Just stop, calibrate and listen
This week has been one of the toughest since launching Balpro. It started on Tuesday when some tears just snuck up on me, I thought I was fine and then found myself on the brink of a full-on ugly meltdown in my local coffee shop. I packed up, found a garden wall in the backstreets of Chiswick, sat down, cap down and let the tears fall.
And then it struck me - Building a business is HARD.
Welcome to the party, Amber. What did you think it was gonna be like?
Bats away intrusive thought.
You just published a blog about how triumph doesn’t have to come from tears…
Gonna need a bigger bat.
One of the things I was getting angry about was how awesome the business looks when in reality, I wish I was doing more, getting further, making “real” progress.
Textbook imposter syndrome.
Small change
I stopped: I walked away from my work and went for a run.
I Calibrated: I looked at every angle, all the things that were going on, I laid them out on the path in front of me, I scattered them around my head, deep in my heart, down in my belly and I examined what was going on to push me so unexpectedly off-kilter.
And I listened: To my angry thoughts, to the struggle, to the wins, to my body, to my mind, to the empathetic loved ones, and to myself saying “THIS HAS TO WORK” and, “yes, this is hard” and “you’re doing great”.
I just needed a mini-meltdown. I needed to complain. I needed to feel. I needed to run away in order to come back.
But what if you can’t just run away?
Sometimes the feels come and we can’t just shut up shop. That one run wasn’t magic, but keeping this mantra in my head and taking microbreaks to reassess has kept me moving forward all week.
Stop
Stop what you are doing, just for a second, and feel it.
Calibrate
Carefully look at what’s going on, acknowledge the crap and find the good.
Listen
To yourself, to others, to kindness, to reassurance, to the underlying belief.
When the criticism is deafening, remember, Anna Kendrick knows best.
That’s all, folks
Amber
Every day I’m balancin’
Ps. Yes, smarty pants. I know Vanilla Ice says COLLABORATE not calibrate, and collaborating is also great, but that’s not what I wanted to write about today.
Did you miss this?
I’ve been comparing toxic work cultures to bad-boy boyfriends and explaining why they’re not the ones I’m looking to fix 😏
Mind.Blown 🤯
We don’t all have an inner monologue… I thought this was fake news until one of my friends admitted that she is part of this special species.
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