I have written before about coming to terms with seasonality and once again I find myself pondering the topic. Maybe it's because the weather has turned positively autumnal this week, or because I'm coming to the end of the 2023 house-sitting season, whatever the reason, I've acknowledged my own want to slow down and spend the rest of this year nesting and at last, I think I might finally be OK with it.
Back in winter when I was suffering from SAD and then flu, I had no motivation to work on any of my business goals for this year. In fact, I didn't even know what my goals were. When the low mood and lethargy finally lifted and I recreated my vision board, I had the realisation that I'm in a season of life which is centred around my home and health, not my business. Let me explain as best I can.
Life happens in seasons. Not only Spring, Summer, Autumn, Winter but also childhood, adulthood, old age. We go through seasons in relationships too; lust, love, the honeymoon period, and in our careers and personal lives. We go through seasons of feast and famine, lack and abundance, joy and sorrow. Everything is temporary, some things are cyclical and through it all, everything is as it should be.
It's easy to become frustrated with the seasons that seem to bring less abundance but even these seasons serve an important purpose. Just as the natural world hibernates over winter, sometimes we need to slow down and go inward to recharge. Accepting the season we are in is the key to travelling through it smoothly. When we don't accept where we are in life, we meet resistance and challenges begin to stack up. In those times, it feels as though everything is going wrong for us, or like the whole world is out to get us. The Universe throws more and more at us in an attempt to get our attention and the longer we ignore the signs to slow down, the worse it gets until we're finally forced to stop because of something very unignorable like a flat tyre or flu.
The worst part is, as we get closer to exhaustion or burnout, we stop seeing these signs that we need to slow down and start to think that if we just worked a little harder, or if we just push through until that next deadline, then we can rest afterwards. The more tired we are, the more clouded our decision-making faculties become and we end up working ourselves even harder due to the misguided belief that we are being more productive. In actual fact, studies have shown that if we rest now, we will be more productive later - I heard that on episode 274 of the Feel Better, Live More podcast. So here I am, in a season of restoration after a season of hard work and growth last year. This is what I'm calling a "home" year; a year to reflect on how I work and the impact that has on my well-being. A few months ago, I wrote in my business notebook "I want to spend this year cultivating and creating a hospitable environment for goal setting and manifestation next year."
Now that I have moved in with Watson, I have started feeling as though I should be focusing on work again. I have spaces in my schedule that I would like to fill and I've been feeling guilty that the business isn't receiving all of my focus, but then last week during a guided meditation, I realised something: The reason why I have been feeling frustrated around the business in the past month or so since moving house, is because I have been trying to force myself to "get back to work" when I'm still in this season of restoration. Now is not the time to hustle, now is the time to nest. I have been trying to rush myself into a new season of growth when this season isn't over yet and have been making myself feel miserable as a result. Worse than that, I've been making myself feel wrong. I've been using wanting to get back to work as an excuse for wanting to decorate the flat more quickly when in reality, I want to decorate the flat because I want it to look pretty - and that's OK! It's OK to want to live in beautiful surroundings. It's OK to look forward to the day when there isn't more painting to do. It's OK to want a place for everything and for everything to be in it's place so that you know where things are and don't have to climb over a box in order to get to them. It's OK!
I realised during a walk last week that I was in resistance to work, but wasn't sure why; now I understand. The resistance was coming from feeling as though I should be working harder in order to fill the gaps in my schedule and also just not wanting to. I felt ashamed that I didn't want to be working harder but also felt very strongly that I don't currently have the energy to work harder. I felt frustrated that I didn't feel motivated in work because I love my business and when I'm motivated, I really love growing my business. So why didn't I love it in that moment? Because I'm in a season of restoration.
Now that I've realised this, that feeling of resistance has lifted and I love my business even more now because it can take care of itself for a little while. I have worked hard on creating my business and have poured a lot of my energy into it - as a result, it now has the momentum to tick over by itself and let me take some time for myself every once in a while. I see the business as it's own entity, crafted from my love, sweat and tears, existing outside of me and yet is made of me. If it were a sentient being with a personality, it would be more than happy to be in charge of itself for a while and allow me time to rest, because that is exactly what I would want and do for any loved one in this situation.
Funnily enough, my website is currently down and will be until at least the end of this month because of a mistake I made in setting up my website address. When I realised what had happened, I was frustrated and felt so foolish that I had let this happen, but mostly I was annoyed that I was potentially missing out on new clients during what is usually the busiest time of the year. Now I see that it happened for a reason and I am happy to leave the website switched off for a little longer while I embrace where I'm at.
My plan for the rest of this year is to put growing my business on hold and focus on being at home with Watson and the boys. I hope we'll get the decorating finished before December so that we can spend the run-up to Christmas snuggled up on the sofa bed together, watching Christmas films and eating all the Christmas snacks. We are taking the first week off in October together and I shall be aiming to strike a balance between building our new furniture and playing our favourite board games together so that when I get back to work later in the month, this time I will feel as though I've actually had a week off.
In short, I'm resting now so that I can be more productive later.
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