I’ve been in isolation for a week. I had to shut off from all of life’s responsibilities to get some work done so I went to a friend’s while she was away where the only distraction was a cute puppy dog. And the walks helped my mental wheels process things. I’ve been frying my brain with strategic planning and it’s kind of a meditation and a retreat from regular life. Worrying about others and filling in where necessary with home care for my brother and my niece, and being there for mom and my sister and trying to attend my therapy sessions for ptsd and get to the horses (my equestrian therapy) while trying to build a new life has been hard on me. I love them and enjoy their company but like I’ve said in the past, I get lost in the tasks and start meshing with their issues; Raging because Douglas isn’t getting the care at night he needs when an over night worker leaves without alerting anyone or Bella is home from school and I can’t pull myself away from her because I need to know everything and I don’t want to miss a minute and I want to get to the bottom of why she cried at school. I ignore my own life’s tasks at times and I get lost. I stop processing my own things and I get unwell.
In a lot of ways the business plan for me is like writing a document that outlines the details of my new life. It will dictate my daily schedules, my own personal missions that are intertwined with my own business missions. For me this time around, writing this business plan is very personal. I want to have time for caring for my family and filling in but also to make an income and to be creative and use my skills.
In my promise to be totally honest with myself, and flexible I have had to make changes based on facing the full reality of the market. Dreams can be that just dreams but I crave reality. Even if I have to squash a dream or two. I have to face the numbers, and the market issues, and adapt to that while being totally honest about the lifestyle I can live and maintaining self-care. I want to avoid driving myself and my business into the ground again. So there’s compromise and there’s where I can’t compromise and there’s sustainability.
Looking at all these factors has been tedious but my mind is thankful for the distraction while trying not to make it just that, a distraction. Maintaining self-care, sleep hygiene and a healthy schedule has been my biggest challenge. When I get in the zone with my work I will ignore eating, sleeping, and miss my fitness schedule because I don’t know what else will come up so I try to go with the flow of it and get as much done as I can. I set alarms to eat, sleep, the basics and I turn them off ignoring them. I’ve been listening to a lot of meditation vacation on YouTube and trying to use guided meditation to focus me and get me in tune and to turn off all my thoughts so I CAN get to sleep. But obviously I have to stop to write down really pertinent solutions to business issues I don’t want to forget or get up when I remember how to use a filter on photoshop to edit my logo because it’s been a while since I’ve been in the game.
I know, I know! I even avoid social interaction, personal life see ya, but I really didn’t really have one anyway, did I? My social life’s been seasonal for so long, but those who really love me even if I disappear for a while nothing has changed. But I do miss out on things. So it’s all a learning curve, and a practice of how I will maintain those things when I am up and running and for my new life. I want to maintain friendships. I want wellness both physically and emotionally so it will need to be a part of my business plan even if it hasn’t been 100% part of my life this far. It’s day by day, minute to minute and more and more I’ve been making the right choices for self care and coping with all of life’s stresses.
I’ve hit the wall a little bit with permit and licensing issues and getting the timing to work out along with the funding and the expectations they require. I felt like these organizations want you to come out full guns blazing but in my lessons and passed businesses I have learned you need to tread cautiously and learn as you go and get in there to find out what customers really want and change with their expectations and responses to the products and services you provide. For that you need cash flow. It can’t be tied up in debts.
They are after all the reason you are doing this, to create and share a product and environment and experience for your customers that you’ve created. That’s the art for me. And that’s the love. You can’t always predict exactly how they will respond so I need to be ready to change. Feedback will be the most important dictator of what I do. To me that’s the most beautiful creative process, creatively adapting and moving with market changes. My background in trends analysis, and being an empath who has to predict her family’s needs makes my brain a transmitter of customers wants and needs, but I have to be ready and able to meet them so tying up cash flow because my funding provider wants me to isn’t going to happen. And starting out all guns blazing with all the expensive equipment loans in December isn’t going to work for my people. Even if I have to put the whole thing on hold and miss out on the funding. My business will be my life so it has to fit into MY life and those who are in it.
Microphone drop.
