Optimizing Mental Fitness for Entrepreneurial Success

Creating, funding, and growing your own business as an entrepreneur is exciting but filled with difficulties. Entrepreneurs encounter legal and business challenges in uncertain economies that fall directly on their shoulders. While overcoming those factors are important, founders’ success also greatly depends on internal factors, such as grit and emotional well-being ^1–4. From a psychological perspective, entrepreneurs thrive when employing mental health and resilience strategies throughout the ups and downs of their endeavors ^5,6. Below are evidence-based strategies to improve mental well-being and help entrepreneurs on their journeys.

Problem Solving

Entrepreneurs sometimes worry instead of engaging in problem-solving. Worry involves repeatedly thinking about potential negative outcomes, difficulty disengaging from those thoughts, and difficulty making decisions ⁷. Worry is inefficient, unpleasant, can strain relationships, and lead to “analysis paralysis.”

Problem solving, in contrast, is more effective—it involves defining the problem, developing solutions, picking a solution, enacting that solution, and moving on ⁸. Entrepreneurs who become savvy problem solvers are able to compartmentalize. Don’t worry – problem solve instead. Problem solving feels better, saves time and effort, decreases burnout, and increases business efficiency.

De-catastrophizing

Anxiety and depression are associated with “catastrophizing,” which is believing your problems are far worse than they are ⁹. For example, a “no” from an investor can feel devastating and lead to thoughts such as, “I don’t know what I’m doing,” “I’ll never succeed,” or “I’m a complete failure.” Our emotions rise and fall based on our thoughts—regardless of whether those thoughts are accurate—so it’s important for our thoughts and emotions to be reality-based. To determine if your thoughts are accurate, look at the evidence ¹⁰. Are you really a failure? Do you really not know what you’re doing? Often, the evidence refutes these kinds of thoughts. In that case, you can change your thoughts to whatever is most consistent with the evidence. Looking at the evidence, repeated failure in entrepreneurship is common; entrepreneurs often get dozens or hundreds of rejections from potential investors before becoming unicorns ¹¹. So, instead of “I’m a failure,” a more accurate thought might be, “I didn’t get their investment this time, but that’s normal, and maybe I’ll get it during my next raise.”

Acceptance

Some of the most successful entrepreneurs say that repeated failure and “failing fast” are part of the path to success, and they emphasize learning and persevering or quickly pivoting when encountering failures ¹². For example, Sam Altman (CEO of OpenAI) said, “Anyone who succeeds fails a lot.” ¹³ Accepting that setbacks are an inevitable part of the entrepreneurial journey can help entrepreneurs overcome challenges rather than remaining stuck, ineffectively resisting problems that are outside of their control or are important signals from the market that the business needs to pivot.

True Positivity

The word “true” has two meanings in this context: to focus your attention on positive facts, and to truly feel positive about them. Entrepreneurs can get swept up in the “to-do” list and disregard the “done” list. Instead, take time to genuinely feel positive about your successes or about positive aspects of difficult situations. Positive emotions feel good and protect people from negative emotions—especially during stressful times ^14,15. Focusing on the positive truths can increase positive emotions, such as happiness, enthusiasm, gratitude, determination, and strength—and may require a deliberate shift of attention to the positive, but with practice can become more habitual. Slow down and take a few moments to savor positive emotions. This can increase your capacity to experience positive emotions more frequently and deeply ¹⁶ and build resilience through entrepreneurship.

Healthy Habits

Health habits are basic but impactful – getting good sleep, eating well, minimizing alcohol/substance use, exercising regularly, relaxing, engaging in personal interests, and maintaining social life—can reduce stress, anxiety, and depression and improve cognitive functioning ¹⁷. Healthy habits are the biological foundation for your mental health and entrepreneurial performance.

Relaxation and Mindfulness

Engaging in mindful relaxation exercises can calm the body and mind. If you are feeling distressed at 7+ on a 0-10 scale (0 = not at all, 10 = extremely), you’re probably not thinking clearly. Calm your body down physically using diaphragmatic breathing, which is breathing at your normal pace and depth using your diaphragm (upper belly) rather than your upper chest ¹⁸. Place one hand on your upper chest and the other hand just above the belly button; the hand above your belly button should be the only hand moving as you inhale and exhale. Engage in mindfulness (non-judgmental awareness of the present moment) by paying attention to your breath rather than your problems. Your mind may wander; when it does, gently bring it back to your breath. Once you master mindful diaphragmatic breathing, you can calm yourself in a few minutes by engaging your parasympathetic nervous system: the body’s physical relaxation system ¹⁹.

Tomislav D. Zbozinek, PhD, is a licensed psychologist in California and Connecticut and founder of Anxiety and Depression Treatment Specialists. He uses evidence-based therapies to help people in their daily life (e.g., navigating relationships, work, major life events, complicated decision making) with specialization in helping people feel less anxious, less depressed and more positive. Dr. Zbozinek is Associate Director of the Anxiety and Depression Research Center at the University of California, Los Angeles. Contact him at tzbozinek@adtspsych.com or visit his website www.adtspsych.com.

Suzanne Natbony, Esq., is a licensed California lawyer with an emphasis in healthcare law, a partner at Aliant LLP, the principal of Solve & Win PC, and an entrepreneur with her own healthcare product company and online legal document and video platform. You can reach her by email at suzanne@lawyer.com.

Footnotes

1. Kaes, M., Kruse, Sebastian, Maus, Christoph, Krieweth, Carolin & and Brettel, M. Entrepreneurs can create a better tomorrow: The relationship between entrepreneurial grit, nonfinancial success, and societal impact. J. Small Bus. Manag. 63, 653–685 (2025).
2. Mooradian, T., Matzler, K., Uzelac, B. & Bauer, F. Perspiration and inspiration: Grit and innovativeness as antecedents of entrepreneurial success. J. Econ. Psychol. 56, 232–243 (2016).
3. Mueller, B. A., Wolfe, M. T. & Syed, I. Passion and grit: An exploration of the pathways leading to venture success. J. Bus. Ventur. 32, 260–279 (2017).
4. Schmodde, L. & Wehner, M. C. Integrating emotion regulation, emotional intelligence, and emotion-focused coping in the entrepreneurial context: A review and research agenda. Int. Small Bus. J. 42, 984–1015 (2024).
5. Ayala, J.-C. & Manzano, G. The resilience of the entrepreneur. Influence on the success of the business. A longitudinal analysis. J. Econ. Psychol. 42, 126–135 (2014).
6. Stephan, U. Entrepreneurs’ Mental Health and Well-Being: A Review and Research Agenda. Acad. Manag. Perspect. 32, 290–322 (2018).
7. Leahy, R. L. The Worry Cure: Stop Worrying and Start Living. (Piatkus, 2006).
8. D’Zurilla, T. J. & Nezu, A. M. Problem-solving therapy. in Handbook of cognitive-behavioral therapies, 3rd ed 197–225 (The Guilford Press, New York, NY, US, 2010).
9. Gellatly, R. & Beck, A. T. Catastrophic Thinking: A Transdiagnostic Process Across Psychiatric Disorders. Cogn. Ther. Res. 40, 441–452 (2016).
10. Buschmann, T., Horn, R. A., Blankenship, V. R., Garcia, Y. E. & Bohan, K. B. The Relationship Between Automatic Thoughts and Irrational Beliefs Predicting Anxiety and Depression. J. Ration.-Emotive Cogn.-Behav. Ther. 36, 137–162 (2018).
11. Cremades, A. These Entrepreneurs Were Rejected Hundreds Of Times Before Bringing In Billions. Forbes https://www.forbes.com/sites/alejandrocremades/2019/02/05/these-entrepreneurs-were-rejected-hundreds-of-times-before-bringing-in-billions/.
12. Failing Fast: Why It’s Essential for Entrepreneurs. Business Insights Blog https://online.hbs.edu/blog/post/fail-fast (2025).
13. Sam Altman [@sama]. anyone who succeeds fails a lot and learns to dust themselves off faster each time it’s the people who fail and just stop trying that…fail. Twitter https://x.com/sama/status/1591939719889395713 (2022).
14. Sewart, A. R. et al. Positive Affect as a Buffer Between Chronic Stress and Symptom Severity of Emotional Disorders. Clin. Psychol. Sci. 7, 914–927 (2019).
15. van Steenbergen, H., de Bruijn, E. R., van Duijvenvoorde, A. C. & van Harmelen, A.-L. How positive affect buffers stress responses. Curr. Opin. Behav. Sci. 39, 153–160 (2021).
16. Craske, M. G., Meuret, A. E., Echiverri-Cohen, A., Rosenfield, D. & Ritz, T. Positive affect treatment targets reward sensitivity: A randomized controlled trial. J. Consult. Clin. Psychol. 91, 350–366 (2023).
17. Walsh, R. Lifestyle and mental health. Am. Psychol. 66, 579–592 (2011).
18. Hopper, S. I., Murray, S. L., Ferrara, L. R. & Singleton, J. K. Effectiveness of diaphragmatic breathing for reducing physiological and psychological stress in adults: a quantitative systematic review. JBI Evid. Synth. 17, 1855 (2019).
19. Hamasaki, H. Effects of Diaphragmatic Breathing on Health: A Narrative Review. Medicines 7, 65 (2020).

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