Stress Symptoms – eMails

How To Deal With Stressful Emails Without Letting Them Ruin Your Day

As a solopreneur you need to learn how to care for your mental health. You may think this is not something you need worry about, but you would be surprised at how quickly stress can build. Sitting in front of your computer for hours at a time is stressful enough.

Ignoring your mental health means you willingly ignore how much stress and responsibility you deal with each day. You are the one responsible for getting the job done.

Putting your mental health on the back burner is a sure-fire way to lose your business. You are a solopreneur because you are looking for that paycheck to survive.

Think about this: you are busy working, productivity has been great and you are just about to end your workday, then you get an email that takes you right out of that zone. You are now fuming instead of working.

The email is from a disgruntled client who is unhappy with the job you just spend hours completing. He wants you to redo the project or give him a full refund.

The email goes on to say that your skills are sorely lacking and you show no professionalism at all. He is not a happy camper.

What do you do now?

Of course you are going to respond to this email. This course of action can go one of two ways:

If he answers you may get into a war of words which will consume the rest of your work day.

Or, he does not respond and you spend the rest of the day wondering what he is going to do next. Again, this is going to consume the rest of your day and probably worry you into the evening.

What you should do instead of answering that email.

Don’t answer it immediately. Emotions are high and you may say something you will regret in the future. Give yourself time to cool off before answering any vindictive email.

Also, don’t let this one client get into your head and make you doubt your own work. You know your skill level is above what this client suggests.

While you do read the negative emails, make sure you read all the positive messages you receive. Chances are that you get more positive than negative emails, but these negative ones can be a nuisance if you let them get to you.

Don’t give the client the power to bring you down. It is a scary thought when a client threatens you with with some form of retaliation (be it negative press or even trying to shut down your business.)

The trick is to know that this type of client needs you more than you need them. Once you realize this fact then you can relax and answer in a much calmer way.

When you do this, you stay in control and become more productive.

You avoid stress as you solve a problem. You make your customer satisfied with your service.