The Founder Wellbeing Project Entrepreneur Mental health

“On the outside, it can look like you are successful but success is subjective”

Last year was my biggest year of growth in my business but it was also one of my most challenging. I was seeing amazing growth in revenue with some of the biggest clients I’d ever had but it didn’t feel right. I was always busy, stressed and taking myself away from the things that give me joy such as family time, coffee with friends, going for walks and giving myself time to do things just for me. I was working long hours, always tired at the end of the day and just generally feeling deflated and uninspired. This is not what I signed up for. I felt like I was doing it all for someone else who never recognised how hard I was working. On the outside it looked like I was doing amazing, my business was growing and was financially successful. But success is subjective. It looks different to everyone and I wondered if I was placing too much value on financial success at the cost of other values that were more important to me.
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It got to the point where my energy was so low and I was so unmotivated that I almost quit. I wasn’t inspired to move forward and I just couldn’t see a future for my business.
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I happened to catch up with a friend for coffee. I hadn’t planned to talk to her about my business situation but it just came out. We talked for a long time and there were a lot of tears but she helped me see perspective and encouraged me to look past the challenges to where I wanted to be. She was able to guide me to find my resolution and realise that there actually was hope and possibilities.

The next day was a new journey and I was in a totally different head space. I was able to connect with my personal development coach and she guided me to clear the negative thoughts and lay out my next steps. She also taught me strategies to use when I am feeling low that would help me move forward.
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It truly made me re-examine my goals, values, emotions and my vision for the future. I looked deep inside myself to discover what really brought me joy and how to build a business I feel passionate about. It took time to get to the right place but when I did, I started attracting the people I really wanted to work with. The people who brought joy back into my business.
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It is now 12 months on and I am in a very different place. I have routines that I do every morning and evening to clear the negative thoughts. In the past when I had moments of stress and anxiety, I wouldn’t have sat down and figured out why I was feeling this way and what truly mattered. Now I have the tools to really help me. As soon as I feel the anxiety kicking in, I can do these methods straight away and start to feel better within 10 minutes. One of my big motivations is that I want to be an inspiration to my kids. It was when my then 10yr old son said to me, ‘Mum you really have to do something you love, right?’, that I knew I had made an impact.
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