Let the stress begin!
Every year right around late January the same feeling starts creeping in. Nothing is actually wrong, nothing has actually happened yet, but your brain starts running worst-case scenarios about the upcoming season.
Crews, work, pricing, equipment, materials, training, customers wanting bids when there’s still snow on the ground — it all starts showing up.
As we approach a new season everybody’s stress level starts to increase. I really noticed it at the recent Pave/X show in New Orleans, talking with friends and other contractors. The excitement of a successful previous season fades quickly, and the reality of the challenge of a new year starts setting in.
A Company Reset Every Year
The unfortunate thing about the asphalt industry is you can have your best year ever and on January 1st it completely resets and you start over. That “start over” creates stress. You’re thinking about hiring crews, repairing and buying equipment, pricing materials, or dealing with the demanding client that wants numbers immediately -- and giving them numbers that actually secure you the job! There’s a lot thrown at owners all at once.
Anybody that knows me knows I stress about everything, so I recognize this feeling pretty quickly. I think that’s just the entrepreneur mindset, always trying to cover every possible scenario in business before it happens. That comes with being an owner, and there are ways to deal with it.
I’ve mentioned before I work with a life coach, Kellie Madsen, and she’s helped me work through a lot of the challenges that come with owning a business. One thing I’ve learned is preseason stress is predictable. It happens every year around the same time, yet most of us still suffer through it like it’s a surprise.
But we don’t have to.
Managing Your Mindset
I’ve learned mindset management is probably the biggest key to dealing with this preseason stress. (Anybody that remembers my “Sunday Scaries” column will understand preseason stress is handled the exact same way — managing your mindset.)
Our own minds usually create the stress or at least exaggerate it into something that feels impossible to tackle. Truthfully, if you’ve gone through a few seasons, you’ve already encountered – and handled -- this before. In my case it’s been nearly 29 years, so logically I should know everything will work out — but that’s easier said than done.
The first step is realizing our brain is trying to keep us safe. It naturally looks for negatives. That’s an evolutionary thing going back forever. The problem is it takes manageable situations and amplifies them until they feel overwhelming. Once I understood what my brain was doing, I could step back and remind myself I’ve been here before and I can handle it.
For me, one of the best ways to reduce preseason stress is staying organized. I keep running to-do lists so things don’t slip through the cracks. There usually isn’t that much to do early in the spring, but when a few items get missed and you have to fix them (while taking care of other to-do items in a timely manner), work gets complicated fast and suddenly you feel buried.
The list alone solved a lot of that stress for me.
Another issue I (and I know others) deal with is demanding clients. In my area we sit under snow through February and sometimes March, which isn’t ideal for site inspections. I like to be accurate when I look at parking lots, so I usually don’t start serious inspections until April. When clients call in January or February wanting numbers, I used to let my mind run away with it, trying to figure out how to satisfy them, protect myself -- and not lose the work.
Now I look at it differently — they’re trying to give me work, and work is what I want.
I explain we don’t have exact material pricing yet or that it isn’t the right time to inspect pavement that’s covered with snow. But with that understanding, I tell them I can provide budget numbers they can work with. Problem solved, stress reduced, and customers are still happy.
Then there’s the fear you won’t have enough work for the season. For some people that’s real, but a lot of us worry about it every single year despite never actually experiencing a lack of work. Before I learned to manage my mindset, I would stress about not getting work even though over 29 years I’ve always had work.
Control What You Can
I eventually realized something — I’m an entrepreneur. I’m capable of creating work. If I didn’t have that ability, I probably wouldn’t own a business in the first place. Once I trusted that, a lot of the anxiety went away. The same holds true for all you owner readers! You are an entrepreneur! You can create work! Trust yourself!
The bottom line with seasonal stress is to not let your mind run away with things you can’t control. Focus on what you can control, rely on company history that shows your success, and trust yourself to handle problems when they show up.
I’m not saying ignore issues or stick your head in the sand. Work hard and put in the effort. But most preseason stress is far worse in your head than it is in reality.
Every year I go through it, and every year the same thing happens: The phone rings, the jobs show up, crews get moving, and somehow it all works out.
Maybe the lesson isn’t eliminating the stress — it’s remembering you’ve already survived it many times before.
