Maybe If I Dance Just A Little Bit Faster

I'm on mailing lists or Facebook for a number of other business-oriented sites. I get a few emails / FB posts from them each week. Sometimes it's enlightening and engaging. Sometimes it's downright exhausting.

The tone of these messages is often breathless, anxious, or demanding.

You must read this (and this and this and this and this)!

You must study this (and this and this and this and this)!

You should be using this (and this and this and this and this)!

Why aren't you doing this (and this and this and this and this)?!!

I sometimes find myself over-stimulated, anxious, and even depressed by these messages. I feel like I'm being pushed to do more, faster, sooner, quicker! But I'm only one person who has to do everything my practice requires. I resent the push to do more more more!

I have a friend, another MT, who recently said in an email "I'm running on fumes". And she is. She has a tendency to over-commit and to take responsibility for things that really aren't her responsibility. And then she has a terrible time backing down from those commitments and responsibilities.

I'm worred for her because she's done this before and she usually ends up very very sick. She knows that but it's still so hard to ignore the demonic voices in her head saying "if you just worked a little bit harder / longer / faster".

I've said it before in this blog and I'll say it again -- you are the most important asset your practice has. Everything else -- everything (even your clients) -- can be replaced and you'll still have a practice. Take you out of the equation -- through excessive fatigue, illness, or overwork -- and you've got nothing.

It's tough. Our validation as massage therapists comes when someone else is happy, when we've made someone else feel better, made someone else's day.

There's also a lot of people out there saying that a "real" business / practice looks like x, y, or z. Their x, y, or z is often a business quite different from ours -- a doctor's office or a retail operation or even a multi-therapist practice (if you aren't a multi-therapist practice). If you don't look like that, you aren't taking yourself seriously as a business (dammit) and you need to step up! Work faster! Harder! Longer!

Who needs sleep and rest, after all, when you're building a business!!!!

I'm still recovering from the hospitalization for severe appendicitis three weeks ago. It's taking an age for my stamina to re-build so all those faster, faster, faster messages are falling on deaf ears here. It's physically impossible for me. But when I'm healthy......sigh.

When you're tempted to give in to the faster / longer / harder / more more more messages, stop. Sit. Tune in to your center. That center will tell you how much you need and how hard you actually can work. Ignore it at your own peril.