Tip And Tricks Social Entrepreneurs Use To Manage Their Wellbeing Effectively
There is no question the road of entrepreneurship is a difficult one to travel, and proves even more true if you choose social entrepreneurship.
Balancing all the aspects of your enterprise to ensure you run a viable business which delivers strong value, alongside creating impact can be a delicate operation. It can create lots of stress and social entrepreneurs can find themselves experiencing burnout. The question therefore becomes How Can they Maintain Their Wellbeing while fulfilling their Impact Journey?
The Social Enterprise World Forum serves as an annual meeting place for social innovators, entrepreneurs and professionals leading change globally. Throughout their collective careers, SEWF attendees have personally experienced, seen or heard stories of people impacted by negative wellbeing.
At Impact Boom, it is our mission to connect change makers in the social impact space, and ensure they are supported along their personal journey. With this in mind, the SEWF presented an opportunity to find out how the community maintain their wellbeing. These short conversations provided a wealth of advice which we believe will help you wherever you find yourself.
key tips and tricks for managing wellbeing which emerged from interviews during the forum included:
Carve Out Time For Yourself: Remember to spend time doing activities and hobbies which ‘fill your cup’ and exist separately to your professional identity.
The Importance of Peer To Peer Support Relationships: The community can be a strong source of advice and reliable help when you’re struggling with your journey.
Celebrate Your Wins… Big Or Small: Make sure to continuously reflect on how far you have come, while making sure to pause and celebrate wins with those you love.
Find The Core Passion Which Drives You: Discovering what fuels your passion to change the world will help you remember why you do this work. Use this to remember that you must help yourself before you can help others.
Embrace Mindful Habits and Activities: Prioritising activities such as journalling, exercise and meditation helps many manage their health, balance their life and maintain positive wellbeing.
Changemakers and social entrepreneurs shared how they manage their health and wellbeing in a podcast recorded live from Amsterdam at the 2023 Social Enterprise World Forum.
Highlights from the interviews (listen to the podcast for full details).
Mikey Leung, Digital Storytellers
One thing that's common amongst the impact and purpose driven business community is people often look out for the wellbeing of others before themselves. My tip is you can't help others until you've helped yourself. You can't operate from a place of strength unless you are in that place of strength. You cannot do the work of assisting others until you've worked on yourself and your own inner world. In doing that, spend time, make yourself solid so you can be there for others; it's not selfish to do that. The place where we can give our time, energy, spirit, soul, creativity, gifts, and purpose to others only comes from that which we have within ourselves. Work on yourself first, take that time, and don't feel bad doing that. In that way, you can have a greater impact in the world with whatever you choose.
Juliana Adam, Biji-biji Initiative
My one tip for social entrepreneurs to take care of their wellbeing is carve out time for yourself, especially in the morning. My personal recommendation is to carve out time in the morning for your own self development, whether you work out or read a book just have at least 1-2 hours for yourself before you start your day.
Ana Janošev, Social Impact Award
It's hard to pick just one tip, but one would be find something that fuels your fire, whether it's from your personal or work life. Find ways to keep your motivation going. For me, doing sports, travelling and spending quality time with friends and family support me.
Katura Halleday, 8x8 to Educate
In the world of purpose driven business, it can be a little bit difficult to make sure we look after our own well being. One thing I've always done to make sure I am taking care of myself is to section off a certain time every day to do something that makes me happy. This is for no reason other than the fact it makes me happy. Most days that's picking up a good book, going on a hike or a walk with my dog, but for you it could be anything, as long as it is only for you. That is what matters. It's also important in purpose driven businesses we remind ourselves of our purpose and why, because keeping that idea in mind will help us recognise how far we've come, what we are doing and why we are doing it, which will help our mental wellbeing in the long run.
Eloise Hall, Taboo
My advice to look after your wellbeing is to do things that remind you of your identity separate from your enterprise. Make sure you're doing activities which make you feel joy and fill your cup.
DR. SREEVAS SAHASRANAMAM, STRATHCLYDE BUSINESS SCHOOL
One of the things I've been exploring in my research has been how entrepreneurs and wellbeing coexist. One of the things we have picked up from a recent survey with entrepreneurs globally, especially around the time of COVID-19 where uncertainty was a lot higher, is there were entrepreneurs doing meditative practices. They are into spirituality, yoga, things like that, and they were reporting much higher levels of wellbeing. An area where entrepreneurs can explore is looking at mechanisms like that to improve their mental health, alongside physical exercise.
Lucy Watson, AMP Foundation
My advice to entrepreneurs to help them take care of their wellbeing is to celebrate small wins. This is about acknowledging and celebrating achievements and what you get done each day or week. This will help you boost motivation and achieve a sense of accomplishment. Make time for yourself even when you don't feel you have time to stop. This is about setting boundaries and allocating time for work and your personal life. Also, don't hesitate to ask for help or seek advice and support from friends, family, mentors, or other entrepreneurs. People love to help, but sometimes they don't realise you need it!
Kris Spann, Social Traders
With a wellbeing lens on social entrepreneurship, something important is to set realistic expectations for yourself and give yourself some carrots and rewards along the way. Celebrate the minor victories that you have, but also set a larger carrot to go after so you've got your eye on the prize and there's motivation to push you through and run over any speed bumps.
Azima Dhanjee, ConnectHear
One tip to help your mental wellbeing is to take enough breaks. Whenever you feel you're burning out, take a break and don't feel bad about it.
Kerry Grace, Evolve Network
With over 20 years experience of having done this in regional communities, the first thing I think about when maintaining wellbeing is to get close to what it is that matters most to you and focus on that. For many years it has and always probably will be family for me, but then there'll always be a list of things that live underneath that. I try to make sure I put those things first as a priority also or at least to get chance during each day to make sure I'm looking at that. The other thing is knowing my signs of distress. I know what my internal signs are when I'm not coping well, when I'm getting a bit anxious and stressed out. I know when I see those signs, even if I don't feel like it, I need to get out for a walk, do some cooking or all the other things which make me feel good. Another thing is having a set of accountability buddies who have your permission to be able to tell you to slow down or stop even though you might roll your eyes at them and dislike what they've said to you.
Mike Tozer, Xceptional
My top wellbeing tip for social entrepreneurs would be to use journaling as a way to put down your ideas. For me, it's been so helpful; I do it on a daily basis (usually in the morning). It helps to get ideas out of my brain, to turn chaos of ideas into organisation and destress. It can take as little as 10- 15 minutes a day, but it's something I find super useful and hope others will as well.
RACHEL STEFFENSEN, FIRESTICKS ALLIANCE
The way I tackle my wellbeing and look after myself is by just following my core values when I navigate this space. It's important to stick to what you know but also give yourself an opportunity to grow and learn from other people in this space who have paved the way in social enterprise.
Ben Vasiliou, Youth Projects Ltd
My advice to social entrepreneurs is to find the problem you have an insatiable appetite to solve and then make sure you have clear boundaries between achieving that goal and purpose while also taking care of your own well being.
Sonia Vidal, Inholland University of Applied Sciences
I've been an entrepreneur myself; I've suffered and enjoyed it from all sides. My advice regarding wellbeing would be to embrace your inner rebel. There's a rebel in you and something you’re very angry about, there's something that makes your life harder and you should shout about it through your enterprise. You can shout quietly or shout loud depending on your mood, but just do it. Embrace your cringe, embrace your rebel.
Nancy Lang, Three Leafs Tea
My advice for enterprise wellbeing would be don't think too much. We all have a purpose and what we believe in. Aside from all the chaos, just stay focused and keep going.
Robin Dick, Northumbria University
My advice would be to acknowledge the notion of individuality being abstract. Our lives are interdependent with other humans and non humans in our world. I would then ask you to recognise wellbeing is built on relationships and processes of care where we consciously care for ourselves and others at the same time, allowing for imbalances in this process where our needs are sometimes more than others (and vice versa). With this in mind, I would take time to regularly share your social enterprise passions, ideas and activities with your peers, family and friends, so they understand the best ways they can care for you on the social enterprise journey. This is so you remain conscious of their own care needs. In this way, you mitigate tensions of care, which can affect the yours or other’s wellbeing.
Marieshka Barton, Durham University Business School
With social entrepreneurs I've been co-researching with and looking at challenges around impact measurement, what we find is they need each other. Sometimes they can feel isolated or even in competition for resources, so while intermediaries and parts of the ecosystem should do what they can to support them, they’re each other's best resource as well.
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