I want to talk about protecting your mental health because I don’t think people ever quite acknowledge what it really takes to be your own small business owner. Unless you're actually running your own business, people don't understand what it's really like. I think that it's something that we need to talk about more in the beauty industry, because it is a service to people.

There is a lot more that we do beyond just doing people's hair or just doing people's makeup. They're coming to us on stressful days, even though a wedding day is supposed to be a wonderful happy time. There's usually a lot of different dynamics playing in the background that are stressful for our brides and that is something that we kind of absorb walking into the energy of the room. We can feel that friction, that tension, and it's really hard to not let those little things impact us.

There's a lot that goes into just being a service industry and a wedding vendor. We're actually going into dealing with people's mental image of themselves and how they see themselves when they look in the mirror. Do they have body dysmorphia? Do they see features on their face in a distorted way? All of these things impact how they feel about our work, and then we try our best not to take personally how they view our work.

You know we want to make them happy, and we're out here as artists creating something that we think is beautiful. So when people don't like what we do, we can tend to take that personally. So we have to divest ourselves of our clients’ mentality about their looks and their personal taste in things and remember that it's not about us.

There's so much that impacts our mental health on a daily basis, and I haven't even gotten into the stresses that the job puts on our relationships with friends and family. How much free time it takes away from us, where we're missing out on those special moments on the weekends. Because the rest of the world works during the week and they have the weekends off and that’s when they have birthday parties and anniversaries and get married.

So, a lot of times, working in the wedding industry, we miss out on those events in our own lives. This takes a toll on us mentally and emotionally, and then you throw in the concept of social media and just how damaging social media has been to the mental health of people in general. Being a wedding vendor in the beauty industry, social media plays a huge part in the success and the marketing of our business. So now we have all of these things put together and a lot of times that pressure can just be too much. It can be too many forces pulling us in different directions too, much of just absorbing of these negative energies as a business owner in this industry.

Episode 23: Mental Health & Learning To Protect Inner Self Better

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It's incredibly important to remember that you are not a machine. You are a human being, and you have thoughts and feelings. It is completely acceptable and normal to get to a point where you're like, “fuck this- this is too much. I need to put myself first.” Just because we are in a service industry does not mean that we have to continually put everybody else above us.

You've probably heard the phrase, “you can't pour from an empty cup.” It’s so true, and we have to kind of keep that in the back of our minds. How full is my cup today? Can I even pour any more out to people or do I need to refill my cup? So today I want to talk about different ways that we can refill our cup, and I'm not talking like that fluffy bullshit stuff of take a bubble bath or go get your nails done or all these other things that kind of in the back of our minds.

I'm talking about ways to mentally reset, strategies you can put in place to balance things better so that you're not sitting there trying to decide whether to do something for yourself today or to do your responsibilities. There is a balance, and there are different habits that we can put into place to give ourselves better boundaries so that we don't feel the pressure of so many things pulling us in different directions.

Think about it. Grab some paper and a pen and start getting your thoughts out of your head and onto the paper of things that are causing you stress. This can be anything going on in your personal life or in your business. It could even be things in your past. But being able to identify and understand the root of where our stress is coming from helps us to identify where we need boundaries and what parts of our lives maybe need a new system for handling the demands.

So there's always an option with everything that stresses us out in our life. We have the option to let it go and to walk away from it or we have the opportunity to find a solution for it. We can't just let things continue to build stress in our lives. It's like poking a hole in your cup.

If there’s something draining you, and you're ignoring it, you either need to walk away from it and eliminate it from your life or you need to work on it and find a way to make it work. So first taking that time to say okay I'm going to write down all of those things. Go in a little bit deeper and look at the root of the stress. Do you walk away or do you make a solution?

Okay, once we've identified all of these things. It's time to do a little mental reset. I want you to step back, and temporarily pause the actions that cause you stress. We've now identified them, and determined what we're going to let go of, what we're going to find solutions for, and what we need a boundary to protect. So, for example, if there's certain social media accounts that cause you stress every time you see that person's work.

Maybe you feel jealous, like, “I wish I was as good at hair or as good at makeup as them.” Seeing how that person is always booked. It's motivating, but it's also draining if it causes you dissatisfaction with your own skills and your own success. This might be the clue that you actually need to unfollow them. You don't need that motivation to come in the form of jealousy. It should come in the form of positive reinforcement for the things that you are already doing that are working for you.

Just remember that behind that social media profile is a live human being who has just as much shit going on in their life as you do. And if you need to just step away from social media altogether, go ahead and step away from social media altogether. Get a system or a plan for strategically running your business social media account without letting it impact your mental health.

For example, you can schedule it to automatically post for thirty days. That way you are still putting stuff on there and you're still staying “active.” You're just having a computer system post that for you, so you can step away and have time to de-stress and to focus on other things in your life. You can absolutely pause and take a mental break whenever you need it, and it's not going to make your business come crashing down.

Counseling is also a great tool for a business owner to utilize in protecting your mental health. It’s a great way to have somebody objective to talk to. You don't have to be superwoman, and you don't have to do everything yourself. You can just go and talk with somebody to help you identify stresses and strategies for balancing things in your life.

So if you don't feel confident in that “writing things down on a piece of paper” kind of thing. Go do that exercise with a mental health professional. Say, “hey, I have all these areas of stress. Can you help me identify what's actually causing me stress, so that I can come up with some good strategies?” You definitely don't have to do that part on your own either. You can do that with help from somebody, if you are feeling burnt out or if you're feeling overwhelmed.

Especially if you're feeling deep depression or even suicidal, I really urge you to find professional help. Find somebody that you can sit down and talk to, that is trained to ask the right questions and listen to help you find solutions. Having a dish session with a girlfriend is good.

It's great to get things off of your chest, but a mental health professional can help you identify areas that you are unaware of and that your friend is unable to identify. It is truly okay if you need that. There is nothing wrong with you. There's a lot of stigmas that people associate with going and seeking help, but really it can just be a few sessions where you just work through things with somebody who's trained to help you. It's just like getting business help or advice.

For example, you're reading an article right now on how to run your business better. Do you hold that against yourself that you're not somehow perfect and able to do all this magically on your own? No, you're seeking help for this particular area. It is okay to seek help for your mental health as well. So, I hope you have found some strategies and some new ways of looking at things. This is such an important factor in effectively running your business. Please take care of your mental health.

What's Next?

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