Your Empathy Is An Asset To Your Business

Empaths rejoice! While those of us who feel the emotions of others sometimes feel a bit drained by it at times, we know that those empathic qualities make us excellent businesswomen, healers, activists, doers, and trailblazers.

Being empathic makes you absolutely perfect for the work you are doing. I know you create deep and trusting relationships with your clients. You easily hold energetic space for your clients to process in their own way. You are deeply in touch with your clients’ needs on multiple levels. You can sense when there is another layer to explore or another path to investigate together with your clients.

Being an empathic entrepreneur, you need to take special care of yourself to avoid burnout and overwhelm.

Here are 4 tips for you to help you stay engaged, energized, and balanced:

1. Tune In to Your Business - Tune Out The Noise

As an empathic entrepreneur, you likely have a deep desire to help people and you have multiple talents. You are highly sensitive and might easily get sidetracked by “shiny object syndrome” and go off on tangents of interest, coming up with new things to create or do before finishing what you’ve started. Been there, done that, struggle with it every single day myself!

Set yourself up for success and tune in to your vision and your mission every day. Write out your identity statement about who you are, what you do, who you serve, and what the outcome is for you and your clients when you serve at the highest level. Post that statement on your desk and next to your bed and tune in with it each and every day, even many times a day to stay on track if you must. 

Close out the tabs on your browser and only work on one thing at a time. This takes discipline and commitment, but you will thank yourself. 

If you aren’t clear on your vision, who your ideal clients are, and what your magical offerings are that make your clients’ lives better, then get in touch with me for a free clarity session so you can filter out the distraction and start making that amazing change in the world. 

2. Ground Yourself To Avoid Burnout

Being an empath, you are probably masterful at multitasking because you feel everything immediately and all at once and are quick to respond to the pressure or expectations within and around you. This can cause you to split your energy and focus between different kinds of tasks, a recipe for burnout. You might spend your day creating new course content, working with clients in calls or in-person sessions, answering emails, writing newsletters, sending invoices, and planning projects. These tasks all require different types of energy and if you’ aren’t careful, your energy can be depleted and you might find you are not getting much done at all.  

Spend time batching your tasks! It is a lifesaver! You can read about that here in a helpful Batching Kit I have created for you.  (opt-in link)

Set alarms during your day specifically to check in with yourself, your energy, and do an easy grounding exercise. These help you carry on with your day, feeling refreshed and re-energized. Check out the list of my favorite grounding exercises!

3. Intentionally Let Go Of The Overwhelm

Outsourcing is perhaps one of the most powerful things you can do to protect your precious energy. Letting others who love to do what you’re not good at or dislike doing  increases your productivity and allows time for you to be creative. And those benefits lead to making more money.  

There are three ways to identify things you should be outsourcing, starting now. 

Ask yourself: 

What do I hate doing? 

I hated doing my own bookkeeping. But I thought that if I am truly a woman in business for myself that I ought to love it, or at least learn to love it. So I berated myself for doing such a crappy job at it and wasted a ton of time and probably tax dollars making messes in my own books.  

When you hate doing something in your business you will probably procrastinate, do it incorrectly, or take forever getting it done and off your plate.  

There are people out there who love doing the things that you find tedious, overwhelming, or monotonous. And trust me, It feels so good to turn over those tasks you dislike to someone who thoroughly enjoys it and treats it like a gift to make it right for you.    

Your energy is too precious and valuable to spend it on things you really don’t like doing. Trust someone who loves doing those things to take care of it for you. 

What do I struggle with?   

Sometimes we get caught up in procrastination because of perfectionism, fear, or money beliefs that hold us back from actually completing things and offering them to our clients. There are things you need to master that will help you move your business forward, but be really honest with yourself - do you really to master building your website in Kajabi or are you funneling all of your energy there to avoid showing up in other places in your business - like on camera, or delivering great content and information, or writing your blog or your book, etc.? Do you want to create your own social media posts or is that something that you can hire someone to do for you?  

It is okay not to do everything you struggle with. In fact as an empath, it is critical that you offload those things that create that icky, heavy, struggle-energy. 

What shouldn’t I be doing?  

This question might be the hardest to answer because as women and high achievers we feel like we should be doing everything in our business. Get really honest with yourself. You are not good at everything in your business. There are things that I will bet you are doing because you are either a control freak, you feel scared to pay someone to do it for you, or because you are stuck in the mindset that, “It is hard to make money.” If you are setting up payment links on your own website, hire a VA to take that over. If you are spending hours tweaking your own business logo, pull up Fiverr.com and give a budding graphic designer the opportunity to make you a unique beauty! Hire others to do those things that eat up your time and keep you procrastinating and in perfectionist mode.  

Hire help, outsource what you don’t want, don’t like, or don’t want to do. 

It can be extremely draining and difficult to waste your energy doing things in your business and home life that zap your energy. It is absolutely OKAY to have others do the things that are not your responsibility or in your wheelhouse. 

4. Lean On Structure - Set Boundaries 

Boundaries are of the utmost importance for empathic entrepreneurs. You MUST set boundaries in all areas of your life. This might sound harsh, but with practice and momentum, you will create your ideal life and ideal business. As an empath, you can easily get pulled and pushed in all different directions by the people in your family, your business connections, and unexpected situations that show up day to day. You have to honor yourself and your need for structure and be the one to provide that for yourself.  

• Set times for your meals, and stick to them. Don’t let yourself down by eating your lunch when you remember but it is two hours late when you are getting the kids from cross country practice. 
• Choose when and how you will get up in the morning, whether you decide to wake up with the sun and the birds naturally or to a gentle alarm.  Decide and stick to it.  
• Choose a time to turn off all electronics at night. 
• Leave your phone on your desk and use a clock for an alarm if you need it to wake up in the morning.  
• Stop volunteering for at least one thing you have signed up for. They will carry on without you. 
• Stop doing trades and working with clients for free. Now.  
• Start and end your day with an excellent self care practice, even if it is short and simple.   

Being an empathic entrepreneur is a gift. But it also requires special self-care if you’re going to maintain your health and well-being. Remember that in order to help others, you must help yourself. Take care, fellow empaths. I’m always here to talk through your unique situation. It is my passion to help women become the best they can be!