Lessons learned while being sick this week…
So last Friday I started getting a hint of the flu, could feel it coming on… the achy body, chills, bit of a headache. By Sunday I was full on sick with everything plus a very sore throat. I expected to start feeling better by Monday, but alas that wasn’t the case… the flu stuff was gone but it felt like I had a throat full of broken glass. I finally went to the Dr. on Tuesday to discover I have strep throat. Yipes! I haven’t been this sick in well over 15 years, but thanks to the lovely world of antibiotics and Tylenol 3’s i’m on the mend. As of today I can actually talk again, woo hoo! 
It’s been a bit of a rough week, and as always when hit with the rough stuff I aim to look for the lessons. A few things i’ve learned this week:
If you don’t take time out, your body will do it for you
This isn’t a newsflash, we all know this to be true. But once I got sick I realized that I haven’t really been taking much time for ME. Most of my time is either with the family (2 young girls) or with the biz which is in major growth mode right now. I can’t remember the last time I actually took some time off for myself… oh wait, our family vacation in June. I had planned a week off in October but ended up doing a VIP day with David Neagle and who can rest after that, hehe. Regardless, I was due for a rest and my body decided that if i wasn’t going to listen it would force the issue.
Having a great support system is key!
Of course, I had oodles of stuff booked this week and had to cancel many calls (hard to talk to someone without a voice… although I did meet my husband that way, but that’s another story.) This was the first week of our new program The 9 Keys to Working with High-End Clients and I REALLY didn’t want to cancel that… and so I asked the always lovely Andrea J. Lee if she would help, which she was more than happy to do. That’s just the kind of relationship we have – if one is down the other will always gladly step in to lend a hand. And of course on the homefront my mom came over to watch the girls for us when my husband started getting sick as well. Thanks goodness for their support!
Don’t mindlessly do what other people tell you to do
With all the crazy flu stuff going on right now i’ve heard time and again “don’t bother going to the Dr. – they can’t do anything for the flu and will just tell you to stay home.” And so I did, doing everything I knew to do to try and feel better and shake this thing. Finally I just couldn’t take it and went to the Dr on Tuesday… who of course informed me it wasn’t the flu, it was strep throat. If I had listened to myself I would have gone a day or two sooner and saved myself alot of headache – literally!
Don’t try to work when you are sick!
When you are sick and not thinking straight you make silly mistakes – nuff said.
Great ideas are revealed when your brain is unplugged
It’s amazing the stuff that comes clear when your defenses are down. Something came clear to me while I was sick regarding a change in my business – it was almost a ‘duh’ moment but for some reason I just couldn’t see it before. I’m VERY excited about this, which i’ll be announcing soon… stay tuned.
Thank goodness for my health
When I was at one of my ‘wah wah poor me’ moments I shook it off and remembered that this was a very temporary thing. As painful as strep throat can be, it goes away relatively quickly and life goes on. It’s not like I had a serious illness or was in a life-changing accident. It really hit home for me that health is so very important and something to be thankful for each and every day. Sadly it takes moments of sickness to realize that sometimes…
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Hi Tina! I recently had an epiphany regarding that question – Why am I in the business that I am in? At first I thought, “well, I’m in this business (I’m a VA) because that’s what I have more experience in and I like assisting others.” Blah! Yeah, I know. That doesn’t say much about anything. So then my mind went into panic mode. See, I have been feeling a bit discouraged lately and that question just took me over the edge. I was confused and felt like my business had no real purpose and that it didn’t stand out in the crowd. The truth is I really love helping others succeed and it gives great satisfaction when I know that I’m the one that helped them acheive that success. But the problem is that I don’t know how to convey my feelings into words that prospect clients can “feel” and know that I am the right fit for them. Then I got an email from you introducing Suzanne Evans. I started listening to her recording and subcribed to her free mini course and now I’m in her Help More People System. I must say that Suzanne has really re-ignited my passion. See I really don’t have a back-up plan if my business isn’t a success. I just can’t say that I’ll go back to the corporate world and get my job back – a family situation forced me to leave my job before I could really set-up my business. So I HAVE to make this work. So WHY am I in the business that I am in? I want to provide virtual assistance services to help business owners have better quality of life both at home and at work. I want to inject in them my spirit of service so that they can pay it forward to thier clients/family/friends. And after a lot of soul searching I have decided that I would love to work with coaches. Hopefully, I will be able to market to them successfully to gain a few clients before the year is over.
Have a great day Tina!
Alba
Alba – LOVE to hear that things are clicking for you. I agree, it is so easy to just do stuff by default – ie: your comment “well, I’m in this business (I’m a VA) because that’s what I have more experience in and I like assisting others.”
certainly nothing wrong with starting from that space, but being able to dig deeper and really explore what you want… I congratulate you for doing that now vs. waiting until you get REALLY frustrated. life is simply so much more than living by default, LOL.
can’t wait to hear how it goes for you – i think we are talking later this week aren’t we?
Hey Tina, glad you are feeling better! And I could not agree with you more. The body absolutely tells us to rest and if we don’t listen…well, yes, we get sick
I also think the Universe plays a role in forcing rest upon us – one day a few months back my internet went down, my power went off and my phone line was not working all in one week. As to say…take a break!!!
Thanks for sharing!
yikes! I almost think I would rather be sick than lose my phone/power/internet all at once, LOL.