What My Depression Taught Me About Business (and what it can teach you too)
DISCLAIMER: I am not a mental health professional or a doctor of any kind. This post is merely intended to share my experience with mental health struggles and how it affected my business. Nothing within this post is medical advice. If you are struggling with your mental health, please contact a professional.
2022 was a much harder year for me than I intended it to be.
I struggled more with my mental health than any other year of my life and business. Over the course of the last few years I’ve definitely had my run in with anxiety, but in relatively small doses. But last year I had horrible anxiety almost daily starting in July and suffered from depression throughout Q4. It was horrible and I must say, extremely out of character for me.
Looking back now, the hardest part is that nobody really knew. And I didn’t even understand how bad things were until I was on the other side of it.
I’m sharing this story now for two reasons:
Authenticity is a pillar of my brand. I have always valued being upfront about things in my personal life that affect my business, and keeping this under wraps wouldn’t serve me or my audience.
If anyone - even if it’s just one person - can feel less alone or learn from what caused this season of my life, then it’s worth it.
I struggled to get out of bed in the morning even though I’m usually a morning person who loves to get up early and get moving.
I stopped getting excited about things that light me up like doing my makeup, listening to really good music, baking…I basically became indifferent to all of my hobbies
I completely abandoned my faith. I stopped praying. I stopped caring.
I tried my best to stay consistent with my content because I love showing up for my community usually. But truthfully, besides serving my clients, maintaining my marriage, and seeing my family members…nothing really mattered to me. Nothing felt important.
I continued mentorship with all 3 of my coaches during the time period, and I specifically remember sharing with my mindset coach that I felt like a 40 pound dumbbell was just sitting on my chest anytime I thought about doing anything.
It was debilitating. And exhausting. Everything felt extremely heavy and sad - when in reality there wasn’t anything to be sad about.
Now that I’ve been on the other side of it for a few weeks, I want to share the lessons that I’ve learned looking back on that time. And even if you don’t or haven’t ever struggled with your mental health, I believe these lessons can be applied at any stage of business regardless.
The main lesson I learned:
STOP WAITING UNTIL THINGS ARE SO BAD TO DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT.
Don’t wait to be consistent with your mindset routine and faith until you’re miserable and desperate for positivity.
Don’t wait until you’re broke AF to do something about your money mindset.
Don’t wait until you’re burnt out and massively overwhelmed to outsource some things.
Don’t wait until you’re failing miserably in your dumpster fire of a business to hire “that coach”.
If something isn’t quite working, do something about it. Don’t wait until things are absolutely miserable. You’ve got this.