July 22, 2023

Author: Akiba Bradford

When I took a leap of faith into entrepreneurship, I sought to bring an all-in-one relaxation experience to my customers through my love of candle and soap making. Within the first four months of operation, I made my first sale, sold out of products, and established a social media presence. However, with the highs came some lows. In this two-part blog series, I will discuss three things that led me to burn out and how I am reigniting the flame of entrepreneurship.

Three Things That Led To Burn Out

1. Multiple Roles

As a first-time business owner, I got overwhelmed. Being a Business Manager and Creative Director came with competing deadlines and various details. Like all Chief Executive Officers, I had to prioritize. So I put pressure on myself to meet my creative product deadlines and marketing goals. The detail-oriented nature of the job was both exciting and exhausting. I was excited to choose new fragrances and create new candle and soap bundles but exhausted from managing the social media marketing and new sales generation. All in all, I managed to help the company gain momentum by juggling the roles successfully. However, I put a lot of pressure on myself to succeed.

2. Chasing Success

There is no feeling like getting your first sale. Seeing an order come through, contacting a customer, and shipping out a product, gives me an adrenaline rush. In pursuit of an adrenaline rush, I created and marketed candle and soap bundles to increase sales. However, When sales remained steady, I was left with low energy. I second-guessed many business decisions soon after that put my business in stagnation. In the back of my mind, I wondered if I made the right decision to start a business and if I could gain new customers and increase sales. The pressure of success had become insurmountable. Yet I tried to work through the feeling of burnout by setting a new product release date for the summer.

3. No Work-Life Balance

All work and no play can lead to a dull life. When I pushed back the summer product release date, relief and failure came over me. I was relieved because I had made an executive decision that I could live with. However, I felt like a failure because I didn't make it sooner. On top of that, my hobby became a business and the pleasure of creating felt like a job, not an outlet of comfort when pressures mounted. I forced myself to step back. Since the beginning of summer I’ve regrouped and rested. This downtime has allowed me to identify my strengths and areas of growth. While also allowing me to celebrate my small wins on the path of entrepreneurship.

Burn-out can happen to the most well-intentioned entrepreneur. Juggling multiple roles, chasing success and not having a work-life balance led me to second-guess my decisions, especially the one to take a break. If being an entrepreneur comes with just showing highlight reels of success and not failures, that's not the kind of entrepreneur I want to be. In my first blog posts entitled Welcome to Lightheart Candles I said there would be no guesswork of who's behind the brand and that we would value transparency. Behind LHC is a business owner that loves helping people bring relaxation into their homes. Join me as I reignite the flame of entrepreneurship and bring relaxation into my home. See you in the next blog posts.

If you have any questions or want to learn more about our products and services, please don't hesitate to reach out. You can contact us at (510) 545-2066 or by emailing [email protected]. We'd love to hear from you!