I’m writing this at 6am as I woke up from a dream where I was writing this exact blog post (I know right, they some boring ass dreams) and I knew I had to get it down before I lost it.

I wanna talk today about shit hitting the fan. You know what I mean by that, you’ve lived as an adult in 2020. We’re all CEOs of shit hitting the fan by this point.

Late last night when I should have been doing some deep self-care exercise like meditation, having an epsom salt bath or journaling, I was naturally on Tik Tok instead.

As I scrolled down the For You page I came across a woman who had just had a therapy session where her therapist told her “Sure, it’s hard, but it doesn’t HAVE to be”, and she was having a mic drop moment deconstructing what this actually means.

I’d go in to my favourites to link it but let’s be honest, this post would never see the light of day if I fell into a TikTok trap at 6 in the morning.

‘It doesn’t have to be hard.’ is not a mind blowing sentence in and of itself. We hear it all the time, it’s a go to when you’re trying to cheer on a friend or a loved one, but when was the last time you adopted it for yourself?

When was the last time you actually sat down with yourself when struggling over something, or you were worried or anxious or freaking out, and told yourself dead on “Hey, it doesn’t HAVE to be this hard.’

If you read between the lines, what this actually means is “You’re making it harder than it needs to be. Just don’t.” and we don’t like that kinda confrontation as living breathing beings with feelings, do we? I know I don’t, and then again I’m well aware that I frequently make things harder than they need to be.

You can’t control the world around you, but how you react and respond is a choice.

Students on my Creative VA Blueprint course are getting new clients left, right and center. Sure, they have their moments of self-doubt, or of needing help pricing a retainer or a package, or even panic setting in when they sign the new client and suddenly have a job to do, but what’s really inspired me watching them lately is that they know it COULD be hard as total newbies, but they’re sucking it up and doing it anyway with the support of their course sisters and seeing ridiculous success only 12 weeks in to their Creative VA business journey.

One of my best friends who is a successful Interior Designer once told me that she was terrified of telling her client their curtains were delayed by a number of weeks during a house reno project, she built up the scenario playing out horribly in her head for days before coming clean about the project delay and her client looked her dead in the eye and said…

“Darling, no one ever died through lack of nice curtains.”

…and it stuck with her, and I, ever since.

Whenever I’m freaking out about a project (because yes ma’am you bet that still happens 5 years into running this biz), or about a task being overdue to the point of embarrassment, or a tech glitch effing up an entire funnel, my mind instantly goes to that gem of a client taking it in her stride about her curtains being late.

Will anybody die as a result of your involvement with this panic scenario? I can almost 99.999999999% guarantee your answer is no.

Is your problem figureoutable? I can 100% guarantee that it is.

Everything is figureoutable.

Did you say yes to something you’ve got literally NO idea how to do, just to sign the client – and now you actually have to DO the thing? Been there, girlfriend, get your fine ass on Google and WORK. IT. OUT.

This thing you’re worrying about will be scary only for as long as you let it be.

Next time you’re putting off pushing yourself, taking a leap, scaling your knowledge or jeez, scaling your income because it seems hard or scary, I want you to remind yourself that this will be hard ONE time. Once it’s done, it’ll never phase you ever again.

I’ve got a student loan debt of £46,000 that wasn’t remotely scary to enter in to when I was 21 because everyone goes to uni, right? It’s just what people do. Plot twist, I’ve never even used that degree that’s hanging on my wall.

But spending $997 on an online course that literally changed the course of my entire life 5 years ago and was the catalyst to me starting this business was TERRIFYING. I had MANY a conversation with myself to talk myself into it. And what would have been the cost if I didn’t? My business would never have existed. For the sake of not spending that once scary amount of money, I wouldn’t have made the £325,000 my business has made in the last 4.5 years.

That $997 investment I made turned in to over a quarter of a million pounds. That makes my head explode.

Admittedly, some things are genuinely hard. During lockdown my Mum was admitted to hospital with a suspected heart attack (she’s back home now and is miraculously absolutely fine) but holy shit if it wasn’t HARD trying to work on 3 separate client launches, 7 client brand and web projects and managing CVAB course content and students all while my own Mum was in a hospital bed during a pandemic for 5 days when nobody could visit her.

I found solace and support in having faith in the Universe, in praying to my angels and guides, in speaking to my friends who’ve had this happen to their parents, in Whatsapp, of all things, for enabling us to stay in contact with eachother. We got through it.

The worst thing in the world could happen and tomorrow morning the sun will still rise, you’ll make your coffee and eat your toast, and the world will keep turning. It’s up to you to turn with it, sister.

You’re reading this for a reason, and I hope someday these words will resonate with you if they don’t already. Let this blog post be your curtain lady.

And when shit REALLY hits the fan, know that you’ve got a friend in me ❤️