When You Start a Business and then Go Dark…

Hello again! It’s been a little over two months since I finished and published this site, and I imagine a few people are thinking “where did she go?”. Well, I launched this website right before one of the busiest times in my life to-date. The first weekend in September we moved, the third weekend in September one of my best friends got married, the fourth weekend in September WE got married, the first week of October we were mini-mooning in Florida, and then we finally settled down around the second week of October. All I can say is WHAT. A. WHIRLWIND.

I thought after we got the move out of the way I’d be able to maintain a weekly post on this site and give you all regular content. SPOILER ALERT: I thought wrong. Even after we were officially moved, there was still unpacking, final wedding details, continuing to work my 9 – 5 job, and general life maintenance to manage. I knew something had to give, and so I told myself to let content for MB Wellness go until after everything settled down. That was tough because having just launched the site, I wanted to keep the momentum going; however, I knew I wasn’t going to be at my best and really wanted to wait to start pouring time into this business until I would be.

I imagine everyone reading this can sympathize with what I’ve been feeling the last few months. At a certain point in adulthood, you realize that being busy, and sometimes overloaded, is not the exception but the rule. Too often I feel like my life resembles running down a hill: you can feel yourself picking up speed and it feels amazing so you continue to let speed build until suddenly, you feel like you’re about to lose control and have to dial yourself back. Like many of us, I am exceptionally good at taking on too many things at once only to find myself stressed and overwhelmed. I have to really tune in and intentionally manage my various activities to ensure I pace myself. As I’ve learned through the years how to better regulate myself, there are a few sayings I lean on to keep myself in check.

Words i [try to] live by

If you know me well, and as new folks will come to learn, I love a good saying. My whole family does and I think it comes in part from my grandma. She had them displayed around her house – from the Golden Rule to “make new friends but keep the old” – and used them constantly in conversation (I can’t tell you how many times I heard “be ye kind” when my sisters and I were fighting). While there are many of her sayings that stick with me, there’s one in particular that I come back to almost daily:

Start out like you can hold out.

Every time I begin something new, I ask myself “Am I beginning this at a pace I can sustain for a long period of time?”. If you’re starting a new job, beginning a new relationship, picking up a side project, whatever it may be, have a quick check-in with yourself. If you begin at an unsustainable pace, you could be setting yourself up for high stress or becoming overwhelmed. That said, there will always be phases of life where this is just unavoidable, but in general I use this saying to do a pulse check to make sure I don’t over-commit. When I launched this website, I quickly realized that weekly content just wasn’t realistic at that point in my life so I scaled back until the timing was better.

“Start out like you can hold out” is also very applicable in health coaching. One emphasis of my approach is making bite-sized changes on the path to your goal. Achieving a sustainable shift in behavior is hard, especially when the behavior is habitual. Trying to go “cold turkey” or all-in at once without examining other lifestyle factors, such as the impact of relationships, scheduling challenges, and physical environment is likely not going to get you the result you want. Begin the process of making a change with something that you know you can sustain and build over time.

On the flip side to “Start out like you can hold out”, where you may be in a position of beginning at an unsustainable pace, is another saying that provides guidance for when you’re feeling the opposite. Have you ever wanted to start something but didn’t know where to begin? Or perhaps beginning felt incredibly overwhelming because the steps from start to finish seemed like too large of an undertaking? Well, you guessed it, I’ve got a saying for you:

Start where you are, use what you have, do what you can.

Arthur Ashe

Beginning something new can be incredibly overwhelming, especially when you’re already busy, to the point that often people don’t even start. In thinking about this saying in a health coaching context, the most important part is “you”. If you read it emphasizing that – “Start where YOU are, use what YOU have, do what YOU can” – I think it makes the most impact. To me, this phrase isn’t just about getting started, but also about doing it in a way that works for you. Starting a new fitness routine and the gym isn’t your thing? That’s okay – find some clear space on your floor and do body weight exercises. Not up for an hour-long workout? Totally fine, start with 20 minutes or 10 minutes, whatever is within reach for you at this juncture and work your way up. You don’t have to do what everyone else does, you don’t have to try to force something new into your life. If you introduce a change slowly, in a way that actually works for you, it is much more likely to stick.

Speaking of starting…

It’s fitting that much of this post talks about beginning, because that’s also where I am with MB Wellness – the beginning. While I put the nuts and bolts in place a while ago, I am now finally at a point in my life where I’m well-positioned to dive in and dig in to building this business and building a healthy community for anyone who crosses paths with it. So, what can you expect from me moving forward? Keep an eye on the blog every Monday for new content to kick-start your week, and watch our social media for additional posts. As always, feel free to reach out to me directly with questions – you can contact me via the Contact page on this site.

Until next week,

Meredith