It’s always darkest before the dawn…
Welcome to my fellow insomniacs out there. I had a lovely message from Sean last week saying that he was having a crap night of it. His business, which is doing very well, is facing many challenges, and while he’s normally a deep sleeper he found himself awake at 3am thinking WTF is it all about. He said that he was feeling negative, and really wondering about his future – then he listened to a few of my blogs and found them really uplifting and feels that he is back on track now. His question for me is was do I have 3am moments and what do I do to turn it around?
Firstly, thank you Sean – I do this solely because I want to help people through the trials and tribulations as well as the joys and rewards of running their businesses, so it’s really rewarding when people feed back and say I have made a difference.
But secondly I have to say that I am feeling it with you buddy, and I can reassure you that at 3 in the morning there is many an entrepreneur I know that feels the same way.
You all know I am a bit of a hippy so I’ll chuck in a saying from Buddha here – it’s always darkest before the dawn. Often I know that I have to get to my low point, the bit when I am pacing around at 3am, and the occasionally bit of self doubt – and thereafter something turns around, life delivers a bit of good luck, a solution appears.
And this is the key bit. I now realize that the point at which I hit that dark patch is normally when the breakthrough happens – so instead of getting my knickers in a twist about it I now WELCOME these periods as being the concentrated periods of self-reflection before the next great leap forward happens. So my advice, my friends, is to use those moments really well. Get out a big piece of paper, your journal or your notebook, and write down all that you are concerned about – do the risk assessment of your business and indeed life and evaluate what you can do stuff about, what needs to be done i.e. create your task list and what you can do nothing about. And allow yourself to take this extra time to reflect. It’s a veritable gift from your subconscious – the spare time to THINK.
See, I am not putting this all down to celestial gift. Much of the resolution to my worries comes from foundations I have built with blood, sweat and tears, but what I am saying is I have found that normally, when I think I can’t take it anymore, when I feel I am on my knees, that is when the upturn occurs. Dawn breaks and new hope is restored. Those feelings and emotions are normally the sign of a turning point.
This is quite an emotive one for me but for anyone running their own business we put our heart and our soul into this. It’s effectively a child of ours and we feel its nurture, success, failure and even its demise like that of a family member. Add that to it being our living too and it is a huge part of who we are, and what we do.
So anyway I am here for you. I absolutely empathize with what you are going through, I know how tough it is, and I know that at 3am it can seem like its completely overwhelming – but we have all been there and often at that bit when you think you can’t take it anymore there is a ray of sunshine to lift you up and drive you forward.
Don’t forget if you have a burning issue you want help on then I am really happy to help where I can on Kate’s Q and A. I don’t mind 3am emails! And a big reminder – if you think you can’t take it anymore, that you are at your wits end and you don’t know how to continue – it is very likely that you are just about to break through. So do not give up, feed yourselves with the positivity you need to sustain you and shout if you need input and advice. Always happy to help.
Take care.