Episode 344:10 tips for strong mental health for small business owners
In this episode, Fiona shares her personal journey of maintaining mental health as a small business owner. She discusses 10 key strategies that have helped her along the way. Tune in!
Topics discussed in this episode:
Introduction
The importance of seeking professional help for mental health
The importance of setting boundaries and carving out alone time
The positive impact of daily walks and stretches on mental health
The challenge of balancing work
Strategies for incorporating mental health practices into daily routines
Allocating time for solitude and self-reflection
Reconnecting with long-time friends for emotional support
The value of meaningful conversations with loved ones
Effective time management and creating buffers for relaxation
The significance of switching off from technology
Learning to say no and set personal boundaries
Conclusion
Get in touch with My Daily Business
Resources and Recommendations mentioned in this episode:
I know I've just talked about saying no, but I also equally think that sometimes choosing to say yes and putting yourself into new situations, different situations, situations that stretch you and test you, remind you of the strengths that you have and that you can do what's maybe perceived to be difficult things.
Welcome to episode 344 of the My Daily Business podcast. Today is a coaching episode, and I'll be going deep and quite personal. I'm going to be talking about all things mental health and how I look after my mental health as a small business owner. Before we get stuck into that, I want to of course acknowledge the traditional owners and custodians of this beautiful land on which I work and live and this land that has been so instrumental in my mental health journey. And that is the Wurrung and Wurundjeri people of the Kulin nation. And I pay my respects to their elders, past, and present, and acknowledge that sovereignty has never been ceded. Let's get into today's coaching episode.
I want to preface this episode by saying that I'm not a mental health professional. Everything that I'm going to talk through is just my own lived experience as a small business owner and how I've helped myself of my clients work through mental health challenges. If you're reading this and you are in a state where you need some professional help, I would urge you to reach out to somebody. Contact your GP contact Lifeline if you're in Australia on 13-11-14. If you're in a domestic violence situation or a situation with financial abuse or where you feel like your mental health is struggling, there are a lot of avenues out there. 1-800-RESPECT, Safe Steps, Our Watch, Yourtoolkit.com and we'll release those in the show notes for this episode. But I just want to stress, I'm not a mental health professional and I come from a family of mental health professionals.
My mom was a psychiatric nurse and a social worker bereavement counsellor. My brother is a professor in psychology and a practicing clinical psychologist and my sister is a GP with a specialization in mental health. I am none of those things. What I'm going to talk you through today is my journey with mental health and being a small business owner and the things that have helped me in particular stay mentally strong when things have been quite challenging or difficult in my life and how that then shows up in my business. Today I'll be talking through the 10 things I have found that work the best to keep on top of my own mental health. I also want to stress that these are not a replacement for going to see a psychologist or GP or somebody who can help you as a trained professional, but they are things that have helped me.
I also want to stress that I am in a very fortunate position in that I've never been formally diagnosed with a mental health condition and I have many friends who have been, and I understand that it is like any other condition that you might struggle with, whether that's chronic back pain or something else, you have to keep on top of it. That may be medication, that may be certain activities that may be talk therapy at a high frequency, whatever it is. But I just wanted to lay out that I'm coming from it today with the things that have worked for me in my particular situation. As I said, it may work well for you. Some of them I know have worked well for some of my clients, but they are not a replacement for trained professional help.
I'm going to walk you through the 10 things that have helped me. We will have a list of all of these on the show notes for this episode, which you'll be able to find at mydailybusiness.com/podcast/344. We'll also have a full list of all the books that lots of you either sent in or replied to on our Instagram that have helped you with your own mental health journey as well. If you're interested in that, make sure you head on over to the show notes after this. If you need a link to that directly, just send us a DM @mydailybusiness_. Let's get into the 10 things I think have helped me most to stay on top of my mental health.
The first, and this should come as no surprise based on what I've just been talking through, but that is to seek professional help when I have needed it. In my life, I have seen a psychologist twice and I saw them more than the first session. I have seen two other psychologists for one session and I just didn't get a good vibe, I didn't keep seeing them. The first time I saw a psychologist was when I was still employed, I was in an executive role. I just don't think that the vibe at that work was great, particularly for people with young children. I sought out a psychologist to talk through issues that I was having around the type of person I thought I needed to be in an executive role in marketing, which is what I was working on. But in a particular environment that I was in, I was stepping into a role where numerous people had resigned from that role under duress and under citing certain things and I'm not going to get into it because people got lawyers involved and all sorts of things, but I was coming into a role that I'd been warned about by previous people in that role anyway.
I didn't want to end up going down a certain path. I saw a psychologist and that was amazing. That was amazing. She was somebody who helped me see my tendencies for perfectionism, which was something very shocking to me because in my mind a perfectionist is someone who's got a perfect home and has their perfect makeup and hair like it was just polished all around and nothing in their life is messy or cluttered. When she said, I feel like you have perfectionist tendencies, I was like, “What?” It was eye-opening and eye-opening in terms of thoughts and pattern behaviour and lots of things. I saw that person for about three or four months and she gave me some good frameworks and it was amazing.
The second psychologist that I saw, I mean I did go and see one other person once and she was awful. It lasted about 20 minutes before I was like, “Okay, this is not going to work.” She told me all her family problems and I was like, “Really? I'm paying you for this.” The second psychologist and the last person that I've ever seen in this field was a grief psychologist. She was somebody who specialized in working with people to move through bereavement, loss, grief, and moving parents into palliative care. She had a wealth and extensive knowledge in that area and I saw her because my mother had died, my mother had died incredibly subtly in 2017. She wasn't feeling well and she was gone within probably a couple of hours after saying to my dad that she didn't feel well, but had gone to the hospital with a book thinking I'd be back in time. I'd be back for dinner, don't stress.
She was pronounced dead before the ambulance even got to the hospital from my parents' house. It was about a half hour. That was incredibly sudden and shocking. My mother was my best friend. I would talk to her numerous times a day. I would see her three or four times a week. She was my biggest cheerleader and my closest friend. To have that loss was incredible. Plus we were trying to conceive, I was running my business and all these things were happening and my father was aging and it was just a very hard time. Instead of bashing it out with friends and family and putting all of it onto my partner, I decided that I would see her and she was incredible.
I saw her on and off for about three years because I lost my father two and a half years after my mom. A lot was going on, plus we had another baby and there were all these things. That was an incredible experience and I have recommended her to many people just the way that she was able to have me mirror my thoughts back. We also work through dream work. She has an extensive knowledge of Jungian psychology. That was amazing. My first point is to seek people out, and seek professional help because it helps. Sometimes you are in a situation where, I mean there would be many times when I'd show up to that psychology room and be like, “I don't have anything to talk about today.” I'd get there and she would be able to bring out of me things that were ablely bubbling under the surface or things that I hadn't considered, particularly with dreamwork, which I find fascinating.
I would record my dreams and I would send them to her and we would analyze them in the next session. The amount of stuff that would come out in symbolism and other such things. It was fascinating, interesting as well and very helpful. That's my first point. Seek professional help. You may have good friends, and a great partner, but it is so great to get somebody who has nothing to do with your family, your friends or your situation and who has no biases or emotional connection to anything that you're talking about. Have them reflect back to you some of the thought patterns or things that are coming up that maybe nobody else has ever expressed to you. Do you realize that this is what you're saying to yourself or do you realize this or that?
That is number one, seek professional help. I know here in Australia, I know I have people reading from all over the world and very fortunate for a lot of people in the US therapy is, is not seen as a stigmatized thing from a lot of the people I talk to in the US, I have family in the US, it's just seen as a thing just like going to see an acupuncturist or something. Whereas in Australia, I feel like it still has a huge amount of stigma to admit that you go and see a psychologist or a therapist. Wherever you're reading from in the world, I would urge you to seek out help if you can. The second thing that has helped in terms of looking after my mental health has been, and again, this is quite individual, well it won't be individual to just me, but for me, the way that I recreate my energy or fill up my cup so to speak, is that I need time alone.
I need time alone. For some people, they may think, well isn't that going to be negatively impacting your mental health? For me, I am always like am on the border between introvert and extrovert whenever I do any of these quizzes or personality tests. But I would say that when they say an introvert gets their strength from being alone and an extrovert gets their strength from being around other people, I tend 10,000% get my strength from being alone. My husband knows that if I don't have time to myself and that could look like 20 minutes to myself just lying in bed thinking, having a cup of tea, it could look like sitting out on a balcony. It could look like reading, it could look like having a bath, whatever it looks like.
That time alone is crucial and it can be a hard thing to get, particularly when you're working, maybe you're working around other people, maybe you have young children or older children or no children, or you just have people around you, you have family, maybe you live in a big city or in a big apartment block or something else. It can be hard sometimes to just get that alone time. What has worked for me is to look at my calendar and figure out when I can have those moments. My husband and I have been together for 17 years, it's a long time. We know each other very well, but we both need that time to ourselves. He needs time to go skating, time to think about things. We will often say on a Friday, what's the plan for the weekend?
What are we doing with the kids? What are we doing with friends or family? And where's our time for ourselves? I think that is important. I know that my mental health has been stronger because of carving that time out but also asking for that time. Not that I'm saying somebody has to give me permission, I know statistically as well that women who have children find it difficult to say, I need some time, I need this time to myself. I know I used to get resentful, but it's also like my partner's not a mind reader. I now will say, this is what I need and that has helped. In my business, I'll also say to the people I work with, I need to cut back or I need to have that time even just practically.
On a Thursday for example, I do coaching back to back. Sometimes what could happen and what was happening a lot, particularly last year was that we were doing, I was doing seven calls back to back sometimes there would be 15 minutes between them. Technically they're supposed to be half an hour between them, but what was happening was that that half an hour person A would go over by 15 minutes or 17 minutes. I wasn't putting the boundaries up, I was like, “No, that's fine, we've got another five minutes.” And suddenly it was like, I've got 10 minutes to go to the toilet, get a cup of tea do whatever, prepare for the next person and then that person would go over.
It would just be this whole day of that. It was exhausting. We rescheduled things and made things so that there was more time. Yricka, who I work with is very aware of this, she'll say, “Hey, this looks like a bit too much on this particular day. Are you sure you want to do it like that?” I'll be like, yes or no. But that time alone is crucial for my mental health, which brings me to 0.3 and this is my walks and stretches and I know that there'll be people reading going, well that's very fine for you because you have a partner, I'm a single parent. Or you're in a situation where you can just go for a walk. I live in an area where I can't for example, but the walks and stretches. I do stretches for my back every day.
I had a real back issue last year and I've just got to keep on top of it. It's like anyone with a diagnosed mental health condition also needs to keep on top of that. I've been told by numerous experts in that field that I will always have this back issue now and I've just got to stop it from flaring up. Part of the prevention for that is to do these stretches every single day. I do my stretches and I try and go for a walk. That walk doesn't happen every single day, I have to say it happens about four or five times a week. That walk is about an hour to an hour and 20 minutes. It used to be about 45 minutes to an hour, we've moved house. It takes longer to get around where I'm going.
It is very hilly and it is exhausting many times I am puffing, but it is incredible for my mental health. I know that there've been many times when I will wake up and be like, I'm in a crappy mood, or it's miserable, it's cold, wet and raining outside and I'll force myself to go and I always feel better. The other thing I want to say is that quite often with these how-to look after your mental health lists, you'll hear about getting a good night's sleep. It always annoys me because that's very well, but it's not even very well for people who don't have kids because there are lots of things going on for people that will prevent them from having a good night's sleep. But people will often say, that if you get eight hours of sleep, everything's fine. I have a four-year-old, he has slept by himself fully through the night about three times in the last two years.
It's all very well for people to go and get their sleep. It doesn't happen all the time or you may be a shift worker. I get how important sleep is, I understand it, but I don't think that everyone can just go and get eight hours of sleep. For me, even if I haven't slept, that walk helps reset things. I always do my walk in the morning because I know myself, if I don't do it in the morning it won't get done. But also because it helps me start my day with such a better perspective. There are three people I bump into often on that walk. I would say all of them are in their sixties and seventies. That is very inspirational to me, that they are doing just as much of these hilly walks as myself.
They are fit, they are healthy, they are out every single morning doing it. I feel like that also inspires me to get up, and look after my physical health and my mental health. The stretches are also an important thing. When I was doing a lot of research around my back, I heard from a lot of people who said, keep up those stretches. Because what happens is that the back pain comes back when you get complacent and you stop doing it. Those stretches are also non-negotiable. My husband looks after his body in the same way. He's often doing stretches and yoga and different things in the evening. That has been helpful to be like before I go to bed every single night, I'm doing this in the morning, I'm doing it. Whilst I'm having tea or making a cup of tea, I'm waiting for the kettle to boil.
I'll often do my stretches then as well. I'm trying to look at different parts of my day and make sure that I'm getting those stretches in. If you are somebody who maybe suffers from anxiety or maybe suffers from something else and a couple of minutes of meditation or deep breathing is going to help you, then I would urge you to look at building like a habit stack. If you're making a cup of tea five times a day, do a couple of minutes of deep breathing whilst making the tea. If you are somebody who gets a commute, you have a train that you catch every single day, I would urge you to sit at the train station for a couple of minutes and do that deep breathing before you get onto the train. If your train comes at 8:15 every morning at 8:10, you start your deep breathing exercises so that you build it into something you already do.
One of the other things for my back is that balance is important. I do a Friday session every single week with the physio and one of those things is balance. One of the things I've started to do more is when I'm brushing my teeth to stand on one foot, and then when I'm brushing the other part of my teeth, I stand on the other foot. I'm trying to habit stack in a way. I would say that that is also helpful for your mental health and also for your physical health. The fourth thing that I do a lot of, and I have to say I did not do this in the first couple of years of business and I wish I had, I don't even know if it's possible, I guess it was, but I didn't do it.
That is to switch off. I know that if I look at social media late at night or even more than social media, the news app on my phone, I used to pay for the Apple News app I'd have access to all the magazines and that's why I paid for it. But what was happening was that I was just reading news item after news item. Horrible stories about murder and rape and all sorts of things. I'd be going to bed with that in my head. Firstly, I've stopped paying for the app and then I've also put a bunch of restrictions in place on my phone. You can do these if you have an iPhone, I'm not sure how you do it on an Android, but I'm sure it's probably the same thing.
But if you have an iPhone, you would just go to settings and into screen time and then you set limits for different apps. I used to just set it for apps, particularly apps like social media apps. But now I just set everything. I have a section of time where nothing works on my phone except for making a phone call and my calculator I don't know why I have an attachment to that, but sometimes I'll be like, I just need to figure this out. What else doesn't work on there? The weather app and my clock. Every other app pretty much is locked it grazes them out on your phone, but also it's just more annoying to have to like, I mean you can get around it, you can get around all of these things, but to have to ask and then go in and then change things.
That is good. More so than that I have been just leaving my phone in another room. I often have my phone charging in my office overnight or I have my phone charging in the kitchen it's not right next to me. I notice that when I switch off properly at nighttime, I sleep better. I'm in a better mood, my mind's not racing before I go to sleep. That has helped. Also during the day, I regularly put my phone on and do not disturb or focus even when I'm not seeing clients. I'll put it on that sometime I'll forget to take it off there and then I'll get a text message from my husband being like, “Hey, is everything okay?” But most of the time I will remember. But that takes time for me and switching off and creating places or platforms or tech software that has helped me.
Creating processes I should have said that have helped me switch off has been amazing. The fifth thing that I have done to look after my mental health is reading and podcasts, listening to books, listening to podcasts, listening to people's stories. Reading has been incredibly helpful and I am going to include in the show notes, we will have a full list of every book that people have recommended that has helped with their mental health. I did do a call out on social media the other day and I asked people to recommend books that have helped them in terms of their mental health journey. I'm just going to read out a couple of those, but as I said, we will have a full list on the show notes, which are over at mydailybusiness.com/podcast/344.
Some of the books are Do the Work Phosphorescence by Julia Bard, and The Pursuit of the Common Good by Paul Newman. You are a Badass. Anything by Glennon Doyle, I'm just reading out people's responses. The body keeps the score limitless. First, We Make the Beast Beautiful by Sarah Wilson. Lost Connections by Johann Hari, Mindset by Dr. Carol Dweck, Reinventing Your Life by Young and Costco. Setting Boundaries by Dr. Rebecca Ray. I love that. That is one that we regularly have in the business book club. Gabor Mate. The Anatomy of Anxiety. What else have they got? Buddhism for Mothers, I read that one. Friends recommended that when I had my first child and it was helpful. A Kind of Magic by Anna Spargo Ryan, Digital Minimalism by Cal Newport. Can't Hurt Me by David Goggins. Not strictly mental health, but improve my mindset. Do the Work. You're going to be Okay by Madeline Popelka. And The Four Agreements. Rest is Resistance. The Wisdom of Anxiety. The Artist's Way. Unmasking Autism by Devon Price. Change Your Thinking by Sarah Edelman. Laziness Does Not Exist by Dr. Devon Price and many more.
We will put those into the podcast show notes for these. I wanted to bring up two books that have helped me. The first was a book that I read back when I saw that first psychologist. She recommended it and it is called Unstuck by James Gordon. The Unstuck, like the tagline, is Seven Steps to Getting Out of Depression. I have never been formally diagnosed with depression, but I feel like I have gone through bouts of situational depression where something is happening. I think a lot of people went through this during the pandemic. The book by Dr. James Gordon talks you through seven Steps to get out of Depression. But a lot of them are things like going for a walk or exercise. But he also talks a lot about mindset. I'm conscious of saying mindset when sometimes people have real chemical imbalances and things that need to be put right.
It's not just your mindset that will fix everything, but he does talk about the choice we have sometimes of figuring out which path we will go and how much harder it is sometimes to stick on the path that is aligned with your values or other things that are important to you. There was a diagram in that book that was so helpful to me that I got a tattoo, I created a different type of diagram, but created a tattoo based on that book. It was a good one that helped me a lot at that time. The second book that has helped, again, I want to say I've not been formally diagnosed with anxiety, and I'm not trying to say I totally understand where people are coming from, who have been, but I've had, I would say, I don't even know if this is a term situational anxiety where I have felt very anxious about things or spiralled into worrying about stuff that was not necessarily going to happen.
That book is called Untangle Your Anxiety by Joshua Fletcher and Dean Stott. Both of those people have Instagram handles that have got I think I think Dean Scott has like a million followers or something and it's DLC Anxiety. But the book is called Untangle Your Anxiety, A Guide to Overcoming an Anxiety Disorder by Two People Who Have Been Through It. Again, it's by Joshua Fletcher and Dean Stott and I listened to that on Audible a while ago. And just some of the things they were saying were helpful, even in terms of talking about if you find yourself checking social media a lot more, it's because we have this made-up belief that social media is relaxing us when often it is doing the opposite.
There were just a few good things in there that spoke to me. Again, I don't have an anxiety disorder, however, I feel, well maybe I do, but I've never been diagnosed with it. But I feel that it helped. I'm just coming from my experience. Some of these things may help you, some things may not, but we'll list those in the show notes. A lot of people also talked about podcasts that have helped. The ones that I like in this space are The Imperfects Podcast. That is an Australian podcast. You can listen to it everywhere. How to Fail by Elizabeth Day. She has a book as well called How to Fail. But books and podcasts and just listening to other people's stories.
I often listen to No Filter with Mia Friedman from Mamma Mia. I like that, particularly when she's talking to people who have gone through certain struggles or challenges. Everybody does. I think that's the thing with listening to podcasts or reading books, it's important to remember sometimes that everybody goes through this, everyone goes through this stuff. To remind yourself you're not alone, because I think when you are in the grips of a mental health challenge, you do tend to feel like you're the only person that this is happening to. Why can't you just get through it like everybody else seems to be doing? I will put those books and podcasts or my lovely team will put them into the show notes. That was number five. Number six, connecting with friends. What I mean is my real close friends who have known me for years and years, I recently had breakfast with a good friend who I have been friends with for 30 years if that.
I have probably more than 30 years now. We even have matching tattoos. We have bad tattoos, but they're not bad. They have a story. We got matching tattoos when we were like 17 and 18. There's something wonderful about catching up with somebody who knows you, who knows all of you, who knows who you've been through all different seasons in your life and they just accept you wholeheartedly as who you are. I think sometimes we forget to make time for those people. Sometimes we can get caught up with the people that are in our immediate circle. Maybe the people we see at work every day or the people in our team or that thing, as opposed to making time for those old school friends that, that know you that has been good.
Connecting with other friends who know me, I have a great friend in New Zealand, Paul Darragh from Bemodern. We've been friends for 20 years next year. That has been somebody who has seen me through all sorts of seasons in my life I think sometimes we can get caught up with work and growing your business and doing all the business things. If you have a young family or children, you can get caught up with that and catch up with just a day-to-day. Sometimes it's important to step back and be like, who can I connect with right now that is somebody that I maybe haven't talked to for a while, but somebody who understands me. Particularly I think if certain situations are coming up that are impacting your mental health that had to do with maybe experiences that you may have had in your family life or in your younger life, it's important to connect with those people who also knew us when that stuff was happening because we can get their viewpoint on things as well.
That's number six, connecting with your good friends. Number seven, big one. I guess this is why Rebecca Ray's Setting Boundaries book resonated with so many people the art of saying no. The art of saying, “No, I'm not going to do that,” or “No, that's not a priority,” or No, I can't come and do this for you right now because I am feeling that I need to reconnect with myself or bring things back to myself so that you can help your mental health. What does saying no look like in our business? We have everything on the side of Calendly. I've talked about it before. If people want to connect with me through a consult call or even do a coaching session, they book in through a tool that we use Calendly, which only shows my availability.
There's not this back and forth. Or sometimes what I know I used to do in the first couple of years of my business was that I would just make myself available even though I had maybe put that section of time out of my calendar, like, I'm going to work on this. But that person wants to talk in the middle of that, but that's okay, I'll talk to them. It's okay. I don't think those things are great for your mental health. If you keep setting boundaries and then not sticking to the boundaries, that's also not a great thing for you to then feel like to feel strong and to feel like I'm looking after myself, I'm setting boundaries, I'm putting things in place to protect my time. The other thing is to think about what people are asking from you.
In small business it can be a real struggle sometimes to walk that fine line between potentially wanting to grow your brand or grow your business, but also saying no to things if they don't suit you. Case in point, we have a group who are lovely, I'm not going to say too much, I don't want to incriminate anything, but there was a situation recently where somebody had set up a time for me to do something they cancelled at the last minute, which is fine, I get it, these things happen. They asked for another time that didn't work. Then they asked if I could do this thing in the evening and I just said no. I said to my assistant, “No, I'm sorry, I'm not going to give up the time that I have with my family and with my partner and for myself to do this thing when it's already been organized twice and it was cancelled at their part twice.”
That can take a while to get to that point where you feel okay to say no, particularly when something's going to potentially grow your brand awareness or do something in that light of your marketing. But to be like, no, that is my time and if I keep giving it up to other people, then how is that benefiting me long term for my mental health to know that I've spent the time that I need, I have the downtime, I have “Me time”. That is number seven to get used to saying no. Number eight seems like it's opposite to what I've just said is to say yes. By saying yes, what I mean is that sometimes when you're in a bit of a funk, you can feel like you just want to hide and not say yes to anything and not turn up to anything.
What I've found that has helped my mental health journey is to say yes to certain things. Particularly like let's say catching up with friends or socializing, quite often you can get to the end of the week and be like, I cannot be bothered going out and meeting that group tonight or meeting this thing or going to this concert that I said I was going to go to or go and see somebody talk even though you wanted to do it at some point. You set that up. I think sometimes you want to ask yourself if you genuinely don't want to do that, and if that is encroaching on your time and your personal space, or if it's just, I'm going into my shell and I don't want to be around people and you're letting that misery loop strengthen itself by staying in.
One thing that I've found is that quite often I'll be like, okay, no, come on Fiona, push yourself. Go out. I don't go out about them that much, it's like, “Okay, go out.” Every time I've done it, I've come back and been like, that was amazing. I'm so glad I went the the concert was fantastic. The person we saw speak was amazing. I had good conversations. It's always been an uplifting experience. Not always, but most of the time. For example, I'm coming up soon, I'll be going to see a classical musician with somebody that I don't know that well, I know them a little bit but not very well. They put it out in a group chat and I was like, “You know what? Yes, I'll go.”
It's something different. I don't often go to see classical music, it's somebody you've never heard of before, but it's local to me. It's like, just get out of your comfort zone a little bit. I think that can also help. I know I've just talked about saying no, but I also equally think that sometimes choosing to say yes and putting yourself into new situations, different situations, situations that stretch you and test you, remind you of the strengths that you have and that you can do what may be perceived to be difficult things at times. I think that can help. I also know that sometimes when you are in a negative headspace, you can start seeing this world shrinking in on you and you can think things like, I don't have any friends, or I don't have this.
You go to social media and it looks like everybody has their life sorted. When you're saying to yourself, I have no friends or no one asked me to do this or that, and then you say no to stuff where people have asked you, you're finding the evidence yourself and then it's just this loop that you're in. Whereas if you stop and be like, that person's asked me to do something, I'm going to go and do it. It's like, yes, I do have friends, I do have people out there to hang out with it, people like me. I know personally when I've been in that mindset of like, everything's crap then you can, you can almost make the world smaller by saying no to socializing, no saying no to going to get a cup of tea with somebody.
Number eight, saying yes to socializing, getting out of the house, going to do something new, going to play some sport or doing something fun even if you don't feel like it right that second. Because of the benefits that when you get out it's statistically proven that our mental health people with good friendships and a good social network are mentally feeling often mentally stronger than people who don't feel like that and feel isolated and alone. That's number eight, saying yes when it feels right. Number nine, I know there'll be people listening and thinking, that's very nice for you, but not everyone has that. I get that I am talking about my own lived experience and things that have helped me. Number nine is tea and chats with my husband.
My husband and I, have been together this month, for 17 years, and we have been married for this year, 15 years. It's a long time to be I sounded exhausted, but it's a long time. But it is a long time to be in a situation and a relationship. We don't often see each other in the evenings. He goes surfing, he sees his mom. I do certain things during the week and we've got two children. What we do is quite often we will be like, “Okay, let's make a cup of tea and let's just have a chat.” Just have a chat. It's not every night. I'm not saying, every single night we have this perfect relationship, but particularly when either of us has needed it, we will say, “Hey, we just turn the TV off and just have a chat.” It's nice.
I did see somebody on social media who said that one of the best things that's worked in their relationship is that once their kids are to bed, they have 15 minutes to themselves, just 15 minutes. They even sometimes put on a timer where they don't do anything else until they have sat down and talked about their day. For us, that wouldn't work. Our elder child doesn't necessarily go to sleep until we are going to bed. It's not like, everyone's asleep and we can just have this complete time to ourselves. It just wouldn't work every single night to do that because as I said, we are out, and we do different things each night. But it does help sometimes if, even if you're watching a good Netflix show, to turn it off and be like, let's just chat now, maybe you don't have a partner.
Maybe it's a friend that you could call. Maybe it's your mom. If you're lucky enough to have that relationship and a parent who's alive to have that chat to be like, maybe it's in the evening or at lunchtime and you just text them and be like, “Could we have a chat tonight?” Even if it's over the phone or other things. I would love to chat with somebody right now. Again, it goes back to that whole asking for help and putting yourself out there even when sometimes it doesn't feel like it. I have to say every time that I have a chat with my husband in the evening and we are talking about real things, it's helped both of us. Likewise, he'll sometimes come to me and be like, this is what's going on at the moment or this is what I'm challenged by or could I get your thoughts on this?
We are very lucky that we have that relationship, but we've also worked on having that relationship. Number 10, and this has been huge for my mental health, is to have somebody on my team. I have my wonderful assistant, Yricka, who knows my boundaries, who as I said, will often say to me, “Hey, it looks like I was looking through the calendar and this day is coming up and it looks like there's way too much on it. Do you want me to reschedule a couple of things?” That has been amazing. But also we schedule time out. She schedules, it's her birthday or she's going away or whatever, we talk about that ahead of time. I think July was like, can you please put your holidays into the calendar for January because I want to make sure that we are not overscheduling you.
That has been helpful. Also, what I do is to put school holidays. I have a child at primary school I will put the school holidays into the calendar, at the start of each year. Even about now, I'll be looking at like, what are the school holidays for 2024? Put them in. Also, if we go away, I will try and make sure that on Monday, and Tuesday, even if the kids are back at school, that Monday, Tuesday, I don't have that much on so that I'm not coming straight in from holidays. You have the weekend, you have to do the laundry, all the things, and then go straight back into a full-on week. I know not everyone has that. Maybe you have a physical store that you just can't shut for two days. However, you could open an hour later you could open and then close for lunchtime for an hour and then open again in the afternoon.
There are things you can do to help soften that holiday blues when you come back in. Even things like if it's the long weekend and I know that my partner and everyone will be home on Monday or Friday. Let's say it's on Monday, I will make sure that I'm not going slam into something first thing on Tuesday because everyone's been home. It's like a weekend. And I often have a Monday to work on my marketing, do my podcast, do all of that stuff. And Tuesdays when I see people. I don't want to rush right back into seeing people if I've just had a long weekend. These are the things that I know might sound very luxurious, but I know that they can be done. I've worked with people who have big teams and they come into a corporate office or I have worked with people who have restaurants or cafes or things that they can't just shut, but there are ways around it so that you can look after your mental health and you don't feel like you're just going and you're not having any downtime.
Those are the 10 things amongst so many other things that have helped me in my mental health journey, I'll just recap them. The first is to seek out professional help. Go and talk to your GP, go and talk to your doctor. Go and look at even things that might be around your area, whether that's acupuncture or yoga or something else that's going to get you to slow down, switch off from work and life and all of the stresses even I didn't mention. But one thing that I do before pretty much every coaching call is that we do a 30 to 60-second meditation where I'm just like, everyone closes your eyes, get a glass of water, do some deep breathing, whatever you need to do to then show up present and I'll do the same.
I'm doing that numerous times a day when I'm seeing clients and that has been helpful. Seek out professional help wherever you can. The second point is time alone. I wanted to say I'm an introvert by nature. I get my strength by being by myself. That has to be scheduled. I also have to ask for that. I don't have to ask, but as in no one's a mind reader in my family. I can't get all annoyed that I don't have any time by myself unless I say, “Hey, this weekend this is what I need.” How are we going to work them into the schedule? Number three, getting out for a morning walk has been game-changing. I've been doing that for three or four years now, probably longer because it started before the pandemic, but then it got full belt full on in the pandemic.
Walks and daily stretches have been important. Also stacking those things. Doing my stretches while I'm making a cup of tea, doing things so that they just become a habit. Switching off number four, switching off. I talked about using different technology systems to be able to turn off my access to apps, putting my phone downstairs, and not looking at the news app right before I go to bed. All of those things can help. Number five, reading and listening to podcasts, listening to other people's stories. As I said, we'll put a full list of all the books that were recommended by everyone on Instagram and through our email. Number six, connecting with real friends. Connecting with people who I've known for some time, connecting with people who will have gotten me grounded, come back to yourself. All of those things.
Number seven, saying no and being okay with saying no full stop, without having to justify why you're saying no. Number eight, saying yes, saying yes to socializing, getting out of the house, doing something different just to meet new people, to have new experiences to get your brain firing in a different way. Number nine, tea and chats with my husband. But it could be for you, it might be with a friend, with a family member, with your neighbour, whatever it is. But making that space and again saying, I need this right now. Do you have some time? Number 10, working out my schedule with the people that I work with so that I know when I can have downtime. I know that even though there might be seasons where things are full on and I'm doing a lot of extra work, let’s say writing a book on top of my normal work and life or moving house or some other things there is a bit of a buffer between these instances.
It's not just this go where you feel like you have not got a break because that will just lead to burnout. Those 10 things have helped. As I said at the start, I'm not a mental health professional. Please go and seek out help if you need that. There is no shame and you should never feel ashamed of having any mental health condition. It is like any other ailment that our body is going through that we need to manage and look after. That is it for me today. If you want to go through this in text format and check out that list of books, you'll find them over at mydailybusiness.com/podcast/344. If you found this useful, I would love it so much. If you could give us a review either on Apple or Spotify or wherever you listen to this podcast, it just helps other people find this podcast. Who knows, there might be a small business owner right now who needs to hear some of these 10 tips for looking after their own mental health. Thank you so much for reading. I'll see you next time. Bye.
