The good thing about breakdowns
Sometimes you really can have it all. However, often parts of “all” don’t really go together. You can’t both accept more work than you can handle, ánd still deliver on it all perfectly. You can’t have the luxury of hiring people only the last moment you need them, ánd expect them to ready immediately. You can’t go into partnerships that have a different vision for it ánd have it go smoothly. And especially, you can’t have all of these contradicting at the same time. Wendy learned this the hard way. Stress and sleepless nights followed. Had she continued much longer: breakdown.
The good thing about breakdowns is that it shows you that continuing the current path is not an option anymore. Your body is signaling so loudly. It shouts that certain elements are not right, not combinable, or that you didn’t even like it to begin with. It opens the possibility to see different options. You can’t continue without not making mistakes. Accept it. If you really let it get out of hand, it can even show you that are only a small number of work elements that still give energy. The only option left then is to lean into that work.
The bad thing about breakdowns is, well, that that they suck. You break more than you’d like and your recovery takes a while. A breakdown makes the decision for you.
The alternative is to develop two capacities so you can be proactive. First, the capacity to listen to the soft voice that was there all along. That soft voice that tells you what you want (rather than what culture or the others want). The voice that screams softly that something is off (when your thoughts tell you that it will be temporary or needed to save the peace). Second, you’ll need to learn to act on it. Most often that means that you’ll have to pick the hard conversation now, over the potential shit storm later.
As for Wendy, she scaled down her business. Which was painful for a while since it went against the image she thought she had to pursue. But small and nimble allowed her to only accept the work she loves doing, ánd building a company she really enjoys.
Listen in on this conversation with Wendy on De Gebakken Peren. We talk about how the period of stress showed her what was really important to her. But also about her transition from entrepreneur to employer.
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Originally published at https://www.studiogeorge.nl on October 30, 2020.
