My first full week off since I started this business was both great and not at all what I expected. So it felt fitting to give you some in-depth, honest reflections as I ease back into business as usual.

Let’s get into it…

1. Time off does not automatically mean rest.

After completing a 1,000 piece puzzle (I wish I were joking)…

I jumped into a bunch of those “oh I never have time to do this” projects. I eventually caught myself. The point of this week off was not to catch up on other stuff. My body has telling me, physically and emotionally that I needed rest. This was a wakeup call that even though I had was not doing work, I was going to need to be more intentional to actually rest. 

You might chuckle at this, or roll your eyes: “We actually have to try to rest?” But have some compassion for yourself (and me!) here - we live in a culture that endlessly celebrates productivity. In fact, many of us have deeply internalized the belief that if we're not doing something, we don't earn good things in life. 

Honestly, I'm not sure I really achieved the full level of rest that I needed this week, even though I did a better job in the later days of the week. I still feel like I'm processing some things and this is perhaps a lesson that you can't neatly schedule processing time into your calendar. Things take as long as they take!

2. I still need to work on caring what other people think.

Let me start off by saying I am so grateful for everybody who has supported this journey, here and on social media (not-subtle-plug, if you're not already following along on Instagram). But one of the motivators for this break is because the negativity on social media had been getting to me. My clients are badasses, for many reasons but most relevant here because they take their lives into their own hands and say: “I can change this.” The comments section on TikTok is not so big on responsibility or having a can do attitude. 

Even as I write this, I'm not looking forward to plugging back in there. This tells me that I need to continue to grow in this area. I don't believe anybody can ever fully “not care what people think” - it's a biological and social imperative for us to care because it determines our feelings of safety, connection, being seen and heard. But I know as a lifelong people pleaser, overachiever and codependent, I care WAY TOO MUCH. Realizing how visceral the spike in my anxiety has been recently when I'm checking comments tells me that I need to continue to focus on this area to create some better boundaries to keep being on social media for my work more healthy and sustainable!

3. Sometimes, it's time to suck it up and solve the problem.

There are things we can change and things we can't. Things we can't include: the weather, the actions of others (for the most part), the core functions of our biology, inflation. Things we can include: how we feel about ourselves, our habits, the organization of our home, how busy we are. Within the category of things of things we can change, it's important to realize that some can be changed far more easily than others. This feels important because many things in my life, I've overestimated or underestimated how hard it would be to change. 

Practically, for a long time, when I'd be scrolling Instagram or Pinterest, a really common for my thoughts of “not enoughness” were about women whose hair always looked beautifully done. Curls, blowout, whatever. I defaulted more toward the ballerina bun on my head. One day, after another wave of comparison-itis, I checked in on this topic:

Is this something I can change? Yes. 

Sub-question - is this something I want to change? Yes but important to note here: I do not have to want to be put together. If I felt like I liked having a more casual hairstyle and the fact that others judged me for that vs. the more put together women out there would have been different here, where I'd have an invitation to cultivate more self-acceptance. Important to clarify!), it was because I kept feeling less than. 

How hard would this be to change? Were the thoughts I was having really specifically about the shape of my hair or how generally polished, put-together or generally attractive I was? Probably more of the latter but my point here is that this was a common theme with a fairly actionable adjustment I could make.

Some of the thoughts we have about ourselves are way harder for us to personally change (something like believing your capable of making 7-figures - entirely possible to change but that's going to take plenty of time). This hair/put-together thing was a situation where I had overestimated how difficult it'd be to implement this change. 

Realistically, with 30 minutes to blow-dry or curl my hair a few times a week (probably more at the start as I learned how but decreasing over time), I had a really practical way to address the source of these negative thoughts about my appearance. Just had to suck it up and solve the problem. 

This came up again this week as I was noticing some thoughts about being “lazy," in terms of how I had been maintaining my apartment. Realistically, these were silly little things and I was probably being too hard on myself but this same thought process led me spend 30 minutes tidying up, 30 minutes and under $50 on Amazon for some new organizers and 30 minutes reorganizing some areas of my apartment to be more functional and easier to maintain. The best part: they make me smile every time I see them now.

4. I can love my job and also not like it.

There's a lot of content on the internet glamorizing working for yourself or entrepreneurship. I spent a lot of time reflecting this week on the reality that entrepreneurs don't have to always like their job, just like everybody else. I have great conviction that I'm on the right path with this business but it doesn't mean that I have to always feel super motivated. A couple bad days doesn't necessarily mean there's something deeply out of alignment in my life. There can also be tasks that are harder or less enjoyable for me than others.

I think what's important here though is that while it's totally normal and okay for there to be things we don't like about our work or our life, we don't always have to accept them. And that comes back to what I wrote about in #3. There are definitely some things that are actually quite manageable for me to change in how I run my business to make it more enjoyable. Why hadn't I already done them? Usually related to fear of making an investment or self-imposed beliefs on how you're supposed to run a business. I am always trying to learn from those who came before me (no need to fix what ain't broken!) while also honoring that I am unique and it's okay, in fact probably, for the best if my business honors that about me. 

5. Remember what you're doing it all for.

Yes, I want to help people. In fact, I try to regularly remind myself of what I believe with more conviction every month and year is my actual purpose on this earth: to help women feel more worthy of having their dreams. But day-to-day, sometimes it's hard to see how that plays out. Should I be bending over backwards to help clients at cost to myself? Should I focus on making a ton of money to show other women it's possible even if it means doing a job I hate? I vote no to both.

But some big reflection this week has been around lifestyle. Part of the dreams that many women I know and work with often reject are the ones around what they want their life to look like - how busy or not busy they want to be, the balance with their family or their career, how much luxury or ease they actually want in their life. I realized this week that I want women to feel worthy of having the lifestyle of their dreams, which means I have to commit to creating mine.

What does that mean practically? I have some hard decisions to make over the next couple weeks about some ways I'm structuring the business to align with those dreams. I took a close look at my vision for my dream lifestyle and realized I had completely let one important pillar fall by the wayside over the past few months: my creativity. When I left my corporate job, I was excited to be able to insert more creativity, aesthetics and design more regularly into my life but this business hasn't been satisfying that. So I'm cooking up some other ways to support that area of my interests (more to come on that when I'm ready to share)! Also I'm making some shifts in terms of my systems and schedule!

This felt like potentially the most important aha of the whole week because I really believe the closer I get to dialing in my ideal lifestyle for me, one of the side effects will be that I will have built a business that I can run really sustainably in a way that feels happy and good for me. I'm excited to continue to work toward this goal.