So it’s no secret that running your own business can be stressful. Then when you add a whole swag of external stresses, family, economy, health, what is stressful can become almost impossible. Having burnt out and come back, and now looking for work outside my business, the one thing I know is how often I need to regulate my emotions as a business owner and how much it has helped.
If you are feeling like:
– your heart is in your throat every time an email pings
– you get sweaty palms thinking about posting on social media
– snapping with anyone and everything
– saying yes is just easier, or
– you have a million tabs open and you can’t find the one playing the music.
You’re not alone. It’s more than likely your body responding to the stress you are experiencing. Except it’s doing it in your business.
What is emotional regulation?
Emotional regulation is not stuffing them down into a deep, dark place in your soul or mentally boxing them up and hiding the key. Incidentally, it’s this or even just getting on with things that contributes to the stress. Ignoring emotions doesn’t make them go away.
Emotional regulation is noticing and acknowledging your emotions and choosing the next step. And while ignoring something is a choice, it is not a way to process and move through.
When we regulate our emotions, we notice what we are feeling, choose our reaction to the emotion so that we achieve our aims before the emotions are triggered, manage our stress, maintain a healthier sense of wellbeing, and we monitor.
Emotional regulation isn’t only about de-escalating high-intensity emotions (anger, fear) but also increasing emotional states (despair, helplessness, imposter thoughts).
Your nervous system has 3 settings (and your business triggers them)
You may know of flight, fight, freeze, fawn, flop, but there is also safe. These states can be gathered into 3 main categories.
The following is a short list of how we experience these settings in our business:
- Safe/steady → clear thinking, perspective, boundaries.
- Fight/flight → urgency, defensiveness, busywork, rushing, control.
- Freeze/shutdown → procrastination, avoidance, numb scrolling, “I can’t decide”.
What dysregulation looks like in business (real examples)
Technically, emotional dysregulation is being unable to regularly use healthy strategies to diffuse or improve negative emotions. Don’t forget that negative emotions can be either high or low intensity.
Emotional dysregulation in everyday life can look like rage, rapid mood swings, self-injury, impulsive behaviours, shutting down, and withdrawing.
In business, it can look like:
- Avoiding invoices/pricing conversations
- Picking at your website instead of the hard task
- Doomscrolling instead of sending the email
- Rage-cleaning your inbox
- Micromanaging co-workers or contractors
- Repeating a single piece of feedback on loop for days
- Passive-aggressive communication
- Starting multiple new projects, products, and offers at once and refusing to slow down
- Committing to big things (events, deadlines) in a burst of energy and then struggling to follow through
Why smart business owners still react
Don’t stress if you see yourself in the list. It’s perfectly normal. And the best thing is that now you know, you can notice, acknowledge, and choose.
There are a number of truths to remember when you catch yourself in a dysregulated state:
- You’re not a bad person for being this way
- You’re learning a new way of being, it takes time
- Your brain prefers familiar over new
Common business triggers for emotional dysregulation
While we all have different triggers, there are some more common ones we will experience in business. By now, I hope you understand that it’s the next step that we choose that makes all the difference.
Here are some of the common things that can impact your ability to regulate your emotions:
- Feedback that feels like criticism
- Client lets you know they are going with someone else
- Being asked for a refund
- When finances are tight
- Being criticised online
- Feeling sick, tired, hormonal, or worn out
- High-stakes tasks like pitching, hiring, and delivering bad news
- Multiple unfinished projects, open or loose ends, lack of direction
Triggers often impact how we see ourselves, our identity as a business owner, through: money, judgement, authority, visibility, conflict, rejection.
The stress-response loops that keep you stuck
At the start, I mentioned that the first step in regulating emotions is to notice. Below is a set of common loops business owners get stuck in that, once you notice, you can then move to acknowledgement and finally choice.
Loop 1: Overthinking → delay → guilt → more overthinking
Loop 2: People-pleasing → overdelivering → resentment → burnout
Loop 3: Avoidance → last-minute panic → frantic action → exhaustion
How to regulate quickly
So you’ve noticed that your emotions are making you feel off. Now what?
- Name the state
- “I’m in fight/flight.”
- “I’m frozen.”
- Change the body
- Change your breathing (I like hand breathing or try square breathing)
- Change your location (go outside, go get and drink a cold glass of water, scrunch your toes 6 times)
- Reduce the task
- “What’s the smallest next step that still counts?”
- “What is my next best step, right now?”
- Switch from ‘threat’ to ‘data’
- “What is this reaction trying to protect me from?”
- “What are the facts about this situation?”
- Boundary the input
- Stop reading/stop responding/stop scrolling for 20 minutes.
Regulation isn’t the goal. Direction is.
Reality is that we can’t feel zen and have our emotions under control 100% of the time. It’s healthy to feel your emotions; it’s how you respond to them that’s the aim here. What we don’t want is to stay in a state of dysregulation. Staying in a constant state of stress, which is the impact of dysregulation, is not productive and can actually cause serious impacts on your health (and business).
Every small step, the next best step, is training your nervous system that it is safe and there are other ways to react to a trigger.
When we look for a direction, a common question to ask is:
What do I need: certainty, support, safety, time, clarity?
Our needs underlie our behaviours, and they can help ground us. From experience, if you can’t think of what you need at a point in time, then the best answer is time. It will come if needs be.
A simple “Regulation Checklist”
Some people find it helpful to have a checklist they can refer to while they are learning a new skill. Here’s a helpful list to help regulate emotions as a business owner.
- What triggered me?
- Which state am I in?
- What’s the next best small step?
- What are the facts about the situation?
- What do I need: certainty, support, safety, time, clarity?
- What choice aligns with my purpose and values (not my panic)?
FAQs (short)
What is emotional regulation?
Noticing what you feel and choosing what you do next—instead of reacting on autopilot.
Why does business stress hit me so hard?
Because money, judgement, visibility, conflict and rejection can feel like a “threat” to your nervous system—even when nothing is physically dangerous.
How do I know if I’m dysregulated?
Common signs: overthinking, procrastinating, people-pleasing, avoiding money tasks, doomscrolling, snapping, or feeling stuck.
What’s the fastest way to regulate in the moment?
Name the state (fight/flight or freeze), change the body (breath/move/water), then take the smallest next step that still counts.
What if I can’t do this on my own?
Get support. A medical professional or helpline is a valid next step—you don’t have to do it alone.
Conclusion
What I’d like you to take away from this is that your reaction is telling you something about what’s happening in you, and what you need. If you take a moment to breathe, acknowledge what’s going on, and choose your response, you give yourself a chance to meet that need instead of getting dragged by the stress.
Run the checklist. Take the next best step. Check in with what you need.
