I have been experiencing burnout for a while now and somehow I have been able to function through them.

A show I was watching last week helped me to accept that I was burnt out and needed to refocus. The show helped me get some clarity on what I might have been experiencing. On the show, one of the characters was talking his granddad about his passion for art. During this conversation, he found out that what his granddad did for a living was not his passion. In fact, his granddad was actually an artist. His granddad shared that he didn't pursue art full-time because he didn't want to mess up his desire to do art by having to rely on it financially.

I love doing hair, but the pressure of keeping my schedule booked up, making clients happy, paying myself, and the million behind the scenes things that need to be done has been taking a toll. On top of that, I have been struggling with client retention, late cancellations, no shows, and overall a lot of empty days on my schedule in the past few months. The part of entrepreneurship that people don't talk much about is the pressure to be successful while being too depleted to push through it.

To better protect my mental health and overall happiness, I am minimizing my service offerings to focus on the clients I currently have, reduce my hours in the salon (I now only have 2.5 days that I plan to work), and on other days work another job on the side to sustain financially.

Sometimes as an entrepreneur you have to pick up a part time job, take a break (outside of vacation) or step away completely so that you don't lose yourself in the journey. This actually doesn't only apply to entrepreneurs but anyone that has gotten lost in their "hustle". Take the time that you need and do what you believe will make you happy.