Welcome to a free edition of Start Up To Grown Up: Your source for ideas, insights and tactics to take back control of your business and scale it sustainably and profitably by Heather Townsend, award-winning author of The Accountants’ Millionaires’ Club and Founder of The Accountants’ Growth Club
I debated long and hard about pressing publish on this one. I know my clients and team read it….
You are meant to turn up to events (work or business) and the well-meaning classic opening question comes,
“how’s things?”
Tradition says you should go:
“Great! Things are going really well… but always got a bit of space for a few new clients!”
But if I'm totally honest, if you ask me that question, this is how I'd answer it.
“In business terms, I’m very excited. Things are going well. My plans are really helping turn around bits of the business that were broken.”
But if you were to ask me personally,
“how am I?”... “No, how am I really?”
I would say… “struggling”.
There, I've said it.
But we're not meant to admit to weakness, are we? We meant to be that strong person who leads the business. That's there for our clients and team members. After all, I hold a space for many of my clients.
I'm that Voice of Reason. The person who helps them through the tough times. The person whose superpower is resilience.
I've been sitting here, wondering what to write. Part of me thought,
"Let's just rehash an old article. No one would notice."
But then I thought, I owe it to myself and my readers to turn up authentically.
So, here I am. Warts and all.
For the last six months, my health has not been good. What started as a recurrence of a previous ankle injury has then changed into an investigation for inflammatory arthritis. Then, that led to cartilage damage in my left wrist, so I'm basically dictating this article.
It's all made been made much worse by the medical professionals frigging around with my HRT. They decided in their wisdom to cut my dosage by half. This has led to a month of debilitating fatigue, insomnia, anxiety, brain fog, very poor concentration and a sense that all is not well in my world. I have a sneaky suspicion that my low oestrogen levels have contributed to more instability in my joints, which has been a factor in damaging the cartilage in my left wrist.
After doing so well recovering from my ankle surgery in late March, I now feel like I have another ladder to climb. Being honest, I'm in constant pain in my wrist and feeling intensely frustrated. I'm also resisting learning the tools to use my computer hands-free. I know, stupid or what…
And now I'm feeling the pressure that I need to take these thoughts, put them into an article, and make some how-to or what's in it for you out of my particular situation.
It’s not my finest article. But there are some days when you just need to show up. Obviously, today is that day for me.
These are my 6 tips to help you if you are struggling.
Tip 1: Show up
If I'm honest, I'm not there yet. I know I need to stop wallowing. I need to put on my big girl pants, go through the motions, and show up. Because when I go through the motions, at some point the real Heather will reappear and I'm going to be back firing on all cylinders.
I know when I'm having bad days, a great tip for me is just to show up. Whether that means speaking to a team member, joining our Accountants Growth Club Daily Power Up. These are daily conversations where our members can just turn up and be seen and heard.
Even if you're not feeling like it, just showing up, maybe, is the first small step you need to get out of your wallowing. And yes, this article is part of me just showing up.
Tip 2: Phone a friend
In the last week, I've started to talk about how I'm feeling with others. I've shared my frustrations, and I’ve vented. It felt very cleansing.
It helped me to unbottle the emotion that was sitting underneath the surface. The feelings that threatened to bubble over at many points over the last week. Whether it was a kind word or someone asking the pointed question about how I really was.
As business owners, we often sit there and just take on the minor irritants. For example, somebody blocks us on LinkedIn, a client says no, or a team member is not performing. These irritants just build up and build up and build up. Then, before you know it, these minor things go BOOM. And you have a major problem to deal with.
For me, things have been compounded because I haven't been able to exercise as I would like. As mentioned earlier in this article, I am still struggling with the impact of low oestrogen. That means fatigue, brain fog and anxiety. When these become your constant companions, it becomes harder and harder to do the things you need to get your mental health back to where it needs to be.
Tip 3: Start journaling
When someone said to me journal, what I thought about was the clichéd “dear diary” thing. That wasn't what I wanted. Or what I thought I needed.
So I looked at the journaling apps, which felt at best contrite. I didn't want to do a formulaic “what are three things you're grateful” for type exercise every day. For me, journaling is the process of surfacing those unseen emotions and thoughts that may be guiding your actions or negatively influencing your mental state.
I find journaling to be most effective when I use prompts that cause me to think deeper. For example,
What made you anxious today? What message is that telling you?
What drained your energy today?
Remember, my battles are not your battles. Therefore, when it comes to journaling, think about what questions you need to ask yourself to dig deeper and explore your potential demons.
Tip 4: Get outside and move
The sunshine makes everything feel better. Seriously. Just get outside and do some movement. Let the serotonin build up in your brain as a result of moving, which will start to dampen any dark clouds in your mind.
Tip 5: Remind yourself that “this, too, will pass”
When you're in the middle of what may seem like a dark and stormy time. It's always good to remind yourself that this, too, will pass. After all, when you're growing and scaling a business, going into these dark periods is about “when” rather than “if”. Even if the clouds feel all-encompassing, it’s important to realise that this is often temporary.
The key here is to get a sense of perspective. Ask yourself, will I feel like this in a month? Will I feel like this in six months? Will I feel like this in a year? The answer, is often no, and actually just that realisation can be the point at which the gloom shifts.
Tip 6: Realise what you are grieving for
Right now, I'm grieving for a future that I thought I'd worked hard to achieve. It might sound small, but I was meant to be spending the next 3 to 6 months getting fit and getting strong. I was meant to be enjoying getting out on my mountain bike again and playing walking netball. Cartilage damage in my wrist, has meant that it has all come to a stop. All those months I spent dealing with my busted ankle and the plan to rehab it properly were building up to this moment.
But until I can get the pain under control, my exercise options are limited. It’s walking and leg-based work for the foreseeable future. And yes, I am grieving. But just saying it out loud has given me a sense of perspective. I’ve dealt with worse, such as the 18 months of ankle impingement which included one misdiagnosis, one steroid injection, one fracture boot, 3 MRI scans and finally keyhole surgery. I got through that. So, I can get through this.
In summary
Being able to say “I’m not OK” is a sign of strength not weakness. It will happen to you at some point in your journey to grow and scale your business. The longer that you allow the negative feelings to fester, the harder it will become to break out of it. Only you can take the first step forward to a better and brighter place.
Your actions this week:
Ask yourself: How am I really feeling? Be honest with yourself. Is it really all sunshine in your world?
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