The 4 Biggest Problems Causing Entrepreneurs Unnecessary Stress

The last two years have been the most stressful I have ever experienced. As an entrepreneur in the early stages of building my company, however, I was already under a tremendous amount of stress before the pandemic. Throw in trying to be a loving husband, attentive and present father to three rambunctious boys, dealing with a contentious custody matter, the genuinely tense socio-political atmosphere, working from home, remote schooling and more, and there were moments when I thought I just could not do it anymore. I could not carry all the burden. Then it hit me — I don’t have to.

My life, like yours, serves a purpose. We are all designed to fill a role and need in this world. The problems and challenges you are required to face are those challenges that you encounter on your journey of fulfilling your life’s purpose. The rest, while you may be affected by them, are not your problems to solve. Even more importantly, if you spend your time and energy focused on problems you are neither meant to solve nor that you can solve, you will not have enough time and energy to solve the ones you can and were meant to solve.

When I first began my career at a large international law firm, we had a very successful guest speaker during orientation who talked about work-life balance. I will never forget what she told us: We all have time for two things in our lives — that’s it. For her, it was work and family. The rest would have to wait until she built her career. Now, as a successful executive, she has a social life, travels for leisure frequently and has even picked up a few hobbies. I think there is a third thing we all must have time for, and that is our health. Without taking care of ourselves physically, mentally and spiritually, we will be unable to tend to the other two responsibilities in our lives. Once I committed to those three things, an extraordinary weight lifted. From that moment on, I knew that I could absolutely manage all the responsibilities, all the challenges and?all the stress that my life was designed to manage. I just had to let go of the things I was not able to manage.

Here are the four biggest problems that were causing me unnecessary stress and draining me physically and emotionally. Once I let them go as my problems and stopped worrying about them, I had a ton more energy and could focus much better on what mattered most: my wife, children and purpose. Click to continue reading.