Here's the thing: when you don't love your business

This week, someone on my Facebook page asked me for resources that talked about what to do when you’re not in love with your business. What to do, in fact, when you hate your business. And I drew a blank – I couldn’t think of anything.

And yet this isn’t an unusual conversation for me, really. I talk to clients all the time about struggles they’re having, and sometimes those struggles get them to the end of their tether.

Let’s start with a huge dose of permission and kindness: you don’t have to love every ounce of your business all the time. You can have bad days. You can have bad months. That doesn’t mean you can’t get the love back.

Sometimes, you might find it hard to get out of bed in the morning. It’s dragging you down.

The first thing is to dig a little deeper into why you’re not in love with your business. What is it, exactly, that’s dragging you down?

Perhaps you’re not making the products you really want to be making. Maybe you’re feeling the relentless pressure of doing it all by yourself. Or you’re getting caught in the comparison trap, instead of following your own dreams and instincts. Perhaps you’re putting things out there in the world and not getting much back.

Maybe, and I hear this so often, you find it hard to interact with customers – demanding, needing attention, confused – on a day to day basis. For many creative people, who are brilliant at design, customer service isn’t exactly a natural place to be. People can be challenging, especially when it feels like they’re always in the right and you’re always in the wrong. Especially when their passion for your product or service turns into frustration or resentment when it didn’t turn up on time, or solve all their problems.

And because we’re social creatures, these difficult conversations can really drag us down. They can take the fun out of everything.

I’ve worked with several clients who’ve struggled with customer service in their business, and I can honestly say that the difference between those who’ve successfully moved on are those who have actively chosen to think differently about it. And I don’t think you can make that happen if it isn’t there… You have to really want to change your mind about your customer interactions.

Because they require generosity, as well as clear boundaries that you uphold every day. I believe in boundary setting, and I know how hard it is to say no to people when it feels like you should say yes. But saying yes to big demands and difficult people can really impact your love for your business.

So I think customer service is good place to start if you’re struggling. But be really honest about what you’re struggling with – it may be different for you.

I also believe that it’s really hard to pour all your efforts into a business that doesn’t give you anything back. And I’m not just talking about money. What do you need your business to give you? Is it about the flexible lifestyle? Does it need to feed your creative passion? Is there a certain amount you need to make to feel good about it? As much as you can, get clear on the answers to those questions, and you may find that new and exciting answers start showing themselves to you.

And it’s okay to stop and change your mind.

Ultimately, if you can’t see a way of changing smaller things – like customer service, or delegating tasks you hate to someone else – then it might be time to take a small sabbatical to reflect on bigger changes. Take a couple of days off. Take a week off. Get out of your life and your business. Go on a retreat.

And while you’re away, allow yourself free reign to dream big, outside anything you’ve dreamt of before, perhaps. It might be time for a big change in your business. If you really can’t delegate or change your customer service policy, and let that be enough, you may need to re-think your business completely. Let yourself do that.

What makes you excited? What gets your creativity flowing? And I don’t mean, ‘What’s another product you could churn out?’ That’s not going to get you fired up. What feels really good to you?

These answers may not come immediately. You may need to really release the stress and pressure of working on something that’s breaking your heart. You may need to rest, deeply, before you can start thinking about the next thing fully.

Thinking about doing something new, whether it’s a first business or second or third, requires you to love yourself so much, to believe in yourself, and to believe that you can do something more – you’re allowed to do whatever you want. If you told me you wanted to sack it all in and become a lawyer or a masseuse or a teacher or a full time mum, I’d help you find a way to get there.

If no one else tells you this, I will: you can do whatever you like. There are no wrong answers.

Here’s the thing

This is a huge topic, and there are so many things to try to rekindle the love, and so many ways to think about a new line of work. I could write a dozen blog posts about this.

But here are the headlines:

If you hate it, you need to change something. And I recommend changing it consciously, rather than just trying anything and everything willy-nilly. Think carefully, trial it, track the outcome.
Delegate what you can. If you hate packing orders, hire someone. If writing product descriptions or blog posts isn’t your thing, hire someone.
Change your product range. Stop selling products that hurt your soul. Or change them radically. If the things you hate are bestsellers, figure out how much income you’ll ‘lose’ and figure out if it’s worth the trade off.
Introduce more of what you love. If you don’t offer it, people can’t love it or buy it. If you’ve always wanted to do more illustration or writing, start. I promise you won’t ruin anything.
Take a big break. Give yourself permission to dream, and to not work. Plan to extend your delivery times or put your shop on holiday while you do some soul searching.

People don’t talk about hating their business – it’s kind of taboo. But sometimes it happens. Sometimes, all that work isn’t worth it.

That doesn’t mean you’ve failed. You’ve just learnt what you don’t want. So start learning more about what you do want.

PS Inspired Action starts in a little over a week. If you’re looking for some inspiration to work on your online shop, you might find it’s just the thing! Read more and register here.

Here's the thing: control what you can

Recently I’ve been thinking about control. Lots of people – friends, clients, people on Facebook – claim to be “control freaks”. In my life, I have also claimed the same.

It feels good to be in control, right? And when we decide to be self-employed, it’s often because we want to be in the driving seat of our working lives (and, moreover our whole lives). We like autonomy. I certainly do.

But the truth of life is that we can’t control everything. We can’t control the weather, or the postal service, or customers, or suppliers. We can’t control other people. We can’t decide what anyone else is going to do.

That’s the reality we live in. And a lot of the time it feels really hard.

Because we want to do it our way. Because we want to do it well.

I find it really challenging when I have a vision for something, some way that it’ll work, but there’s an obstacle in the way of making it happen. And I hear this almost daily from clients. There are often compromises to be made on a product design, or a photograph, or a sales platform.

We can see how it could work, beautifully – and we want to control everything to make sure it does. You know what it’s like. Control the beginning, control the end. Control the design, control the production. Control what people say and think and feel about you.

More and more, I’m getting comfortable with not being in control of everything. So that I can focus my efforts on areas that I can influence. So that I don’t drive myself mad.

Here’s the thing:

I think a big part of getting comfortable with not being in control – for me – started last year, when I chose trust as my word for the year. If you’re going to try to let go of control a little more, trust is a really good place to start.

I’m learning that I can only trust myself to do the things that are really, genuinely, in my control. That’s honestly about two things each day. I can control my actions. I can (try to) control my responses. I can influence what I put out in the world (I can’t always control every bit of it).

If I try to trust myself to do more – if I try to control more – I ultimately let myself down. Which doesn’t feel good. And it tends to lead to a downward spiral, like this:

Try to control something I can’t… Feel it slipping away… Try harder… Tell myself I’m going to fail… Fail… Beat myself up about it… Try to control something else…

Sometimes, when we lose control of one thing (say, a product launch or a response from a supplier), we try to control other things (like our spouse’s behaviour, or our children’s eating habits). And because we’re already angry about not being in control, we take it out on them and on us.

The answer?

Focus your attention and efforts on what you can influence.

Forget everyone else. (Comparison is the thief of joy.)

Trust that the right outcome will come your way, whether it’s something to learn from or something that turns out as you hoped. (You’ll still learn from that anyway, I hope.)

The world could use fewer control freaks and more trust. I hope you’ll join me on the journey.

Here's the thing: emotional health

As I write this, I feel nervous, a little shaky, and a little excited. It’s something I believe in, something I feel passionately about, and something I’m discovering to be true, in some way, every day.

You know when you hit on something you feel like you just have to do? And it’s scary because it’s outside your comfort zone? That’s where I’m at right now. It’s outside my comfort zone because it’s not the straight-forward “business advice” that I imagine a lot of people are looking for.

But it’s also inside my comfort zone because I know that, especially as small businesses, we have to function from a holistic place, a place of wholeness, where we see that we’re people as well as business owners, manufacturers, workers.

When I created and led my first retreat in March, it was this knowledge that I drew upon. I know that we need rest, rejuvenation, quiet, reflection in order to “function” at our best. I wanted to offer people a soft place to land. And it’s a joy to see how much it has allowed the retreat-goers to do since.

Now, as I think about my work and about planning a retreat for next year, I’m seeing that the holistic, personal approach is really important, more important than just running a weekend where I tell people how to market products, write product descriptions and take photos.

Because I know this to be true: human beings are emotional, feeling creatures.

Whether we like it or not, we have feelings. And what I’ve learned through extensive (and sometimes painful) personal experience is that feelings are meant to be felt. (Disclaimer: I’m still learning that lesson.)

Denial of feelings and experiences muddles us up. Maybe we don’t want to be sad that we were made redundant, or angry that someone did something. Maybe we spend a lot of time trying not to be hurt by someone’s comments or actions. Maybe we pretend to be someone we’re not, so we don’t offend people or annoy them. Maybe we avoid grief.

But all that denial and avoidance and pushing away gets in the way of processing the feelings. Which means that the feelings show up when we’re trying to make “rational” decisions.

If we haven’t admitted to ourselves that we’re hurt by that mean or dismissive comment, then the hurt tries to get our attention. The feeling creeps into thinking, subconsciously. Maybe we start hustling for approval from that person, to make up for the fact they didn’t like us the last time. And then we make decisions that aren’t truly our own.

When we don’t admit that we’re afraid of failure, of being judged, of being rejected, we can’t reassure ourselves. We can’t weigh up the risks in a true and authentic way. We let our fears run us, without really being aware of them at all.

There’s part of me afraid of writing this post. Afraid that there will be people who think it’s too “wishy-washy”, who don’t “get it”, who don’t want to feel the feelings – they just want to hear how to plan for a successful Christmas.

I’ve heard what that part of me has to say. And I know she’s scared of being rejected for having emotions as well as rational thoughts. I know why she’s scared of that – we live in a culture that doesn’t value feelings. It values productivity, output, rational, measurable, clear-cut, and dependable. Which feelings aren’t.

You know what’s dependable about feelings? Once felt, they don’t run the show.

I’ve allowed myself to feel afraid. And now I can bring myself – my whole self, with feelings and thoughts – to say yes to pressing publish.

Here’s the thing

The more you deny your feelings, the harder your brain has to work to compensate. Which leads to over-thinking. Which leads to decision paralysis. Which leads to depression and anxiety.

To break the cycle, you have to feel the feelings.

In this male-dominated world, we talk about “mental health”. I would like a re-brand: emotional health. Mental health speaks of the over-thinking, which is only a result of the under-feeling.

As women, we tend to be particularly susceptible to under-feeling, because it’s “weak”, “unprofessional”, and messy. It is messy, but it’s not weak. And when we’re running businesses, we try so hard to hold other people’s understanding of what it means to be professional, and I suggest that sensitive, feeling, and emotional can be essential parts of our professionalism.

So, to feel your feelings, you may want to try:

Creating a safe place to do so. It might be with a counsellor, therapist or coach, or a trusted friend or partner. You might need to carve out alone time, in a comfy chair, with no interruptions.
Free-writing. Once you’re in your safe place, start writing whatever you’re feeling. Just allow what comes, without censoring yourself. If you’re stuck, start with this prompt: right now, I really crave…
Breathe. If you’re used to pushing feelings down, breathe into being open to them. It’s not easy when you start. It can feel like the world will end. It won’t. Breathe.
Get the tissues out. Give yourself whatever you need to process the feelings, whether that’s a good cry, a secret shouting match at life, or writing it all down.
Go gently. Be very kind to yourself. Don’t rush back into thinking or doing. Notice what it was like to feel, and if anything has shifted for you.

You might feel like you’ve opened up an ocean of feelings. You don’t have to feel them all at once. You can be gentle with yourself until you feel strong enough to be honest even more. If you start feeling overwhelmed by the force of emotion, make sure you’re getting some help to guide you through it. The UKCP is a good place to start.

The aim isn’t to be a blubbering wreck the whole time, but to free up your energy to live your life, run your business, make healthy decisions, instead of spending so much energy suppressing feelings you think you shouldn’t have. You should.

And any feeling you have – sadness, fear, anxiety, shame, despair, joy, overwhelm, worry, love – I’ve had too, at some point. We’re human. Feelings happen to everyone. They don’t make you weak.

Just like taking care of your body, you have to take care of your emotions, too.

Take really good care this weekend.

And it’s okay to stop and change your mind.

Here’s the thing

Here’s the thing:

Because I know this to be true: human beings are emotional, feeling creatures.

Here’s the thing

Enter The Forge