1.Compare Fears With Faith

All emotions boil down to “fear” or “faith.” Boil down stress and anxiousness; What remains is fear. Try this exercise. Write the word “fear” and list what is evoking this fear. Don’t edit your thoughts. Next, write the word “faith” across from fear. For each word under fear, list actions you could take to draw on the faith you have in yourself to address these fears. Today, take on one action. – 

 2. Accept And Become Aware Of Your Stress

Stress, much like a task, has to be managed. It boils down to understanding and accepting that being stressed is part of the journey. That acceptance then leads to awareness, which should be turned into actionable tasks to manage it. Those tasks, however, have to fit the individual needs. It can be as simple as an hour walk or as elaborate as a combination of meditation and yoga. Awareness is key.

3. Enter The Quiet Zone

It may seem trendy, but for thousands of years, meditation has been a key force for quieting the mind and alleviating stress. Start with five minutes of sitting still. Count your breaths or use a phone app for background noise. Do a walking meditation, if activity is desired. Progress to 20 minutes. Dedicate yourself daily to the practice and watch your stress melt away.

4. Focus On Your Most Basic Needs

Make eating for energy, exercising for stress relief, meditating for highest-level thinking and checking in weekly with your most important relationships nonnegotiables. Putting pennies in those piggy banks will pay off to provide you the insights, energy and support systems you will most surely need as an entrepreneur. I’ve started four successful companies and burnout can be devastating. – 

5. Network

Having a strong support system is essential for the entrepreneurial lifestyle. Without it, stress can take over. Invest in building strong partnerships, work to nurture the network you currently have, build up new additions to it and use the times when you are in a good place to give to that network. When you are feeling anxious, ask for support. They will get you through it and help you grow. – 

6. Take Things One Step At A Time

Often anxiety results from fixating on the big picture. Looking at all the ways in which something can play out, good and bad, can be overwhelming. Rather, taking it one step at a time and not seeking to see the big picture all the time can reduce anxiety. Just focus on the next thing you need to do. After a while, you will look back and see that you have traveled far and done much.

7. Strengthen Your Self-Trust

The most powerful way to overcome entrepreneurial anxiety is to strengthen trust in self. Anxiety is caused by fear of failure, not being good enough or being judged. Trust in your own value, talent and ability to deliver results. This needs to be cultivated from within. Daily ritual helps tremendously to establish a connection with your intuition, stay in your lane and keep the focus on your priorities. – 

8. Break Down Your Big Ideas Into Small Steps

As an entrepreneur, I can easily get caught up in my dreams of what my business will become and do. That dreaming, though, doesn’t produce results or income. I have to break big ideas into small steps that I can achieve and celebrate. Each celebration is one step closer to that big dream and eases my anxieties. And it feels good.  

9. Get Support From Others

Having support from others is crucial to entrepreneurial success and avoidance of the overwhelm of stress. This requires honesty and vulnerability of the entrepreneur to be able to ask for support, whether it be emotional, financial, technical, skills-based, etc. Ask family, friends or other professionals to be there for help throughout the journey. And lean into them—they want you to succeed too! – 

10. Don’t Avoid It

Movement. Forward motion. Momentum. If anxiety is a fear of something that has not happened, then the best thing you can do is not avoid it. Avoidance will only make it worse. Delaying the inevitable only ramps up more anxiety.  Learn from the “school of hard knocks”: grit your teeth and face it head-on. Nine times out of 10 you’ll find whatever you feared was not as big of an issue as you imagined. – 

11. Create A Proactive Plan

Entrepreneurs need to stay two steps ahead by planning. Entrepreneurs play many roles: visionary, marketer, sales executive and administrator. Having a proactive plan aligned to your style of effectiveness is critical. Set time in your calendar for each task, leverage the experts that you aren’t and regularly assess and realign your plan based on both the short and long term. – 

 12. Get In A 20-Minute Workout Every Day

Get out of your head and into your body! The best way to overcome stress is to sweat for 20 minutes. I use a Peloton bike because it’s fast. No matter how busy I am, I can always get on it for 20 minutes. After 30 days, you will see increased productivity. If you don’t have a bike, subscribe to their service and do any workout from a phone or tablet. No equipment required.

13. Tap Into The Wider Entrepreneurial Community

Entrepreneurs often feel the world is on their shoulders, leaving them feeling overwhelmed and lonely. Joining entrepreneurial associations is a great way to not feel so alone. These associations serve entrepreneurs by providing them with a supportive and positive community from whom to learn, lean on, communicate, collaborate and share best practices with the wider business support community.  

14. Manage Your Mindset

The more money you make and the more successful you become, your mindset becomes a crucial aspect to manage. Many people overlook the importance of emotional business management, and it’s a key factor in your success and your well-being. Invest regularly in people and things that help you with your mindset. Develop daily practices to support you.  

15. Make Time For Self-Care Consistently

Stress and anxiety can wreak havoc on an entrepreneur’s mind, body and spirit. It’s important to practice self-care often. Listening to music, exercising, clean eating and taking long walks will all help. Whatever feeds your mind, fuels your soul and strengthens your body should be a daily priority. Without proper self-care, there will be no business. Dedicate 30 minutes a day to find your bliss. – 

16. Practice Niksen

Niksen is the Dutch concept of literally doing nothing, and it has serious stress-reducing benefits. It’s giving yourself time to just be, letting your mind wander rather than focusing on the details. Whether it’s daydreaming or simply looking out the window, this act of slowing down is crucial as it correlates to happiness, increased creativity and promotes emotional and physical health.

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