How To Thrive In a Time of Stress & Uncertainty

We’re in a unique situation right now with the current pandemic and while I’m not here to talk about the specific details of that. I am here to talk more about how we can thrive with what we have going on, in this time of stress and uncertainty.

Making the best out of a crazy situation can seem overwhelming but right now, we have a unique opportunity to take the time to slow down and produce our best work.

We’re being forced to slow down.

Now, I’m sure there are a lot of you that are really stressed out right now and you may have seen a decrease in partnerships, collaborations, and in people purchasing your services.

Instead of getting down about this decrease, I want to encourage you that now is the perfect time to focus on the foundation of your business to build it up.

I think there’s a common misconception that when things change and shift, maybe there’s a crisis. Maybe someone in your family is sick and you have to help take care of them, maybe the economy isn’t great, maybe a tornado that comes through your town.

When these things happen, it can feel like you need to hold off on what it is that you do and that you should just slow down so you can conserve your time, energy, and money.

But that energy trickles down into everything.

If you slow down, if you lower the throttle on your business, it will have a ripple effect on everything you do and will last a long time.

Before we get into the details on how you can thrive during a crisis, I do want to say this one thing.

When we are facing a crisis, it is important for you to focus on yourself and your physical, mental, and emotional wellbeing. Make sure to get a lot of rest, get your blood flowing, and take time for you.

If you don’t do those things, you won’t be able to think clearly for your business. It all feeds into one another.

Shifting Gears During a Crisis

With the current pandemic and a lot of slowing down on the things they normally do for their businesses, it’s a great time to shift your focus.
If you’ve been focusing on bringing in brand collaborations, pumping out a ton of content, and being more reactionary to everything that is coming to you, this is a great opportunity to re-frame and look at this time as a time to slow down and focus on those systems you’ve been meaning to create.

When you do go to write a blog post, this is a great opportunity to spend the extra time to document what is the process behind exactly how you create content and look for inefficiencies in your process.

Go through and look for those inefficiencies in your process and document your process so that you can create a more efficient process that allows you to scale your business. This will also help you prepare to offload some of these tasks onto your team.

Putting Systems in Place

When you have a slower workload, it’s the perfect time to put these systems in place. With more breathing room, you’ll be able to stress test them and see how they work.

With the ability to have more eyes on the process more than you normally would, you can see:

• How this works with your whole process;
• If it makes sense;
• If it is efficient;
• If there are pieces of the process that need to be tweaked and fixed.

Then when everything starts flowing back into your life, you’ve been keeping up that energy level that will help you return after a crisis without needing extra time to ramp up.

Keeping up the momentum you had at the beginning of the year will allow you to shift and pivot the energy into the foundation of your business.

Tackling the New “Normal”

After a crisis, as you start to enter your new “normal,” it’ll be easier to balance pitching brands, writing new content, putting out affiliate links, and working on collaborations and events.

You’ll be ready for it!

You’ve put the systems in place. You’ve stress tested them.

You’ve used your time wisely while things were slower and now you don’t have to take as much time to ramp up.

You’ll be ready for the new flow of business that’ll come in and you’ll be mentally, physically, and emotionally prepared for this new change.

If you are still struggling to feel inspired even after you’ve put these new systems in place, I highly recommend spending time re-discovering your why.

Why did you start your blog in the first place? Why are people coming to you over your competitors? What is it about you that makes you special? What is your zone of genius that you’re sharing with people?

This is time to dig in, this is your time to thrive throughout a crisis, this is your time to keep that “open” sign on.

Always cheering you on,

Kate

Creator of the Smarter Not Harder: 3-Day Workweeks for Millennial Entrepreneurs©  Program

Owner + Founder, Kate Waldo + Co. 

P.S. Curious how you can grow your 6-figure business while slashing your workweek in half? Click here to learn about the Smarter Not Harder© program!