1. Show Your Phone Who Is Smarter: This is one of the most important places to start when you are stressed because for most business owners (especially pet business owners), life revolves around the phone. Let’s stop that dance and get control over this inanimate object that is relentless in its need for your attention. Turn off your phone at night -and during the day when you need some peace and quiet- no more rings and text dings to take you away from what you need and want to focus on.
Move those notification reminders to somewhere other than your main phone screen so you don’t get sucked in. Commit to getting off your phone at a certain time every night – no matter what. (Two hours before you go to bed is ideal.) Warning: gaining control over your phone may not be easy initially. For a lot of humans, the phone is a drug with seductive superpowers. Take your life back by setting some boundaries with this puppy that up until now has probably been peeing and pooping all over the floor of your life. And one more thing: don’t bring your phone to the bedroom – commit to using it outside of where you sleep and rest.
2. Hot Water Healing: Put lavender or eucalyptus-scented essential oil epsom salts in a hot bath. Highly recommended an hour before sleep or during the day when your stress has reached a level that is making you feel batty. You’ll find inexpensive essential oil epsom salts at Whole Foods (365 brand). Give yourself the gift of 20 minutes of soaking. Just you, the water and the salts. Light a candle. Turn on some soothing music. Make it a ritual to connect with yourself and let the water take your stress. The water can handle your stress. You can’t. Let the water take it away.
3. Get CALM: Calm is a magnesium drink that can be found at Whole Foods or on Amazon. Taking a bit before bed can be a soothing nighttime ritual to relax your nerves and pluck the stress from your body – from the inside out.
4. Meditation, Baby. Get Mindful: Just 5-10 minutes a day can work wonders for a frazzled soul. Get the Insight Timer (free app) or simply sit and breathe. Inhale and exhale. In and out. There you go. It’s simple though not always easy. The hardest part is often just getting your butt in the chair or on the meditation cushion. But once you do? Ahhhh…
5. Morning Practice: Cultivate a gentle morning practice that focuses on you first; you with you – before giving yourself to the kids, your partner, your work, your pets. Ideally 30 minutes but if that time amount feels challenging, start with 10 minutes. Use the morning practice time to do whatever feels like the most self love for you: Morning Pages (journal writing), meditation, writing or visualizing how you want to your day to go and what you want to FEEL that day – and let yourself feel those yummy feelings. When you feel the feelings of how you want to feel that day, really feel it, you can already begin to embody and entrain yourself to set the energy and the stage to experience that feeling now and then it will be more easily accessible during your day and when business or life gets challenging.
6. Focus On Your Goals: If you don’t already have written annual goals, choose ten goals (5 for business, 5 for personal) that, if you were to accomplish them, would really make a difference for you. Write them down and (this is important), don’t stick them in a drawer or leave them in your journal. Instead post them where you can see them daily. Read them aloud each day. If stress is a regular challenge for you, have one of your personal goals be to give yourself the gift of one or more de-stressers a day. Use this list or create your own.
7. Love Your Body Through Regular Exercise: Exercise can often be the first to go to the wayside when our work consumes us and yet it will lead us back home to ourselves, to mental sanity and to inner and outer calm. Schedule your exercise ahead of time and schedule everything else around your exercise so it, and your precious body, come first. Your body is the vehicle that helps you do your work and live your life. Are you treating your car better than your body these days? Do you give your car regular oil changes, tune ups, gas? Keep doing that (it’s important!) AND also begin to turn that car love into regular body love. Our body shows up for us every day in magnificent ways. Give back by moving it regularly and getting it stronger. Plus, regular exercise clears out the mental cobwebs. I know you know what I’m talking about.
8. Kindness To Self Through Healthy Diet: When busyness and stress happen, the quality of the food we eat can sink lower than the Titanic. Raise it up with leafy greens, tasty vegetables, proteins that satisfy. Healthy food is fuel. If time is an issue during the week, do some meal prep on the weekends (cut up veggies and lettuce for on-the-go salads, prepare healthy soups or other easy meals ahead of time). When you are prepared, you’ll be able to more easily handle whatever comes your way in the coming week because you’ve got pre-made fuel that will serve you. Weekend meal prep will help you hit the ground running on Monday and help you love yourself through being conscious and thoughtful about what you are putting into your vehicle (your body).
9. Get Connected: Stress thrives in isolation – and pet business owners are often isolated when they are only working with pets and themselves. If that’s you and you feel isolated, schedule a hour or two of quality time with at least one loved one each week. Call a trusted support once or twice a week to stay in touch. Studies have been done that texting does not satisfy our need for connection. If you were to look at a “connection food chain”, you’d find texting or messenging on Facebook is at the bottom of the food chain and least satisfying, phone calls are in the middle (so-so in terms of our need for connection nourishment – it does satisfy but not deeply) and in-person time with loved ones is at the top and will most satisfy that crucial need for regular human interaction, sharing, and connection. Get yourself out of the connection desert and into the oasis. It will make a world of difference.
If you’d like MORE – reach out and book a pet business coaching session.
I’m looking forward to showing up for YOU and helping you manage your pet business, your time, and your life!
