You are the heart of your business
The September Edition
It’s here, September, the official start of Autumn. All of a sudden you look outside at 6pm and realise it’s blinking dark. Maybe a little Christmas thought pops into your head, maybe you’ve already seen the sodding Christmas decs mingling with the Halloween dresses of dreams in the supermarket.
I can feel it, that ticking time bomb inside me, every click of time reminding me of stuff I should be doing, could be doing and definitely am not doing; because oh look at that reel on Instagram.
Four hours and a wormhole later and I’m still procrastinating on pause, silently beating myself up that I haven’t covered world domination, checked in on my entire family including distant second cousin I haven’t seen since we were at the Queen’s Silver Jubilee Street Party and also remembered to order the son’s new school bag (because God forbid he has to use last year’s). And then, shit, it is school run time again (because my 15 yo prince also needs mummy to pick him up).
Cue waking up at 3am with a mental list longer than a hippie’s beard.
And then you think again – shit, it’s September.
I need to get my arse in gear, back to routine, kids back in school – right tomorrow, I’m gonna get on it – and I’m going to nail this business. I am going to crack on. And then you beat yourself up a little bit more.
Sound familiar?
Jeez Louise, it’s a minefield of ticking timebombs working in your own business isn’t it?
The key, my friend, to all this schizzle is to simply put yourself first…simples. Well that’s it then. You’re all sorted. You’ve got this nailed.
Oh – how many of us actually manage to do this successfully? Day after day, week after week?
Fact: You cannot run or grow a business without looking after yourself first, your mojo, your mindset and your mental wellbeing.
What morning was it that we forget to look after ourselves? When was it that we started to wake up at stupid o clock thinking of all the things we needed to do, all the plates we have to spin? What year was it when we decided running a business was a good idea?
Do you wonder how everyone else seems to have it nailed?
The people that are cracking on successfully are the people that are putting themselves first.
Taking care of yourself first means you are then in a better place to grow your business AND take care of all the other people that rely on you in your life. Including your second cousin from birthday parties gone by.
And in this bonkers world, it’s now more important than ever before to help ourselves, because that bloody fairy with her magic wand seems to have disappeared. And not only do we have the small matter of running our businesses we have all of the emotional work in every other aspect of our life to deal with too.
Life is a matter of choices. Every choice you make, makes you. Don’t wait. Don’t say you’ll do something about it after the weekend, next week, next month.
YOUR MINDSET, YOUR MOJO, YOUR MENTAL WELLBEING ARE THE KEY TO EVERYTHING.
YOU ARE THE BEATING HEART OF YOUR BUSINESS. YOU NEED TO LOOK AFTER YOU TO LOOK AFTER YOUR BUSINESS.
And the key to this is practice – you can’t say it and not do it. It doesn’t work (I’ve tried it).
You have to commit, to practice and to do it every single day.
You don’t have to get up at 5am to meditate, do a HIT class and write 17 pages in your gratitude journal but you do have to put yourself first and invest in your self-care EVERY SINGLE DAY.
It doesn’t have to be big, just something small that works for you. I write my morning pages. It makes a massive different to my mindset. I have come up some stonking business ideas and by writing it down, I have talked myself off a ledge a number of times.
It’s mainly stopped my 3am wake-ups and it definitely helps me handle day to day life better.
The Morning Pages comes from the marvellous Julia Cameron. It’s simple; wake up, get a coffee (or two) and write down whatever is in your head even if it is Bla Bla Feckin Bla – write three pages of that. Write three pages of ‘I have no idea what I’m going to do next,’ write three pages of lists and then see what happens.
Getting it out of your head, onto paper, gets the narrative out of your brain. It makes it actionable because the logical left side of the brain takes over and, crucially, writing things down helps to order your thoughts so you can also categorise them and work through them.
Do it – or do something else that can help you put yourself first:
How about:
15 minutes every day. A brew. Just you. Your thoughts. Your time
Fresh air - every day. Get outside. One of the very best things you can do. Look up. Watch the clouds. Let the rain fall on your face. Pick some conkers (put them in a bowl and then the spiders will also feck off out of your house)
Read – not social….15 mins that’s it
That’s all it takes. One small step. 15 minutes a day to choose you. And practice it- and then you can build your own self-care prescription. Start small. But do it today.
You can thank me later.
