How Do You Stay Sane?

[mikecarlooch]

My current (temporary) situation

Everything is going so well in my startup, we have a predictable flow of hot leads, all of a sudden there's a technical error.

My stress levels go through the roof even though I know it's only going to last a couple hours before it's fixed.

In reality, I shouldn't be so affected by this tiny setback.

Question for those of you who've had to put out fires in your business:

How do you stay happy and sane in these situations? And not force yourself to sit in front of your computer screen trying to solve a problem you can't personally fix, just causing a mental brain clutter?

Put another way, how to not be so affected by the peaks and valleys of business?

Thanks..

 

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[Bounce Back]

I personally don't think this is something that can be taught - it's something you actively have to stay conscious of and get perspective through prolonged exposure/experience/volume of said stressful events.

 

[mikecarlooch]

I personally don't think this is something that can be taught - it's something you actively have to stay conscious of and get perspective through prolonged exposure/experience/volume of said stressful events.

I guess that makes the current answer..

turn off the computer, watch a movie for once, and wait it out.

lol.

I agree.. Thanks!

 

[smackenzie]

How do you stay happy and sane in these situations? And not force yourself to sit in front of your computer screen trying to solve a problem you can't personally fix, just causing a mental brain clutter?

Time and experience will help, but distraction also works.
I always found when I was running my business, if it was a problem I couldn't fix, the best thing to do was put the steps in place to have someone resolve it and then get busy working on another important unrelated and unaffected task. There's always more than one thing to do.

 

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[Keeton]

Whenever a problem used to arise for me in business, there would be no resting, and I'd obsess sitting in front of my computer till the problem was solved, and If I couldn't solve it right then and there, I would be a wreck.

However I learned that doing that is not healthy, so I changed my perspective. Now whenever a problem comes up, I ask myself one question. "Is this a problem that can be solved right now with our own effort" If yes, then I don't rest till the problem is resolved, if no, I've learned to relax and do what I can, but not stress past that point. If its a problem someone else needs to solve, (for example Shopify went down last week for about an hour and no customers could place orders on stores) you need to let the problem work itself out, and not stress yourself out about it. You tripping out wont make the situation any better, in fact it will only make it worse, now you're not thinking clearly and could over react and make a decision you would've otherwise never made. Me or any other merchant had no power to fix Shopify's payment system, so the best action we could take then was to pause ads(mitigate loss), and wait for Shopify to fix it, but stressing about it wouldn't have made Shopify's team fix it any quicker. So we just paused all our ads, and I went out for a lemonade, I had done all we could have done in that situation.

For your situation, if the technical situation was out of your control; realize that, and don't stress about it, take the actions you can take at that moment to mitigate damage, or resume normal operations once the issue is resolved, but after that don't let it take any more band width. If it was a technical issue under your own domain, awesome! You can fix it and there's no point in stressing about it because you hold the power to fix it. Problems have a way of sorting themselves out, whether or not you're in control of the situation, realize that, and be patient when problems arise.

Business, and life in general becomes way less stressful with that philosophy.

 

[heavy_industry]

How do you stay happy and sane in these situations?

On the biological front:

I lift heavy weights and I fast regularly.

---

On the psychological front:

Forfeit the outcome.

We have no control over the future or over the world. However, we must have full control over ourselves and our own actions.

You can do everything perfectly well in business, make millions of dollars, and get hit by a bus and die on your way to the bank.

What happens next is none of our business. It's God's business. He will decide what is going to happen.

Our job is to do the best job that we can right now and focus exclusively on the things that are in our control.


And remember: We are the masters of our choices, but the slaves of their consequences - be they good or bad.

So focus on planting the right seeds today, and the fruit of tomorrow is (statistically likely, but not guaranteed) going to be sweet.