Counselling for Business Owners
Running your own business can sometimes feel like the loneliest place in the world with all the responsibilities involved in keeping it running, finding more business and getting paid for it, looking after your workforce, never mind the red tape and increasing regulation businesses face. And very often forgotten in all this, are the business owners own family and the effect on them.
A recent study by Haines Watt found that 70 out of 100 business owners surveyed agreed that running their businesses was detrimental to their mental health, and 73 out of 100, rising to 80 out of 100 in men, found running their businesses as being emotionally exhausting.
Nearly two-fifths (38%) admitted that the relationship with their partner had also been affected by running their business.
Rather than a business owner you may be an employee in a business, and surveys have suggested that the constant threat of redundancy or working in a business which is periodically restructuring, putting more pressure on those employees left, can over long periods of time impact psychological health even more than physical health.
Whilst some people are better able to deal with the stress which comes from this, for others this can lead from a range of symptoms from sleeping problems to clinical depression, with an impact on you as an individual but also close family and friends.
Why does this our job or role as a business owner matter so much to us? Invariably when we are introduced to someone, one of the first questions they might ask is, ‘So, what do you do for a living?’ What we do is so much tied up into who we are that if this is threatened, whether as a business owner struggling to keep their business afloat, a high-powered executive working to shorter deadlines and targeted to achieve more and more, or as an employee in a business under threat of redundancy or part of a business constantly re-structuring, you may feel this as a direct threat to who you are, to your self-image and sense of self-esteem.
If this is taken away from you, it may feel like a part of your identity has been lost, whether a business being forced to close, through redundancy or even retirement, and for some clients this has been a difficult challenge to make sense of; not so much what has happened but who am I?
Throughout my own career in business I have experienced some of these challenges, and seen how they have affected not only me but also other people in business, business colleagues and their families.
Counselling can help to make sense of this and who you really are, whether the challenge is an ongoing one, or after an event like redundancy or retirement.
According to the latest CIPD figures stress, depression or anxiety accounted for the majority of days lost to work-related ill health in 2021/22 – 17 million days.
Why not call for a free chat to find out how one-to-one counselling can help you, whether as a business owner, executive or employee? Kaizen offers both 121 counselling and also a range of other support for businesses, including a bespoke mental health business plan, training courses around mental health awareness in the workplace, and more specific courses such covering for example, active listening skills. To find out more, just call 07544 045713 or contact me here.
Get in touch
Why not call for a free chat to find out how one-to-one counselling can help you with any issues you are having? Just call 07544 045713 or send me a message.