Building a law firm without burning out

While burnout is the norm these days, building your law business does not have to mean sacrificing your health, writes Filipa Bellette.

Filipa Bellette • 27 June 2024 • SME Law

I consider myself a high-achieving entrepreneur, running a successful holistic health practice, and these days, I am feeling more and more in flow with running and growing my business. I want to share with you three key areas to dial in to help you continue performing at your best without burning out.

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Lifestyle

Dialling in these three lifestyle pillars will enable you to have more energy, mental clarity, and stamina to build your business:

Diet: Processed foods like sugar, refined flour, takeaways, and convenience foods are not only inflammatory but also wreak havoc on your blood sugar levels, which can cause energy drops and mood imbalances. Switch these foods to fresh whole foods – vegetables, fruit, nuts, seeds, meat, eggs, legumes, and whole grains. Eat regular meals to support blood sugar levels, and try to have protein, carbs, and fats with each meal.
Sleep: When you’re asleep, you physically and psychologically repair your body and mind. If you’re not getting adequate sleep, burnout will quickly follow. Dial in sleep hygiene – screens off two hours before bed, dim the lights, wind down from your work day with a hot bath, meditation, breath work, a book or connecting with your family.
Movement: Exercise has been shown to combat burnout and chronic health issues. It doesn’t have to look like a two-hour gym workout or run every day. Breaking up your work day with mini-movements, like a stretch or jog on the spot for two minutes every 30 to 60 minutes, is a great place to start.

Body systems

If you’ve been burning the candle at both ends for too long, you can do damage to body systems that may need therapeutic support to heal. When these systems are imbalanced, it can impact your energy, mood, and inflammatory levels, which can suck your performance and ability to build your business. The three key body systems that we test and recorrect in our practice include:

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Neuroendocrine system: adrenals, neurotransmitters, mitochondria, sex hormones
Gastrointestinal system: microbiome, pathogens, digestive organs
Detoxification system: detox pathways, inflammation, nutrient deficiencies

You’ll know when these body systems need more targeted TLC, when you don’t “bounce back” after a holiday or a good night’s sleep, or the moment you enter back into work, your body flares up again.

Unconscious mind

At the deepest root of body burnout is baggage stuck in the unconscious mind – hidden unconscious core beliefs you have about yourself and stuck trauma and distressing events from the past that have not been processed and cleared.

Your unconscious mind not only controls the function of your body systems, but it also controls your thoughts, feelings, behaviours, habits, and lifestyle. If there are dysfunctions in your unconscious mind, they are going to show up in your body, life, and business.

For example, I had a deep hidden belief that I was weak and incapable, which I created as a kid. As an adult and business owner, this led to overworking patterns as I was trying to prove I was strong, capable, and worthwhile by what I could achieve. This not only led to poor lifestyle habits and chronic stress, which burnt out my body systems, but it was literally affecting my ability to grow my business.

Because I unconsciously believed I was weak and incapable, this carried over into my ability to make money and take risks in my business. Even though I was working like a crazy woman, I struggled to have sales conversations, price our services for what they were worth, and I wasn’t showing up with conviction in how I could help others in marketing.

When I was able to identify and break through these deep-seated beliefs and clear trauma around money, we suddenly started making an extra $10,000 per month (without changing any business strategies), which built on from there.

My body systems were able to heal as I wasn’t stuck in chronic stress forcing business growth out of fear, which has sustained my health in the long term.

Filipa Bellette is an author, accredited clinical nutritionist, functional medicine practitioner, coach, trauma therapist, and PhD scholar.

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