Career Counseling for Business Owners in NYC & NJ
Being a business owner or entrepreneur is a unique path. Your life as a hard-working adult is rather non-traditional, therefore you deserve professional mental health care from a career counselor who understands your special work dynamics.
Running a business and balancing multiple responsibilities at once can be understandably stressful. As the leader of your company, you may feel overwhelmed by all of your daily tasks and feel the need to be “on” all the time. There can be pressure to never get a day off of work, especially if you have a team who you are responsible for taking care of.
Work-life balance may become difficult and, if you do not prioritize your mental health, it can be easy for it to take a hit. The idea of being your own boss sounds thrilling and enticing, but the reality of it may be a little harder than expected. Fighting against competitors and trying to make a name for yourself in your given market is difficult, but it is not impossible!
Our entrepreneur therapists at Anchor Therapy will teach you how to live an entrepreneurial lifestyle without sacrificing your mental health.
How can career counseling help business owners?
Career counseling specifically suited for business owners can help you on your distinctive journey. Whether you are a small business owner or running a global platform, it is easy to experience a range of feelings.
Here are some common feelings you may experience as a business owner or entrepreneur:
In the New York City area, entrepreneurs face even more challenges in such a competitive market. With a high cost of living, taking financial risk within your business or betting on yourself can be that much more scary. Trying to get a new business off the ground can make it hard to stay positive and feel grounded.
An entrepreneurial lifestyle can also cause issues in other areas of your life, such as maintaining romantic relationships and family life.
From those just starting out in their business journey to seasoned entrepreneurs, our career therapists have worked with a wide range of clients. Our career counselors are here to help you feel like your best self again while you conquer the business world!
What issues can a business coach help with?
As an entrepreneur, the work-related issues that you are struggling with look different than the work issues an employee at a company may be experiencing. As a business owner, you have a heavy load of pressure on you at all times. You cannot wait for the weekend, close your laptop, and be done with work for a few days. It simply does not work for you like that.
One of the biggest pressures you may face as a business owner is financial pressures. You may have common concerns over cash flow management and profitability. You have to ensure that there is enough money to cover operating expenses and pay your team while also creating a plan for the future so you can invest in your growth. Competition within your market and financial downturns can negatively affect your profit margins.
Operating your company can also cause many concerns. How do you know if you are making the right choice? Are you experiencing decision fatigue? Are you adequately meeting customer demands? Making decisions for your business’ future is not an easy task, and it may leave you questioning yourself or even your ability to run a business at times.
A common problem for many entrepreneurs is work-life balance
After all, certain things have to get done in a set number of hours and it ultimately all falls on your shoulders. You may have people who are assisting you in the work, but it is your responsibility at the end of the day as a business owner. When you have so much on your plate, it can make it hard to find time for yourself, whether it is nourishing the relationships in your life or finding ways to prioritize your health through working out and meditating.
Relationships in your life may suffer as a business owner if you do not make it a point to make them a prime concern. Let us face the truth- building and sustaining a business takes a lot of time and effort. Working long hours, including evenings and weekends, may not be a personality match for certain romantic partners. Running a business often creates a schedule that is rather unpredictable. If a crisis occurs, you have to be ready to answer wherever, whenever which can possibly interfere with spending time with family and friends. As an entrepreneur, you may experience prioritization conflicts. Business may come first to you, but not everyone in your life may share that mindset.
Entrepreneurs wear many hats
You may be your company’s receptionist, accountant, social media coordinator, and so on. This may lead to burnout if you are not also fulfilling your personal needs.
Your days are longer than the average worker and you face a constant inability to disconnect. It is no wonder why many business owners struggle with burnout. In fact, research has shown that 23% of entrepreneurs feel burnt out often or all the time.
As a business owner, it is easy to feel isolated from loved ones and even society at large. When you work a disproportionate amount of hours, it may be hard to spend time with the ones you love or find opportunities to connect with other people in your community which worsens feelings of loneliness. Having a lack of professional support also plays a role, especially if you are a startup or solo founder.
For many people in American culture, our work is closely tied to our identity. Cultural and societal norms associate certain jobs, like a finance professional or healthcare worker, with status and prestige. People inevitably gain a sense of belonging and identity from their occupations.
You spend a significant amount of time as an entrepreneur. If you are not working as much as you used to, who are you? When you strip back your role and the responsibilities that come along with it, what do you enjoy doing?
The following are common personality characteristics of an entrepreneur:
Passionate
Resilience
Networking skills
Strong work ethic
Decisiveness
Leadership
Motivation and drive
Risk-taking
Self-confidence
Visionary
Innovation
Adaptability
Work provides a sense of structure and routine which shapes your daily life and personal identity. For someone with the above characteristics, the freedom and responsibility of being an entrepreneur is appealing.
How can business owners benefit from business coaching?
Coaching for business owners can help you navigate the intricacies of being an entrepreneur and all that comes along with this professional journey while improving your personal growth at the same time.
Along your entrepreneurial journey, you may seek the support of a career counselor at various points to help you with specific professional and personal challenges.
Here are some situations where you may seek the support of a therapist for business owners:
Experiencing burnout:
Entrepreneurial burnout is very real. Ongoing stress and anxiety may even begin to spill into your personal life, affecting your health along with business operations. Some signs of burnout include exhaustion, detachment, and poor performance.
Feeling stuck:
As a business owner, you are in control of your company’s future. You may feel uncertain about the direction of your business or even your personal career path. Perhaps you want to consider making some new changes in your company, such as starting a new venture or growing your team.
Wanting to improve work-life balance:
Being a leader makes creating and enforcing boundaries a little difficult. This can negatively impact relationships with family and friends too. In coaching for business owners, you will learn how to advocate for yourself while fulfilling your work responsibilities at the same time.
Navigating relationships:
While fostering more work-life balance may help with personal relationships, business relationships may be a little more complex. From managing team dynamics to dealing with stakeholders, a career counselor will help you perfect your communication tendencies to best support you and your business.
Prioritizing your mental health:
Running a business comes with emotional highs and lows that require adequate emotional support. As an entrepreneur, you may struggle with anxiety, depression, or imposter syndrome which should be addressed in a supportive environment like therapy.
By attending business coaching, you will understand yourself on a deeper level
What are your strengths? Your weaknesses? Gaining insights about yourself allows you to improve upon your weaknesses and use your strengths to your advantage. It will also foster emotional intelligence which can improve the relationships in your life in the long-run.
When you gain this clarity, your decision-making skills may also improve. Through talking with a career counselor, you gain clarity on your professional and personal goals, leading to more effective decision-making skills. Objective perspective is also something that may be discussed in your therapy sessions, so you can view choices through different lenses before committing to a specific decision.
Career counselors also offer stress management tools. Coping strategies can help with any anxiety, stress, or burnout you may be experiencing which is relatively common in the entrepreneurial world.
Therapy, regardless of what type of therapy or why you are seeking mental health counseling, almost always involves personal growth and development. Setting realistic and achievable goals with your coach gives you the chance to keep learning and growing as an entrepreneur.
Through personal development, your leadership skills will develop. To further grow your leadership abilities, you and your career therapist may also work on communication and conflict resolution. You will learn how to convey your goals and company’s future to your employees and stakeholders while learning how to effectively handle conflict.
As an entrepreneur, you know that motivation comes and goes. That is why commitment will trump motivation every time, and this is something that a career coach can assist with. A therapist for entrepreneurs will help you stay focused on your goals even during the most challenging of times. You can even think of your mental health counselor as an accountability partner who ensures that you stay on top of your commitments.
Our approach to career counseling for entrepreneurs
At Anchor Therapy, we take a comprehensive approach to career counseling for business owners. We understand the complexities of being an entrepreneur which is essential for effective mental health treatment. Our career therapists tailor their treatment services to best suit the challenges and opportunities in your life.
With that being said, here are some of the types of therapy that our career counselors may utilize in their therapy sessions with you:
Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) - ACT for business owners encourages you to simply accept your thoughts instead of trying to fight them so they go away or feeling guilty about them. At the same time, you are encouraged to continue behaving in alignment of your ultimate goals and vision. This will align your professional goals with your personal values.
Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) - CBT can help you pinpoint and challenge negative thought patterns you may be having that are contributing to your work-related stress, anxiety, and depression. In CBT for career issues, you will find that your fear of failure does not have such a strong grip over you anymore, you are able to regulate your emotions, and your problem-solving skills have been elevated.
Psychodynamic Therapy - Psychodynamic therapy for business owners will allow you to understand how your unconscious, including past occurrences, are impacting you in the present moment. This form of therapy dives deep into your motivations and behavioral patterns.
Solution-Focused Brief Therapy (SFBT) - SFBT for career issues focuses its attention on solving the current issue in your life. SFBT is a very present-moment form of counseling where you do not discuss past occurrences and you look toward the future in a hopeful manner. SFBT can be seen as a quick, yet practical form of mental health counseling.
At Anchor Therapy, we offer many treatments for entrepreneurs who are trying to navigate their personal and professional life. You can manage your work responsibilities and grow your personal relationships with the help of a career therapist!
How Can I Start career counseling for business owners at Anchor Therapy?
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Fill out the contact form below.
Once we receive your email, we will match you with an entrepreneur therapist.
Feel confident as you move toward both personal and professional growth as a business owner!
