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Mental health and business?
I feel like a lot of entrepreneurs tend to put their mental health as a secondary focus to their work and other aspects of becoming successful.
How do you monitor, maintain, or support your mental health while you are also typically working hard and juggling all the factors of entrepreneurship and creation?
How do you monitor, maintain, or support your mental health while you are also typically working hard and juggling all the factors of entrepreneurship and creation?
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I used to go to therapy til it stopped working, but in the beginning, it was essential so I could understand my eating disorder, OCD, anxiety, depression, and suicidal cycles.
I learned I have a LOT of rage and need a way to get that out so I don't internalize it (self-harm) like I used to.
I'm a kickboxer and blacksmith, and both of these allow me to process emotions in a healthy, constructive way.
I also base jump every year on my birthday to confront my biggest fears lol.
More practically, I learned how to work with my brain. I have ADHD and I have a vata-type cognitive style (if we're applying Ayurveda to psychology).
To avoid burnout, I adjust the way I work and don't apologize for my differences.
While most people say to pick one thing and stick with it, that doesn't work for me. I juggle lots of things and rotate based on my interests.
(For ADHDers, the acronym INCUP is really useful for a near-infinite level of motivation.)
I call it "following my dopamine." I notice when I do too many things I have zero interest in (or things I have outright contempt for), I start hating life. We all have stuff to do we don't like doing, but I find ways to do these in between things I love.
I also finally accepted that balance in the traditional way of thinking simply doesn't exist for me. I have seasons when I push really hard and seasons when I do much less. It's macroscopic balance, not daily balance.
Ultimately, I say "screw it" to conformity because I'm not a freelancer to "fit in" and do the socially acceptable thing.
Might be my sign to base jump for my birthday coming up... I think breaking out of the traditional norms is a huge positive!
"following my dopamine" - superpower right there
If I notice I am moving in a mentally unhealthy direction I focus on meditation, sport, meeting friends, digital detox.
I used to "monitor" my mental health with all kinds of methods, notion lists etc., but stopped that after I had the feeling I have a solid grounding and I generally journal, reflect and tune into myself often.
My general mindset is, as the screen/s (laptop, phone) are often the main sources of my mental health deteriorating I emphasize reducing screen time as much as possible.
Cal Newport's approaches in Digital Minimalism, Deep Work, Slow Productivity are my vibe.
Going to have to check out Cal's work. Digital burnout keeps getting me! Thanks!
This year marks 20 years since I founded a company, which later grew and was recently acquired. It’s been an extremely intense, fun… and also mentally exhausting journey. In the past few years, I’ve had to pay close attention to and take care of my mental health. Many of the things that @cat and @jesse talk about have helped me. But if I had to choose one, without a doubt, it would be this: starting my personal journal.
I often write a digital personal journal where I reflect on my feelings, emotions, and experiences. Since I also have a knack for literature and writing, I enjoy crafting each entry, finding the precise poetic, lyrical words so that the form complements the content. It’s just like when I program software, but in natural language.
My personal journal is the chronicle of my journey towards my personal goals. In the first entries, I reflected and described precisely how I want to be in five years. Personally and professionally. Since then, my journal has been the logbook of my path towards the person I want to become and the successes I wish to achieve. Will I reach them? I’d like to, but I’m clear that what’s important is the journey, not the destination. The goals propel me forward. But it’s the movement that I enjoy.
Writing, writing to myself, has made me more aware of my moods and has forced me to calmly reflect on how I feel, what excites me, and what makes me uncomfortable. It’s also a beautiful private chronicle of my recent years, with photographs and memories that are now part of my biography. But in its pages, what I did doesn’t matter much; what matters is how I felt. These are thoughts, emotions, and experiences that slip through your fingers if you don’t catch and fix them with words.
This has helped me a lot mentally and gives structure to my life. It has also helped me detect mood cycles and emotional patterns that, without the journal, I wouldn’t have noticed follow a certain regularity. I encourage you to write, and above all, to find the tone and voice that are most useful to you for doing so.
Have been an on-and-off journal-er for a number of years, and have always noticed I do better when I'm on. Thanks for the thought! Might have to get back into an "on" cycle :)
I love the comments you have on this so far. I work on a number of projects centred around men and journalling comes up regularly: often the men who swear by it and then those that immediately reject it due to stereotypes of masculinity (academics who work in this space tend to have this stereotype too which isn't helpful). If you're willing to try it, but very new to it, I'm sure everyone here would have some great advice, and it can also help to start with something that prompts you. This one is specifically made for guys and I've seen it used really well before people go free-range with their journalling and writing (plenty of womxn use it too to be fair!) : mindjournals.com
Odd question: but wonder if it's been asked before. Me and my wife talk through things pretty well in an open and non-judgmental manner. Do I still need to journal, or are the questions based around opening feelings and "communicating to oneself"?
I love this question and your relationship with your wife sounds really healthy for this - sincere congrats, it takes work! I don't think you need to journal by any means, and honestly for some people it sticks for years, for some just a month gives so much learning to yourself, and others hate it. It's fine if you try!
When you freewheel you can journal about whatever but in the prompts based version (and like the MindJournal which has a lot of structure) it will be more about questions for yourself, your life, your thoughts. I think one of the big things is emotional identification and working them out. This is a learning many people need to go on but in my work we notice it tends to affect men more generally - being able to identify emotions beyond a few common ones. I remember one great interview and the guy told me I listened to my friend and he thought he was really angry, and it occurred to me it was actually grief. He wasn't angry, he was grieving but he didn't realize. In sessions sometimes I'll ask how would you identify the difference between anger and frustration, for example (it's hard, most people can't initially!). I think journalling can help a lot with this and then in general your state of mind, reviewing positions or thoughts, and improving life if you feel you need it.
Matthew McConnaughey released a journal too off the back of his book and this one is less structured but it still provides prompts. You can go wild a bit more - I did it myself to test out it for others and quite liked it. I think it's good if you can team it up with a nice moment for yourself (i.e. evening drink and fifteen minutes when you feel like it).
www.amazon.fr/Greenlights-You…
Doing this for so long I've definitely gone through cycles of it until I had one big bang. I've never monitored; not my thing and try to reduce screen time and any tech and move my body. Spent years rewinding "internalized productivity" - this is a work in practice forever. Last night I did nothing but make a plant pot whilst listening to Mark Knopfler. This has taken immense practice to get to! Anything "manual" usually fixes a state I'm in (which says a lot about our world).
Nowadays I keep it very simple, and ask myself these things when deciding what to take on / change / do...
If it will, I try not to take it on.
It's a (and takes a) privileged position but I think deciding your "enough", what a good week for you looks like, and what's actually important means a lot. The simpler your lifestyle is, the less money it demands, the more you can place your effort where you'd like to (friends, community, supportive partner, making healthy food, being creative etc) and not needing business to infinitely scale and grow which in turn supports your mental health.
Boom -- thanks for these bullet points. I get so caught up in decision making, I some times never make it to actual action.
Checking out mindjournas today too!
I've tried a number of things.
Because I heard so many positive anecdotes about therapy, I did therapy for 6 months straight, every single week without missing a week to give it a fair shot.
My honest opinion after I finished it: I felt it was pseudoscience and a scam. A very expensive scam too. I mean, these people have the nerve to charge $100-200/hr to just ask you "HoW DoeS X mAkE U fEeL?" and ask some generic questions over and over. I get that the point is to just get you talking so you can arrive at the conclusion yourself, but I can do that by talking to a genuine friend or even myself.
I don't feel I grew at all as a person, it didn't help me have better relationships, and I didn't achieve any other benefit that I expected to get from it. It was mildly helpful in dealing with an unexpected family situation that came up, but overall it didn't feel like it was worth the money so I stopped doing it.
The stuff that actually keeps me sane is:
- Friendships
- Relationship
- Going to the gym
- Traveling occasionally
- Playing music
If I have something important to ship though, you better believe I'm 100% focused on that. It's better to go all in on one thing instead of trying to half ass 50 things.
I was (and still am) a big advocate for therapy, but slowly came to a similar conclusion as you did.
I think there are great therapists out there, and the overall practice is good in nature, but there are a lot of core aspects of life you can develop that you'll see a way bigger return on.
The friendships/relationship/and good community give you the diverse sounding board a lot of people seek out from therapy.
Thanks, Ben!
I’m still a big advocate for therapy. Finding the right person makes all the difference. It's great to talk to a stranger without feeling guilty afterward.
For the record, I’m an introvert, so meeting people? Not my thing. I jog and play guitar/ukulele to unwind.
Same
Genuinely super proud of you for sticking to it consistently and trying it Ben! Men in anglophone countries have a very high drop-out rate after the first session so just sticking it through is already huge. It sounds like you didn't have the best gel with them - I'm really sorry about this experience. Agree all those other things are huge and insanely important!
For any men here that are thinking about therapy, maybe this is helpful, notes from previous projects and research...
There are some international programs now happening to train therapists specifically on men in therapy for those first couple of sessions which should really start to help
Try two sessions with a therapist, if you really don't gel with them, try somebody else! There are mostly incredible folks, but there are definitely duds or those you just will not be compatible with, it's normal even though it sucks. There are also many different styles of therapy so it's worth getting to know some and trying a couple (i.e EMDR, CBT, RA). Therapists will specialize in some, not others. It's ok to think one of them is bullshit but see how another has helped.
Also think about gender, some men find it much easier to talk to women therapists, others prefer a man. It might change based on your scenario you're experiencing and that's fine too. And consider cultural connections - if you're a first generation immigrant in a country for example, it can be really helpful to have a therapist who knows the journeys and complexities of this especially as you don't have to explain contexts, they just get it.
Expect the first couple of sessions to feel weird! The first one will often spend a lot of time on just getting to know you and working out how to collaborate together. Also being so open with a stranger can be totally bizarre. They'll try and put you at ease, try to be kind with yourself too.
Some guys I speak to have an idea that therapists want them to stay forever because it makes them more money. Totally get it. All the good ones won't though - their waiting lists are long and they're in demand and they want the best for you. There will come a time where it feels natural to conclude or things are less charged, and they will help you come up with a plan to finish. Often you'll be the one feeling you're ready to finish and will raise it. Some people like to go back in for "maintenance" on a once a quarter or half year basis, others never do. Do what keeps you healthy and you can afford.
I know everyone knows, but they won't actually give you the solution and tell you what to do. This can feel really hard for a lot of people understandably, but it can be a fantastic sounding board (particularly if you don't want to "dump" on your friends a lot or need professional support that your friends might not be trained in or need to be in a total safe, judgement free zone)
Try to have something specific things in mind about what you want to get out of it. Is it improving a specific relationship? Figuring out how to deal with your family? Working out how to prioritize things in life so you're not working all the time? Feeling more joy? Learning how to be less lonely, more part of community? Deal with X trauma or traumatic event? Confront something or someone? It will help much more (even if you have a lot that's fine).
Let them know if you need a soft space or challenging. They'll work it out and with you over time and learn when to prod and back off but it can be helpful to spell it out at the beginning based on what you feel.
If you're going through a tough time, just knowing you have an appointment lined up can be really helpful. You might be about to go through a very shitty week but in 5 days you can talk to X again and really stabilize and have some warmth and someone on your corner working it out with you.
Obv therapy is often insanely expensive so there's that too. But hopefully this helps a tiny bit (or just a reminder as everyone probably already knows!). Sorry - it's a frequent work topic :)
Right, the "good" therapists are insanely expensive and insurance companies don't like to cover it because it's often deemed non-essential, or of dubious benefit. I can't say I disagree with the insurance companies on this one issue.
The challenging thing with finding a "good" therapist in my view is: all of these people offer a free session to see if you get along, but at the same time it's impossible to know if you're going to see results in just one session.
You can always do some research, have a specific problem (or problems) in mind that you want to solve, make sure you're talking to a licensed therapist (in the US they call them LCSWs, I don't know how it works elsewhere but I made sure I was talking to one of those), then do that free intro session. After the session, ask yourself if they listened to your concerns, see if they seem like an empathetic and nice person, see if they give you some interesting insights you didn't think about before, recall if they were able to challenge your thought process effectively, etc.
The therapist I was talking to did do all of those things and I felt comfortable, and it's why I stuck with the same therapist for 6 months. If I didn't feel comfortable in any way I would have fired him long before the 6 months were up. But was there a real benefit at the end of 6 months? No.
That said, I'm not sure how else I can accurately judge a new therapist if I ever do this kind of thing again, so I'll just end up with the same problem and most likely waste another 6 months. The ROI just doesn't seem to be there.
Sport helps me a lot because there are two benefits that come from it:
1. Health
2. Local community
For me nothing beats doing sports and hanging out with friends or loved ones.
No matter what (There are very rare occasions) Sundays are off to recharge and disconnect.
The days that I'm behind the desk and I start feeling overwhelmed, commonly due to multitasking, I stop right away and take a short break.