Start-ups have many wonderful qualities to offer…Being your own boss, following your dreams, pursuing a great idea, and participating in the excitement of a new business. However, as we know, there are also numerous stresses and pressures associated with building a successful business. As part of a family-run business, the president of my own business, and a business coach to entrepreneurs, I am very familiar with these stressors…lack of time, no energy, lack of resources, frustration, ineffective marketing strategies, lack of support, small customer base, no good employees, and so on.

I have developed strategies to lessen the stress and anxiety associated with starting a new company. I want to share these with you to help you enjoy starting a company. Managing the stress of a start-up by addressing the factors in the acronym, START

S = Support Often entrepreneurs are isolated and do not have many relationship with others in their areas of business. Solve this by surrounding yourself with other professionals. Get together a solid network consisting of people in businesses like yours and businesses that are complimentary to yours. People often get into a cycle of doing it alone. You can do it better with help. Bounce ideas off people, discuss your stress, and most importantly, keep up with enjoyable activities. Use activities such as going to the park, to a movie, or to dinner as rewards.

T = Time I cannot teach you how to create more time in this brief format. I can, however, tell you something I have learned by working with hundreds of clients. Time often works paradoxically: the more you rush, the longer something takes, the more you try to multitask, the less efficient you are, the more time you give yourself, the longer a task will take. Try this: schedule your tasks and focus on only one task at a time. Do not attempt to divide your attention between different tasks, they will each only take longer.

A = Anxiety Of course you will have some anxiety about starting a new company. This is completely normal and, in fact, beneficial because anxiety helps to motivate action. Give yourself some outlets for anxiety. Exercise is a particularly good one. Do not interpret anxiety as a sign of weakness or try to fight it off. Remember that anxiety is adaptive and has survived throughout evolution for a reason. Learn to channel the nervous energy towards taking action.

R = Responsibility One area where I often see small business owners fail is in delegating responsibility. If you burn yourself out, you will make poor business decisions and your company will not get off the ground. Just because you are responsible for the business does not mean you are responsible for doing everything. Change your mentality towards thinking in the long-term. Increased initial expenses will lead to long-term success and profitability of your company since the quality of services or product are improved.

T = Tenacity Probably everyone in your life is telling you to “hang in there” or “don’t give up when times are rough”. You may not like to hear this, but they are right. One of the keys to successful entrepreneurship is not only hanging in there, but embracing challenges as opportunities. You know you will have many challenges, so do not allow yourself to be overly surprised or frustrated when they arise. Instead, tell yourself that you are in if for the long haul, so you need to start making necessary changes.

Of course, these summaries are simplified and the strategies can be difficult to implement. For additional support, read books, articles, and newsletters on coping with the stress of start-ups, hire a business coach, or talk to colleagues and other businesspeople about how they have addressed similar concerns.