banishing the monster and the ostrich, and an apology

This arrived in my email this morning from Inspired Home Office.
(excerpted)

As I write this, there are more unanswered emails in my “inbox” than I care to admit. This has been a week in which my best intentions were thwarted, and I received feedback from a couple of trustworthy sources that I wasn’t “on my game.” Email was part of it, but I also gave out the wrong time for a class, failed to prepare properly for a meeting, and spent too much time working on stuff that wasn’t all that important.

Stressful? You bet.

My high standards are where the problem started. When I made my first flub of the week, the little Gremlin of Self-Judgment perched on my shoulder and whispered some not-very-nice things about me. When I made my second flub, the whisper became a stern repartee. It only got worse from there. I mean, seriously! I was counting my errors! By the end of the week, I was buried in self-judgment, exhausted, and feeling rather insecure about my competence as a business owner.

When I “caught” myself making a mistake and entertaining that nasty gremlin, I took a deep breath — and this is what I said to myself:

“Jen, you are having a hard week. You’re feeling badly about not showing up the way you want to with people you really love. You’re feeling really embarrassed for missing connections and for giving incorrect information. It’s okay to feel sad and embarrassed and disappointed.

“You’re human. It’s okay to make mistakes and not to be perfect. You are doing the best you can right now. I want to remind you that your heart is in the right place. Forgive yourself for making these ‘errors’. Don’t let your past determine your future, okay? You can start fresh, right now. You are a good human being and I love you.”

Bet you’re wondering what that has to do with me, with you, and why I need to send my clients an apology. Let’s rewind back to the beginning of this year. Business was booming. I was busy, too busy. And I had a colossal amount of personal stuff going on that involved my kid. I brought on contractors to help with the overflow. As the intake of clients grew, so did the stuff happening around my life, and mistakes began to happen. Forgotten tidbits, massive amounts of technical snafu’s that were horribly embarrassing, and contractors that just up and disappeared from the face of the Earth leaving both me and my clients in a lurch.

THE OSTRICH EFFECT

The more that happened, the more embarrassed I became, the harder I was on myself, and the more difficult it became to reach out. It’s truly a vicious circle. Sending an email to a client to explain the situation seems ridiculous to my inner “Gremlins” (they couldn’t possibly believe you, and if they did it’s just not their damn problem. They’ll drop you like a hot potato and tell a million people about it, so suck it up, lady) and a phone call sent me into a panic attack. Despite this crazy routine, I would find myself awake at 3am working on client projects because I was unable to sleep because the monster conversations would go around and around in my head. And that’s why an apology is absolutely necessary and it goes out to anyone who has been affected by this self-judging, inner monster ostrich. It just boils down to this: I SCREWED UP. It didn’t matter if a contractor ditched their work, or if my internet blew up that day.

What that email from Inspired Home Office taught me was self-empathy. It was okay to screw up, learn from it, and grow. And that I shall.

HOW I’M BANISHING THE OSTRICH

Then I had a Fire Starter Session with Danielle LaPorte. We were talking about business and she paused before saying, “I don’t think you’re a VA Dawn”. Snort. Of COURSE I was.

But I really wasn’t. Not in the way a typical VA is generally described. I’m not a do-it-all kinda gal that helps you with the admin behind-the-scenes kind of stuff. I mean I *can*. In fact, in a previous life, I was the office go-to gal for everything from researching on the internet, to using MS Office to fixing the massive OCR machine. The thing is, there are certain things I really like doing AND that I really excel at doing. And it was time for me to stop living in survival mode (taking everyone) and moving into my niche of those things that I was great at and that made me feel great too.

THE NEW LOOK AND FEEL

Along the way, I’ve been lucky enough to find some great contractors who have exceeded both my expectations and that of our clients. So whether you need a bookkeeper, graphic designer, social media guy, or a general admin VA the team lined up with Monday Morning VA is able to help you in all the ways that they have in the past.

The new business direction is one that will be filling up quickly because I’ll only be able to take a limited number of clients. It will be for entrepreneurs who want to launch and push their online business by providing information products to their audience. You can see some of the new stuff taking place already – the new colours, a new logo, and a new layout. What’s still to come:

I like teaching. So you’ll be seeing some very creative mini guides and guiding sessions coming out very soon. They will cover the basics like how to set up and use social media, DIY SEO, and some funkier products like helping you manage the stress of owning your own business (among other things) and helping you get phenomenal testimonials from your clients. In addition to the guides, there will also be 1-on-1 guide sessions that focus on YOU and your business.

I like launching. So one of my new service offerings will be helping people launch their informational product. Nope, I’m not Dave Navarro – I’m a sounding board, idea generator, and I’ll be helping you facilitate things from the back end to ensure everything runs smoothly.

I like solopreneurs and virtual assistants so that’s where I’ll be focusing my energies when it comes to my products and services.

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Thank you to everyone who has believed in me thus far, and for giving me the opportunity to banish this ostrich once and for all. I’d love to hear how you’re banishing your ostrich, managing the monsters with self-empathy, or anything else related to the stress of being an entrepreneur.