Are you wondering what it’s like Quitting the Day Job to Decrease Stress and become an entrepreneur? Let me give you THE REAL head’s up.
Celebrating Jumping Off The Career Ladder
Chilling out in Greece
If you’ve been reading my blogs and have subscribed to my newsletter (if not subscribe above, go go go) you will know that on September 9th 2016 I became an entrepreneur.
I was so excited. My day job had been stressful and in the last 6 months had gotten very difficult. It wasn’t a great atmosphere to be in. What hadn’t helped is that, although I had worked on getting better after being so run down after taking my APC, I had never taken the time to fully recover. So, leaving my day job, I was sure, was going to turn that around!
I’m not a woe is me kind of girl. I’m happy to get right back on my feet and go out fighting. I finished work and went to Greece for a week. I chilled out, in a not caring about work way and really got into the ‘everything is my own time’ spirit.
Brands Grow Easily Don’t They…?
It was great fun and when I came back I was determined to hit the ground running. So I started working on my brand constantly. It was all I was preoccupied with. I wanted to be building my website and following, buying property in London and Bath and ultimately succeed really fast.
All I was seeing was advertising on Facebook and google for get rich quick kind of schemes. I’m sure you’ve all seen them, build your empire in 6 months and earn £40k a month, or other such promises. So I got it into my head that I would do the same, why not, there’s nothing wrong with me, I’m a smart intelligent girl.
Turns out, it doesn’t really happen like that. Everything you do becomes a learning curve. Sometimes your strategies work, sometimes they don’t. Some people you work with want to give you loads of time, some people don’t. Some people care about your brand, some people don’t. No matter what though, the money doesn’t just come flooding in!
As I was and have been working hard, my brand was growing. This led to more advertisers for people contacting me and letting me know where I was going wrong. They were trying to pitch their services, and in a way I would listen to. Insulting my brand because it would make me want to contact them to make it better. I was being drawn in to workshops, seminars, freebies, all to try and make the perfect brand and essentially try and get myself some more money.
Why Should Anything Be Wrong I Am Living a Life I Love?
All Smiles – What Could Be Wrong?
However, a massive under problem was growing. I was progressively too exhausted to attend these things I was signing up to. I would cancel last minute because I couldn’t face it, not because I was scared, I genuinely just had to go to bed and sleep for ages.
As this got worse, I was worrying about myself and my productivity. I was scared, me not being able to manage simple things such as a 1 hr seminar from my bed, was a sure fire sign that I couldn’t cope. But, still I continued to work, I continued to go out with my friends and I pretended that nothing was really that wrong. Obviously, why would it be, I was living the life I had always wanted.
The Straw That Broke The Camels Back
Halloween was quickly approaching, I had been working for me for 2 months, and I couldn’t see my progress. And then, it hit me, I got sick. Never have I ever been brought down by a cold before, but this floored me.
I tried to keep working, but nothing was happening, I would crawl into bed tired and cold. I still didn’t know when to give up so decided to go to Wembley on a super cold night to watch Spurs v Bayer 04 Leverkusen (waste of time!) and my voice went. The ride home was miserable and I felt truly horrendous.
The next morning Chris told me to take the day off and ‘treat myself’. I’m sure that was code for STOP, but he knows I can’t do that. However, I listened. I took to my emails only to tell everyone I was going to be off for the day.
I spent the morning watching TV. Next, I went out wrapped up so snugly for a walk to get fresh air. And then I had a deep tissue massage in the afternoon before amazing food and bed.
My Realisation
The massage hurt. It was painful. As the lady spoke to me, she took me through all the stress build up in my body. She said it wasn’t a weeks worth, but years and years worth. I asked her if she would be able to resolve all my knots. Patiently she explained that it would be a process where I had to work at it. I needed to help my body and as it had been building up over years, it wasn’t just going to be fixed in a day or a few weeks.
This was huge, I was shocked. I had thought that quitting the stress would just make me 100% better.
But it was something I needed to take into my daily life and make myself better. More than that, as I was getting better my business would improve.
Change is a Daily Work
So I am taking this forward. Daily I am stopping to exercise and then stretch ALOT afterwards, making sure my body doesn’t just cramp up. I have learnt from my PT that when you exercise your muscles contract, if they aren’t stretched out properly afterwards they stay that way and it’s painful and cause knots. So I’m working on ironing them out.
I am also going to make sure I have one ‘paper day’ a week. Where I get to go out and be me without the worry of my emails or technology. It’s my place to learn and widen my horizons so that I can take back the new to my business.
Finally I am learning to be in my own moment. Right here, right now, as I am typing this blog, nothing else matters. Whether I am making money or not, doesn’t have any impact on the content I am putting down. All that matters is that I’m progressing, my business is growing, simply by me putting myself out there and I will continue to do that.
The Real Heads Up
You can’t run away from stress. Nor does being an entrepreneur make the journey any easier. It is just a life style change whereby you are in charge. But, you have to listen to you. My body was telling me for ages to take it slow, rest more and give when I was able, but I didn’t listen.
To be a real entrepreneur your day job has to involve looking after you and have the faith that everything else will fall into line… eventually.
Have you had a similar experience? Or has my personal journey been helpful for you? Let me know in the comments section below. If this has been useful then please share it around and if you loved it then don’t forget to like!
NC
