How to beat feelings of overwhelm as a beauty business owner

Scratch columnist & beauty business and mindset coach, Zaara King, shares wellbeing advice…

Hey beauty pros! At this point of the year, I wonder: have you had a ‘wobble’? I’m guilty of letting things get on top of me during the summer months because my children are home from school, the business gets busy and events are rife.

You’ve probably got a lot of appointments to manage and have perhaps booked time off for yourself – hopefully for a holiday. If you’re running a beauty business on a self-employed basis, you tend to take on multiple job roles and it can be difficult to manage them all.

When people ask how you are, I bet you find yourself saying: ‘I’m good, just super busy’. This may have become your identity, but it’s not fun or glamorous, and only tells the universe you want to be ‘super busy’ – with all the wrong things.

It’s important to set good foundations for your life and business, so that when you take time off or other commitments present themselves, your business doesn’t suffer. You need to be as efficient as possible to make your life easier in the long run. Systems are key. Listen to my podcast episode: The power of
creating systems for everything in your beauty business, below.

You should create systems for:

1. Client bookings and management.
2. Each appointment and treatment structure: prior, during and post-service.
3. Marketing methods.
4. Finance tracking.

I also encourage you to set personal and business boundaries, as these will help you maintain a presence, even when things are overwhelming. Don’t get me wrong, you may still feel overwhelmed from time to time, but having boundaries in place can lessen the pressure.

If home life is busy for me, I will adapt my work accordingly, reducing output to a weekly email, minimal posts on social media, a few stories and serving paid clients who respect time boundaries. This ensures my business doesn’t suffer.

An online presence attracts clients and is important for your business, so set yourself a routine with rituals and boundaries. This means that you will feel energised and ready to post online, even when life is busy. Consider creating a bank of content that feels ‘easy’ for those times when you need to post something, but only have a few minutes to spare.

Make it your mission to make decisions based on the highest-level version of yourself, and tasks will become easier.

Are you putting yourself first? Say no to friends that expect a lot and prioritise your sleep and wellbeing. Your time is precious, so be careful how you spend it. Note when you feel overwhelmed so you can plan better in future.

If you need a business hub to help, I offer coaching via my Four Figure Focus membership. Click here to sign up and use code SCRATCH for 50% off your first month’s membership.

Read Zaara’s 2025 column for Scratch in the digital issue here.

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