Pack up your troubles

Back in control: Vanessa Garrard has changed her approach to work

Vanessa Garrard had a tough time of it in 2006. Her fledgling import business E3! Style was finding its feet, her credit card was maxed out, her relationship had come to an end and she was struggling in a new house with a young family.

“I was starting everything from scratch and at the same time looking back and wondering if I could have done things differently,” Garrard says. “Kids don’t understand that you’re away for business, they just know you’re not there to read them a story at night, and you can never get that time back. When I was at work I felt guilty about not being at home, and when I went home all I could think about was work, so there was no rest and everything began to mount up.”

Garrard was among many small business owners who have featured on the BRW Fast 100 list who report anxiety as their business grows rapidly.

Anxiety in small doses can be good for our health and general wellbeing. A psychologist and counsellor with Rozelle Total Health in Sydney, Maria-Paula Fuentes, points out that it’s a sudden boost of cortisol that gets us out of bed in the mornings, regulates blood pressure and releases insulin to give us a steady dose of blood sugar.

“Anxiety is a driving force, but when it doesn’t pass, it becomes totally paralysing,” Fuentes explains. “When your attention is always focused on irrational fears, it becomes a disorder.”

Communication consultant and emotional intelligence coach Rachel Green says anxiety is common among small business owners and that it’s important to find techniques to deal with it early as it can quickly become debilitating during times of high stress.

“There are so many things that small business people need to worry about before they get to the point where they can even address the customers,” Green says. “There’s legislation and staff issues and huge financial strain, as well as the constant pressure to put in extra work, see a client on the weekend and work after hours. It never stops.”

After 12 months, the constant chatter in her head and the tightness in the pit of her stomach had become unbearable, and Garrard was forced to reassess how she was working. She engaged the help of Vac Ubl, a business coach with Ubl Partners, and together they drafted a plan to ensure she eased off on her workload, found time for her family and dealt with her problems.

“It took me a while to learn to deal with things right away rather than letting them stack up,” Garrard says. “I had to be very strict about leaving work on time and spending time with my kids and my new partner. Initially it was very difficult to stop feeling guilty about not being at work, but I found that spending time with my family, doing simple things like having dinner together, really helped reduce stress and anxiety.”

Moreover, Garrard says her new approach to business has helped her find and retain good staff as it’s enabled her to adopt more flexible work practices.

“Everyone who works here is really accountable and knows what their deliverables are, so I don’t mind when or where they actually do their work, or whether they bring kids into the office if they need to,” she says. “We spend so much of our lives at work, it’s really important that we enjoy it.”

Reducing your anxiety level can be as simple as:

• Making sure you leave work at 5pm most days to spend time with your family.
• Scheduling regular time out and using it to meditate or relax.
• Buying a season ticket to your favourite sporting or arts event.
• Using the energy created by anxiety to exercise.
• Getting a business coach to reschedule your working week.
• Source: http://www.rachelgreen.com/

BRW

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