The High Price of Overwork: How to Avoid Burnout as a Freelance Trainer or Training Business Owner

The 5 Causes of Overwork for Freelance Trainers and How to Fix Them

I’ve been studying freelance trainers for over 24 years now. One common theme that comes up over and over again is that many trainers are busy to the point of overwork.

This is a problem freelancers face wherever they are in their career. From the early days, struggling to find the first client and working hard to build a reputation, to the most successful freelancers who have reached the limit of what they can?deliver alone, many freelance trainers make themselves so busy they don't have time to work on improving their business.

Overwork has many negative effects on your personal and professional life, as well as your physical and mental health. It leads to poor work-life balance, lack of time for leisure activities, low self-care and strain on relationships with family and friends.?

At work, it causes decreased productivity and lower quality of work, as well as an increased risk of errors and mistakes. It hinders business development and growth.?

Frequently, trainers become the bottleneck in their own businesses, stopping themselves from growing further through overwork.

Overwork can also have negative effects on physical and mental health, including increased stress and anxiety, physical symptoms such as fatigue and headaches, and an increased risk of developing physical health problems and depression.?

So what causes overwork amongst freelance trainers, and what can you do about it?

I've given a lot of thought to this phenomenon,?and I've noticed that the reasons for overwork fall into just 5 categories.

In this article, I explore the reasons why freelance trainers overwork, and offer a brief overview of how to stop working so hard without reducing your income.

Here are the 5 causes of overwork.

Money issues

This doesn’t only affect trainers who are just starting out, working hard to find clients and build a reputation. It also affects more successful trainers who have reached the maximum of what they can deliver alone.?

In both cases, taking time away from the coal face leads to a drop in income, so trainers believe they can’t afford to slow down, and become trapped in a cycle of doing as many hours as possible just to keep their income levels up.

Resource issues

If you’ve tried to delegate, but have been let down by people who are unreliable, can’t do the work or fail to meet your standards, you’re in good company!?

Finding the right people, whether for admin tasks, marketing or service delivery, is notoriously difficult. It can be very frustrating if you want to do less, but you can’t find reliable, capable people to support you.

This is especially true if you want to hire people to deliver training on your behalf. My 24 years of building and managing teams of credible, competent, loyal associates has taught me that it is much more difficult than it seems! If you're doing it for the first time, it can cause major headaches.

Control issues

Sometimes the problem is not lack of quality people, it’s an inability to let go.

I get it - nobody can ever deliver your training as well as you can. Of course, that’s true! Nobody will ever be able to do it the way that you do.?

But if you want your business to grow beyond what you can deliver alone, you have to find a way to bring associates up to an acceptable standard, even if they will never be as good as you.

Control issues also arise with other activities such as marketing and admin. There are people out there who specialise in these activities that you are probably not very good at. But if you have high control needs, you probably don’t trust them! So you take up your own time doing tasks that someone else could do for you.

Self-management issues

Freelance trainers are notoriously poor at time management.?

The nature of the work means that it is common to find trainers on their phones during lunch breaks when they should be focusing on their learners, doing emails late at night because they’ve been training all day, and catching up on admin and training design at the weekends.

It can also be difficult to set boundaries with clients, so you end up taking on more than you’ve charged for and projects take up more time than you planned.

Maybe you even enjoy some of the lower-value tasks that you should be delegating to others. I love spreadsheets, but they rarely earn me any money!

These factors can compound to make it seem like there’s a mountain of work to do, and no time to do it. But this is an illusion, albeit a powerful one, that can be cured with better self-management.

Mindset issues

This might just be the toughest one of all to crack - and I must admit, I struggle with it myself!

In 2022, I closed and delivered over ￡200K of training business in less than 25 hours a week. Of course, I didn’t deliver it all personally, in fact I got other people to do most of it. This meant I had plenty of leisure time to spend with my wife, go for long walks or take holidays.?

But I often feel a strange sense of guilt, a nagging feeling that I should be working harder. I was raised on a strong Protestant work ethic, so I unconsciously believe that I have to work hard to be OK, and it’s been difficult to break that connection.

Many people have a similar psychological need to be busy. This can manifest itself as:

• Being so passionate about your work that you just can’t stop
• Liking being busy
• Feeling guilty or restless when you’re not working
• Having little else going on in life apart from work
• Having a competitive drive to be the best
• Feeling you have to prove something to yourself or others
• Fear that if you slow down someone will overtake you or you will lose relevance

Let’s be clear, all of this is fine as long as it’s what you want. But when overwork starts to affect your personal and professional life and your physical and mental health, it’s time to do something about it. The first step is to acknowledge and admit that you have a mindset issue.

This is perhaps the hardest one to solve, because it requires a new mindset. But with the right coaching, trainers can find new ways of thinking that allow them to feel good about themselves even if they’re not in the training room 3-4 days a week.

When you crack this one, you can continue to enjoy rising earnings whilst only working a fraction of the hours that you used to.

Solutions

OK, so these are the 5 reasons why freelance trainers overwork - so what’s the solution? Here are 5 tips to create the right environment to reduce your hours whilst increasing your earnings.

1. Clear vision and plan

If you’re suffering from overwork, you’ve probably drifted into it by accident. You didn’t plan to work yourself into the ground, did you?

So the first step in breaking the overwork habit is to have a clear vision of where are you going, knowing how will you get there and what resources you need, and planning how much time you want to work in your business.

This sets a clear framework and a point of reference for your working life.

2. Solid execution

The old adage is true - “plan the work, then work the plan”. Once you have clear plans in place, it’s important to take action, stay on track with the plan, have strong accountability, and manage your priorities and time well.

3, Support network

If you want to transform your business, make sure you surround yourself with the right people. Always have a coach or mentor, or be part of a mastermind group.?

In 24 years, there has never been a time when I haven’t had a neutral third party supporting me to hold me to account, keep me objective, think clearly, allay my doubts and fears, test out ideas, challenge myself and stay motivated. It’s the best investment you can make in yourself and your business.

Joining the right programme to help you reach your business goals more quickly and with less pain can be the catalyst that makes your vision a reality.

Click here to find out how the Training Growth Mastermind can keep you on track to achieve your business goals.

4. Build a strong team

Whether you’re just starting out or growing your business by building a team of associates, you need a strong team around you.?

Although it can be very tempting to do everything yourself, as soon as you begin to delegate as much as possible to other people, you’ll reap the benefits that come from focusing on what takes your business forward.?

Why take up your valuable time doing admin and marketing that someone else can do better than you? Delegate these tasks and free up your time to do more value-adding activities like business development!

As Sir John Harvey-Jones put it, “Only do what only you can do.”

5. Leave money in your business

I know, it’s tempting to splash out when you hit the big time, but it’s more prudent to keep your dividends low.?

That way, you can build a buffer against the bad times, which is the best way I know to deal with the feast and famine cycle (think of Aesop's Fable The Ant and the Grasshopper!)?

If you have money in the bank when there’s a lull in work, you won’t panic and accept low grade, low-paid work that you should be turning down just to make ends meet. You can focus on finding the right kind of clients who will pay you what you’re worth.

Retaining money in your business also means that you have funds available to invest in hiring others, effective marketing, and your own self-development.

What do you think?

If you’re an overworked freelance trainer, which of these 5 reasons affects you the most? Is it a money issue, resource issue, control issue, self-management issue or mindset issue? Or is there another reason that I haven’t considered? Join the conversation by posting your thoughts in the comments below.

If you would prefer a private conversation about these matters, let’s talk. My entire focus is on helping other freelance trainers to be more successful than they ever believed they could be.?

Don't let overwork ruin your life. Click here for a free, no-obligation coaching session with me. In 45 minutes I’ll help you identify the root cause of your overwork and a clear plan of action to deal with the problem.

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