Hangovers and hanging on in there

Focusing when you're fed up

I haven’t written a post in two weeks. It started, with me getting over excited at seeing The Streets and inducing a terrible hangover, that led to covid, followed by a sickness bug. So, I just haven’t felt very motivated. I’ve been seeing great businesses fold around me, which has left me with a feeling of hopelessness. If those brands, businesses I really rated can’t make it, then how can I? But, then we can’t all hang around hungover feeling hopeless for long, can we? So, I’ve been thinking about how I overcome those feelings of hopelessness and re-focus.

Talking to people, speaking to other founders. Saying what I’m feeling out loud and realising I am not alone helps. I had CBT therapy this year for my anxiety and stress around being shut in, anywhere (I mean that’s a whole other Substack - Me and My Anxiety), but my therapist used to say to me ‘name it to tame it’ and I think that’s applicable to a lot of feelings, not just anxiety. The CBT really helped by the way, in case you’re interested.

List writing. Whenever I feel a little bit restless and lacking in focus, I love to write a list and give myself a few key actions that I can realistically do in the timeframe to give myself a sense of achievement. Having a sense of achievement is something that I need to feel good in my life. Also choosing something on the long list that has been on there ages and getting it done feels good too.

Getting a colleague to support you. If I’m struggling, I’ll get one of the team to work on something with me. As I don’t want to waste their time, I find this really helpful to refocus me, as bouncing ideas off them means I’ll start to change my own energy level and ultimately get some good work done.

I could lie and say self-care practices, switching off, taking time out are things I do to help. But in all honesty, avoidance doesn’t really make me feel better. You can take me out of a situation and tell me not to think about something, but if that something is playing on my mind, or I am feeling a bit fed up, then I find the best cure for me is productivity. I do always try and embrace some self kindness though too. Remembering your 70% is still good enough at getting the job done is an important one.

[Photo: Me with the lovely Sim of Senses by Sim and Bianca Foley of Sustainably Influenced Podcast & Platform at Soho House]

There’s also not been much going on in the last two weeks. I keep being asked, ‘how was your black Friday?’, which as a small brand, it’s likely your reply will be, ‘fine’. We did do an event at Soho House Brighton, which was pretty cool as it’s my hometown. We also did launch our new website (I’m actually laughing at myself now for claiming not much has been going on as I write this). Ok, maybe not as much as usual. And now, as we ‘wind down for Christmas’, which is a joke in itself, as in my industries this is a busy period where we all feel like everything turns to dust if it doesn’t get done before Christmas. Which as we all know, actually isn’t the case and despite the LOVELY long break in between Christmas and New Year (we shut), January is in fact just another month where we all go again. So anyway, looking forward to the break. I keep hearing from every founder that it’s the only time we all get to switch off, so cheers to that (although I’m definitely not ready for a large drink again, I am partial to a festive Baileys).