ST6 | Shagun Malik On How To Avoid Burnout In Your Own Venture

After starting your own venture, you’ll think you are the master of your own time, and no more pressure of meeting deadlines and constant anxieties. Maybe you think you can truly enjoy the freedom of your own venture. It sounds like a dream but mostly it feels more intense than the corporate job.

There’s a constant call for accountability on yourself and no one else to blame for failures. Today, we discuss how to avoid burnout in your own venture with Shagun Malik, who quit her corporate job to follow her passion after working for international companies and founded Yoga Superfuel. You can try her yummy and super healthy line of cookies at their website.

Discussion Topics: Shagun Malik On How To Avoid Burnout in Your Own Venture

• How did the bootstrapping happen
• Learnings from the struggles
• Learn not to be a prey to burnout
• Key Lessons and tips to change your mindset

Transcript: Shagun Malik On How To Avoid Burnout in Your Own Venture

Welcome to another episode of ShopTok. You finally started your venture. Congratulations! You’re now your own boss and have control over the pace at which you want to grow. And basically a master of your own time. No more constant pressure of running after deadlines, producing a continuous upward-sloping sales graph. And you can truly enjoy the freedom of your own venture.

Sounds like a dream. But is it the reality? More likely than not. feels somehow even more intense than your corporate job. While the idea is the passion and the fire at night in you. The buck does stop with you for everything. There is no one else to blame for failures. And that is a constant call for accountability from your own self.

There is also this hunger or drive to prove your mental justification for why you left your job. Therefore there’s still a string of goalposts marking your way. And suddenly you’re asking yourself the question. If I knew starting my own venture would have this much pressure, I was better off in my comfortable corporate job. Is it a way to avoid replicating corporate burnout in your passionate Venture?

Hi there! I’m Neha. I’ve always been part of corporate tragedies, unfortunately for me. Today I have Shagun Malik, a health enthusiast who quit her corporate job to follow her passion after working for EY and HSBC. She quit and started her own brand of health cookies called Yoga Superfuel. I’ve seen her throughout this journey and have always admired her for how zen she is when she’s dealing with issues like missed shipping or sales during pandemics. And I thought she was a perfect person to talk to about how to avoid burnout in your own venture.

Hi Shagun. Thanks a lot for coming on this podcast and sharing your philosophy and the learnings from your journey as an entrepreneur. I have known you for decades, but could you just walk our listeners who are new to this, through your decision of leaving your corporate job?

Hi, I am Shagun. I was in corporate life for about 15+ yrs (EY & then HSBC), doing well & earning well. And honestly never thought I would ever leave my comfort zone. I suppose that thought sowed the seed for a personal challenge along the way. And 3 yrs back I left my thriving profession to pursue my passion of empowering people on their health & wellness journey. That’s how Yoga Superfuel (my second baby) was born.

So what were the dilemmas that you faced? I’m sure it wasn’t an easy decision in terms of implementation.

One of the dilemmas I had was figuring out “what would drive me daily” so that I would genuinely enjoy building out the venture. To be honest one of the fears was “What if I get bored or I find it too challenging or regret leaving my job!” I did not want to be in that state. I wanted to genuinely share my passion for leading a healthy lifestyle.

So I had to ask a few tough questions like: “Would I run after the big numbers”? With aggressive targets and valuations. That’s what everyone seemed to be encouraging me towards. (with all good intentions of course). How else would I otherwise justify leaving my lucrative well-paying job? But then I asked myself: What brought me daily joy? What was I insecure about? Because no matter what, we all (mostly) always will have enough to survive. Food, shelter, and my health – that’s never going to be a challenge to take care of!

My God, you’re such a voice of sanity. That is a brilliant way to keep this park of your own idea alive and not make it another genetic metric or repeat the same pressures of your corporate world. And you’ve done that all by yourself. How did you manage it?

It’s a journey. Once I realized the main driver of why I started my own venture, the choices became easier. So my big why is learning and doing new things. Stay out of my comfort zone plus enjoy the journey every day and not postpone the happiness to a future hypothetical event. This meant minimizing things that didn’t bring me joy and I wanted to build Yoga Superfuel and its value for the long term.

So, I would focus on building a community that shared my passion, building a superfan’s genetic customer base, and decided to take the stress of chasing short-term goals like numbers. It was also one of the reasons for me to bootstrap instead of going for external funding.

And that seemed like a gutsy move, especially in times when it really is a seller’s market for fundraising with this. Like yours, sure it wasn’t an easy decision. A very strong temptation to walk away from were the struggles that you had to go through. Did you reject making this decision of bootstrapping?

To answer your second question first, I made the decision to follow my heart and there’s no way I would have learned and grown so much personally had I not gone this route. So yes, I’m grateful for this and I wouldn’t change a thing and I have no regrets.

Now onto the struggles, as you mentioned in the beginning, when it’s your own work, it’s harder to put a stop to because you feel more obliged. I had to learn to try and pace myself and not fall prey to burnout. I had to learn to appreciate to be okay with having unresolved stuff to ask before my day is finished, to be able to sleep with it.

Changing my mindset (especially in the beginning) was also a struggle – from being fixated on results (thanks to the corporate conditioning) to measuring myself on the initiatives needed to get that result. I remember each time I would run social media advertising in the beginning, not see results & I would just give up! But awareness building is a very slow and patient process. As I am learning slowly. So it’s about new experiments every day like alternate awareness channels I explored in a week vs only looking at the results it yielded.

Another one that I would like to mention is around that constant comparison. In this case, compare yourself with others who might have taken a different route to build your business. It’s easier to just compare from the outside & judge your own efforts or question yourself. It’s not constructive.

And how has been the journey so far? What has been good?

Lots of mistakes, learnings, and challenges. But a less fulfilling journey never the less. In spite of COVID, we survived and recently launched the KIDS Healthy Cookie range as well, which has received some very good feedback. By kids and parents alike. So I am very hopeful for it and look forward to expanding the business further especially the kids range, including internationally.

That’s absolutely splendid. All the best for that, Shagun. About fitness and health would you recommend to people worrying about moving out of that comfort zone? a few tips or decision-making framework.

I think I would pin it down to two things. One of the things that helped me was to actually write down i.e. list down all my fears or what’s holding me back in detail (that’s the trick though – it has to be detailed) and then write down the truth or the reality (including in the worst situation) in the column next to it. This may or may not happen over a single day so it’s important you revisit it over a period (editing it along). And then discuss it with one person you trust the most and who would give you naked feedback.

Another thing I would look at is really knowing if it’s a push or a pull. Do you dislike or hate your job and hence it’s pushing you to start something on your own? Or do you genuinely have a passion or a strong desire to do something different that’s pulling you? You have to be honest about this one as otherwise, you will move from one unhappy state to eventually another (once the novelty wears off). You could ask yourself: “If I was offered my dream job or the dream promotion, would I still want to leave that to start on my own?” As long the PULL is far stronger than the PUSH, you are in a good space.

That was great. In summary, If you want to avoid feeling pressured or jaded in your own venture, keep reminding yourself of the why, and get out of the pedestal noise, like comparing yourself to others. And declared that the pressure on yourself of growth and numbers, if you can live without it. Have confidence in yourself that your basic needs are already met. And even if the venture doesn’t work, have the ability to go back to a salary job to take care of your basic needs. Most importantly, journal and talk to your support system. And finally, as Shagun said, make sure that your pull is far stronger than the push.

Thanks, Shagun, It’s been very helpful. This is Neha and Shagun with ShopTok. Do try her yummy and super healthy line of cookies. See you next time.