Top 6 Tips for Overcoming Entrepreneurial Depression(entrepreneurialhonesty.com)

2 pointsby jonathanmalkin13 anni fa1 comments

Top 6 Tips for Overcoming Entrepreneurial Depression

http://entrepreneurialhonesty.com/top-tips-for-overcoming-depression/

1 comments

"Sleep" -- indeed. There's something more to it though, than just the sleep itself. There's a lot to be said for giving yourself a break from the (self-imposed) mental demands and deadlines and stress.

For context: I've been working on bootstrapping a startup for a couple of years now. About 6 months ago, I stepped down to a part-time position at my regular job, to free up more time for the startup. That, to me, was the beginning of "the big push". I decided to sell-out and give everything I could possibly give, mentally, physically, spiritually, emotionally, etc., for at least 6 months, to see how far we could get.[1]

That period culminated with a series of product demos to some pretty important potential customers over the last week of November and the first week of December.

In the lead-up to that, I was routinely working 16+ hour days, and had no idea of a "day off"... Saturdays and Sundays were looked at as cool because "they're more time to work on the startup".

Needless to say, by the end of all that, I was feeling pretty run down. So I have chosen to take the rest of December as "relax time". No, I'm not going to quit working, but it means that for the entire month, I am not working under any deadlines. And I'm going to spend a lot of time reading research papers, doing exploratory stuff, reading books, catching up on my "to read later" bookmarks, etc., along with watching a few movies and catching up on TV.

After only 3-4 days of that, I already feel markedly better. Just waking up knowing that I'm not "under the gun" to get something or other done by some deadline, and not having to worry about prepping for a demo or a meeting of some sort, makes everything feel different.

So yeah, part of it is allowing myself to get 8 (or more) hours of sleep consistently, but the escape from the stress is significant in its own regard - or at least it subjectively feels like it is.

So the point of all this? I guess I'd say "find a way to make a period of time when you can cut yourself some slack". Even if it's not an outright vacation, just a month with no deadlines and no meetings, or something to let yourself recharge mentally.

[1]: Aside: For anyone wondering "well, how did it all work out?" the answer is: "TBD". We didn't close any deals, but we made a ton of progress on the product front, and got our foot in the door at two S&P 500 firms and at least one other company you've probably heard of. And I like our odds of landing some kind of deal with at least two of the three. Of course, nothing is guaranteed, but we are poised to enter 2014 with some good stuff going on