Nurture Mental Health Challenges
Expanding your business is a big commitment, and so is nurturing your mental health challenges — but what do you do if you’re trying to manage both simultaneously?
The first step is learning how to manage stress effectively. Many things will be added to your plate as you grow your business. With more responsibilities usually comes more stress, which can trigger your mental health condition.
So, it’s integral to find healthy ways to cope with stress, like delegating tasks and setting boundaries to help you balance an expansion and your mental health.
Here are two additional tips for expanding your business and nurturing your mental health challenges at the same time:
Create an expansion plan
Self-employed people living with mental health challenges need to document a specific plan for growing their businesses to have the best chance of flourishing.
Detail the following in your plans to expand your business:
- Market research
- Competitor analysis
- Why you want to expand
- How your business can support an expansion
- How do you envision your business growing
- A step-by-step plan for growth
Build a team
Building a team can do wonders for your growth plans and mental health. There can be a lot of layers to expanding a business. From figuring out where to start with the expansion to working with new vendors to marketing your growth, it’s too much for one person.
That pressure can exacerbate your mental health condition and send you into a state that makes it challenging to run your business, let alone expand it.
Build a team to help you manage the workload and stress associated with growth and expansion. Surround yourself with team members that can support you through difficult times and take the reigns when you need to set them down.
General Tips for Prioritizing Mental Health as an Entrepreneur
Even if you aren’t looking to expand your business right now, you should still prioritize your mental health and set yourself up for entrepreneurial success. Learning to put your mental health first even when stress tells you not to is crucial.
Furthermore, taking on entrepreneurship requires a sound mind, ambition, and commitment. If you aren’t prepared to give self-employment everything you’ve got, wait until you are.
Here are a couple of other tips for prioritizing mental health as an entrepreneur.
Learn the art of self-care
You must start practicing self-care to be a successful entrepreneur living with a mental health condition. Assembling a healthcare team that includes mental health specialists is absolutely a form of self-care and should be taken seriously.
You should supplement your healthcare team’s support with other self-care activities.
For example, implementing morning and night routines in your schedule can ensure you get adequate rest and start your mornings with energy and enthusiasm. Nature walks once a week are great for centering yourself. Meditation and mindfulness activities can soothe your symptoms and boost your productivity as well.
Build a business around your needs
One of the best benefits of being self-employed is that you have control over how you build and run your business. That also means you can consider your needs surrounding your mental health challenges when determining:
- Your hours of operation
- How you communicate
- Who you work with
- What kind of business do you run
- Workplace culture
- Mental health benefits
Think about what your ideal workplace would look like and create it. Build any accommodations you need to navigate your mental health challenges into your company’s core.
Conclusion
Overcoming mental health roadblocks to self-employment is more than doable. It’s all about finding balance and building accommodations for your mental health challenges into the foundation of your business. Start with a couple of the tips above to soar in self-employment even while living with a mental health condition.