Morning Blues and Fitness Business Anxiety

Business anxiety is the worry you feel about opening emails, answering the phone and sitting in your office or gym, about to start a day you think won't turn out how you want. When the business is your sole income and takes up most of your life, it can feel crushing.

I've had it since September 2006, when I started FASTER with just a name I didn't like. It has never fully gone away. I've renamed it "business jitters", which reminds me of the useful stage nerves I get before a stand-up gig. At one point the business consumed nearly all my headspace as I fought to keep it alive. The only relief was reading that the same thing happened to people like Richard Branson — who owned gyms, coal, an airline and a stack of music shops and still didn't feel safe.

So here's how I get on top of it.

1. Mindset

I hate how this word gets used, but it's the best description I have. You have to detach from the emotion, plan for the long term, and live the emotional minute rather than let it run the day.

2. Ritual

Build long-term and short-term rituals, based on your fitness periodisation model. Each day gets a ritual to help the business, and every four to six weeks you plan some downtime. When business is poor, that might be a walk in the park for a few hours across three days. When it's better, a long weekend every six weeks and a week off every eighteen.

3. Focus on the business daily (OMF)

The key is to build the three main components of your business every single day. I call it OMF.

Finances. Build your financial plan at the start of the year — price, collection and so on — then make daily decisions around sales, collections and costs. One task per day for this, no more.

Operations. Work on the quality and efficiency of your delivery daily. As with finances, one task a day.

Marketing. A great operation fails through poor marketing, and a great marketing campaign fails through poor operations. If you're doing one important task a day for operations, do the same for marketing.

This OMF focus helps most when things are down. When the chips are down, you look to your marketing and operations to solve the problem and keep straight with your finances, especially collections.

My ritual

1. Morning brown — it reminds me of America.
2. Write my daily OMF.
3. Plan my schedule, including when I'll check emails.
4. Start the day.

If the mood turns, my emergency fix is to get out for a walk or put on a comedy video and chill for a bit before going back to my schedule. I also work in 45-minute blocks with 5 to 10 minutes of rest, which stops me falling down the black hole of work.

I hope this helps some of you on a Monday morning. That's when the phone starts ringing, and at the end of the month is when things can get tough.