Maybe it’s not burnout after all 😜

A few days ago I shared the weird thing that was happening to me… and how my mentor and I thought I might have a little burnout.

Many of you commented and I’m so grateful for your support! Means the world to me, thank you so much!

I’m almost superstitious about publishing this, but I’ll do it anyway lol: sharing all this made me feel a lot better, and by Friday night, I was already pretty sure that it’s not burnout after all.

I did spend some time baking (we now have a rich, brandy-filled Christmas pudding maturing in a cold cupboard), and before I knew it, ideas started whizzing in my head again, and my usual creativity was back.

So if it wasn’t burnout, what was it? Well, I have an explanation, I think… and I’ll share it with you because it might well be helpful to you, especially if you’re going through a difficult time.

If you’re new to my world, you might need a few details, so here’s a little background: when I started building my online business, I was still homeschooling 3 kids full-time, and I was the main carer for my Dad, who lived across the road from us.

Needless to say, I had ZERO time. Basically, I started doing this at the very worst possible time. I was already incredibly stretched with my mum/home educating/household duties when my Dad came back into my life; then I had to care for him and the amount of work took on a whole new dimension…

It was MAD of me to build a business in the midst of this crazy busy life… but I did it anyway. I’d been wanting to for years, and seeing my Dad so ill hit me hard. I thought “sh*t! If I don’t go for this now, I may never get the chance to do it!”

So I just ignored the fact that I had no time and I dived in…

But of course, that meant I needed to make time… and that time was taken from my sleep. The hours before dawn were the only ones where everyone was asleep and no one needed me. So I used them to work.

Waking up at 4am became routine to me.

People said I was mad… but this was the only way I could do it. There’s no miracle. When you’re building a business, you need to put in some hours, every day. It doesn’t happen otherwise. And with my kids not going to school, I just couldn’t put in the hours when they were around. So I chose to do it all before they woke up.

I came to value this early morning time immensely. It’s a time when all is quiet, no one needs me or interrupts me… I put on my earphones with some music on, and I work. I’m in the flow, I write emails, I plan videos, I edit them, I listen to training at times, I answer emails… it’s blissful.

By the time everyone wakes up, I’ve done a big chunk of work and feel happy and in control. Anything I do during the day after that is a bonus.

Anyway, back to burnout and what I reckon might have happened: well, over the last few weeks, I’ve found it extremely hard to get up before everyone else. The long dark nights of the winter settling in don’t help… and I’ve been dreaming of my Dad a lot… dreams that upset me and make it hard to get out of the comfort of my bed… and we’ve all been fighting various viruses… basically, a few things seem to have come together and made it really hard for me to get up early.

So I stopped setting my alarm early, and I feel more rested as a result, but the problem with this is I have no time to work uninterrupted…

And I think this is the reason for me being stuck. It’s like my brain doesn’t have this moment when it can just flow, and work while being focused on just one thing.

Now that I have an explanation, I need to figure out a way to get uninterrupted time every day, while not getting exhausted.

Not quite sure how I do this, but I’ll work it out, I’m sure.

But there’s an important lesson in this, which I’m hoping will be helpful to you: when you’re building and/or growing a business, you really need to have some blocks of time, every day, to do it.

Because this is a “side hustle” for many of us, and most of us do this from home, it’s easy to skip this important part! But really, we need to treat this as a “job”. There needs to be time, every day, that’s designated for work – and that’s uninterrupted, exactly like it would be if we were working in an office.

If, like me, you find that your allocated time suddenly doesn’t work for you anymore, you need to rethink it and allocate a different time slot. Which is exactly what I did NOT do… I just winged it; I thought “oh well, I’m not getting up at 4 right now, no worries, I’ll just do the work during the day…” But what I should have done was look at my daily timetable, talk with my family, and actively decide on different times every day that were “booked” for my work.

Does this make sense?

Just because this is a side hustle and you do it from the comfort of your own home doesn’t mean you mustn’t treat like the business it really is.

How do you manage building your business in the midst of a busy life? How do you organise your life? What are your best tips and tricks? Let me know in the comments! A few years ago, I created a short guide with my own best tips; you’re very welcome to get it – just click this link to download it for free 🙂

Speak soon!

Sophie