Nearly every successful entrepreneur I know has gone through or has grappled with burnout. I think by nature entrepreneurs are inspired, passionate and many-times a bit (or a lot ADHD) and all of this contributes to a feeling of malaise or burnout.

I’ve personally gone through it and come out the other side several times and many of these 4 techniques have helped me. (Note: This is a highlight of the 9 ways that I just shared with Maverick Business Insider members.)

1. Truly Disconnect – In a world where we are constantly tethered to our blackberries and ‘Always-On’ connections there’s something magical about truly disconnecting.

That doesn’t mean I’ll ONLY check emails in the morning – but truly and totally being out of touch. On a recent trip to Baja I did something that might seem a bit over-the-top. I completely ‘black holed’ all my emails during that week. Meaning – I had them all deleted with a note directing people emailing me who to contact for help or support while I was gone and then asking them to email me again after my return if they needed. Most people would be scared to death to do this in case something incredibly urgent comes through and is missed. Oh well.

How many times do you come back from vacation even more stressed out because you’ve got 2,313 emails sitting in your inbox? As you are sorta disconnecting there’s always a tiny voice in the back of your head replaying over and over again, “Wow! I wonder how much email I’ll have to catch up on. I wonder what’s going on?” By totally cutting this off you free up more “Psychic RAM” in your head.

2. Refocus on your successes – Many times the feeling of burnout occurs because things are NOT going “right”. And right is a relative term in relation to what we believe it should be. (Now I have my own crazy notion that everything ends up ‘right’ – for whatever that means – in the end anyway.)

Instead of focusing our energy on what’s wrong – which only creates an endless spiral of more and more negativity – I believe it’s important to change the focus. Take out a piece of paper and start making a list of every “victory” you’ve had during a certain time point. It could be this quarter, this month, this day, etc. Once you adjust your focus your selective perception kicks in and you’ll see there is significantly more that’s good than bad going on. (You might or might not have noticed this is a variation on being grateful. Your gratitude connects you back to the source of your original success.)

3. Set a big vision that you cannot achieve on your own – I admit, I’ve only just started doing this but it leads to a real powerful change of direction, intention and motivation.

Perhaps you’ve heard of a “Big Hairy Audacious Goal” or BHAG coined by Jim Collins and Jerry Porras. This is the kind of goal that gets teams rallying around it and lets people transcend what they thought was possible. One famous example is Microsoft’s original goal of “A computer on every desk and in every home.” When you create a big vision or goal like that – you’ll find people getting on your team to help achieve it. My friend, Tellman Knudson, has set the goal of raising $100M by running across the country barefoot. I think that fits the bill.

Our company’s 2020 goal is 3-fold:

1) Motivate, inspire and educate 1M young entrepreneurs to start their own ventures.

2) ‘Mavericktize’ 1M successful entrepreneurs to ‘buy-in’ to the philosophy of making more, more fun and giving more.

3) Have 1M cumulative items checked off entrepreneurs BIG life lists.

And the ultimate goal is to “Change the Way Business is Played”. To me that means bringing more fun into business and never doing things the same way it’s been done. It’s something that can inspire me (and our team) out of funks.

4. Get back to the fun – Think back to when you were a kid and what activities or interests got you really jazzed and excited. Somehow as ‘adults’ many of us have lost that sense of fun and inspiration. What did you like to do? For me, it was playing sports, drawing and making people laugh. That’s why I still play ice hockey and beach volleyball. Why I’ve taken art classes and stand-up comedy classes. I make sure to incorporate what gives me enjoyment into my life by actually making it a priority.

How many times have you heard yourself saying, “I’d love to ___ BUT I can’t because I’m too busy.” That’s total bullshit. What you’re really saying is that activity does not have enough priority in my life. Or I feel guilt around having fun.

Quite frankly for most entrepreneurs work is our default unless there is something else scheduled. Don’t just settle for enjoying life when you squeeze it in between your business. Here’s a great quote from Jim Loehr and Tony Schwartz, New-York Times Best-Seller “The Power of Full Engagement”:

“…the richer and deeper the source of emotional recovery, the more we refill our reserves and the more resilient we become.”

Put fun activities, rewarding experiences and exceptional adventures on your calendar and protect them like you would any ‘real’ appointment.

Quite frankly, the inspiration for Maverick Business Adventures came from a period of my personal burnout and ironically the unique nature around it can help other entrepreneurs avoid or recover from burnout. I hope you’ll give some of these ideas a try when you’re feeling burnout occurring or when you attempt to break free from it.