When you are starting your own business there is the tendency to keep your head down and plow forward, immersed in the daily grind of keeping it alive. The problem is that when you do, on occasion, raise your head and look up time has flown by (this applies to life too). What we normally do is put our heads back down and slog on. I guess in the short run this is probably necessary (especially for a really small business startup), however, I feel it is bad in the long run (for you).
Good mental health requires you to step back occasionally and take a break. My problem is that I would love to take a break except there is sooo much work I need to get done. See the problem? It’s a good thing my better half sees things a bit differently. She realizes that there will always be sooo much work and things that just have to get done and that they will be there waiting for us after we get back from (enter a location). Deep down I understand this to be true but my instincts are to get the job done and then go play. Of course she wins and we go away for a much needed vacation (this can be one day at the coast up to ten days on Kauai, Hawaii). The funny thing is that once she pries my fingers off the doorjamb and gets me away from the shop, I stop worrying about things because I am “away” and I can’t really do anything about it, can I?
If you are a one or two person shop this means shutting down for the duration and hoping that a fire or something unusual doesn’t occurs (life does happen, even on vacation). If you have employee(s) than they can keep the businesses limping along for the duration.
A personal note about vacations: this pertains to going someplace outside your immediate area (like Hawaii). Make plans to do things like visit historical sites, go for nature walks or visit some cool local attraction. I find that once I am there I start off great and then I tend to slow down, sit in one place (or another) and just relax. By the end of the trip I am rested and I have seen some of the sights as opposed to sleeping all the time, in my room, recuperating; and couldn’t we do that closer to home at lesser expense?
I find that after a brief vacation I am in a much better mood and the problems I was struggling with before I left aren’t such a problem after all (your subconscious problem solving mind never shuts down).
So I guess what I am saying is; stop and smell the roses along the way because isn’t that what you are working so hard for anyway?