Much like every other human I know. I experience periods of high, low and anxious moods. Wow, when I started a business it pushed the boundaries of mental strength.
Back in 2017, I launched a creative brand & marketing agency - Charle. On a mission to create an agency, I quit my previous full-time job as a paramedic and released Charle to the world. I am a strong believer that to start a business you need to be full of energy, ambitious and be fuelled by a relentless strategy to keep on pushing. Although I still believe this is 100% true, I do feel it’s important to be aware of drive towards your ambitions and be open to observing how it can affect other aspects of your life.
My excitement, determination for launch led to long hours, an overactive brain continually thinking about my next big project or the next big strategy I wanted to implement. What I didn’t notice for a while was the effect it began to have on other aspects of my life. The biggest test for me was when I wasn’t at work, the impossibility of “switching off”. I noticed, I didn’t want to switch off - it almost felt like failure to me, eventually, it became so habitual that when my brain said - I need a break . . . I couldn’t. I believe that ambition and drive can be addictive and it’s so important to find a way to segment elements of that to be as productive as possible. Other areas I noticed which were drastically affected were my social time or lack of, as there’s always a job to be done. Knowing when to say “that’s a tomorrow job” is a huge skill.
Throughout my life I have always been incredibly inspired by the concept of “mental health” - I believe everybody does have mental health; sometimes it’s great and sometimes it’s a little tricky. The fact of the matter is - you can’t control what goes on around but you can control how you manage it. Managing difficult situations and stress was (and still is) a huge learning curve for me. I’ve personally found adopting techniques such as mindfulness to be incredibly helpless to re-centre myself and have a moment outside of the hustle & bustle of running a business. Other techniques I’ve found incredibly helpful is separating my personal life from my work life - I purchased a work phone so I can switch off when I am away from the office - having that clear boundary helped me to learn to relax more.
If you are starting a business, I cannot recommend mindfulness meditation more and be open to the idea of observing how being stressed affects all aspects of your life.
