Q2 2022 Review
Sunlight makes all the difference. I emerged into Q2 as if crawling out of a dank cave, and for a while I had to just lie there and soak up some light before getting to my feet (you can catch up on the Q1 review here). With the lengthening days came, on the whole, an uplift of mood and an end to the waiting – for green, for light, for life – of the previous three months.
April was a kind of tumbling. My best friend came to visit, it was my birthday where another friend took me out for the day and then all of a sudden I was on a plane to Portugal. I almost don’t remember the April before I left although of course much was happening. I was beginning to open back up to work, realising how I actually missed trying that little bit more, starting to dream up the shape of what the next iteration of my business was going to be. I was starting to hope in a way that felt grounded and not impossible. I was starting to make things, take action. And then I landed in Lisbon.
When I returned I found it impossible to talk about the trip because I had no idea how to condense it down into a few sentences – hell, I couldn’t even condense it into a few pages. I had been intensely nervous about going, not because it had been so long since I’d travelled and not because I was going alone, but because I didn’t trust myself to embrace it. I was worried that I would overthink and stay in my room and not stop at cafes and not take up space. And for the first hour of the first morning I did do that, lying stock still in my room thinking I had made the biggest mistake and texting my friends about whether I should book a different hotel or come back early. I dredged up every bit of intention I had and I walked out the door, said good morning to the people in my flat and slipped out into the city.
The rest of the trip was like the sky cracking open. I surprised myself endlessly with my ability to meet my needs and look after myself in a way that I didn’t at home. I did exactly what I wanted and relished it, I stopped in cafes and I took myself out for dinner, I tried a new museum every day, I struck up conversations with strangers, I did things I’d assumed I would never do without a backwards glance. I felt confident and light and so, so at home with myself. This trip showed that what I am is so much brighter and brilliant than I thought I was.
When I was away I made a decision about the business. I had the option to play safe and continue booking one-to-one, or take a risk and wait to launch The Cabin. The former would have brought more financial security but felt like a denial of my self; the latter meant that I would have a few months with barely any income holding out for the hope that the programme would work out – but it was the option that felt like a life worth living.
And so the story of Q2 became a story about money – or rather, about how I thought about money.
I quickly forgot that I had actually chosen the risk of waiting; I forgot that I had been conscious it was a risk at all. I got on with making The Cabin materials and starting on launch content and freaking out that I couldn’t make money anymore. Initially I buried my head in the sand, buying shoes and clothes I didn’t want or need (and later returned), I think as a way to try to show myself it was fine or to get the dopamine hit from capitalism. But then I started panicking. I panicked about what would happen to me if The Cabin didn’t work out and I panicked about what I was going to do before The Cabin launched. I cried big snotty sobs on the phone to friends because what was going to do if this didn’t work?
During this time I thought back to the me who started this business. The me who created courses and workshops without it being a logical option that they wouldn’t sell – that 2018 me had problems but lack of belief wasn’t one of them. I was reminded, yet again, about how much the last two years has shaken my confidence. While I mustered a strength I never knew I had, I also spent most of it in survival mode and insecurity, and being under stress that long is still leaking its impact.
But that’s ok. Because I decide. So far, the only person saying “it’s not going to work” was me, and I was the only one who mattered. I can decide it’s not going to work and act accordingly, or I can decide I’m going to make it work – and then make it work. I remembered that I am no longer in that powerless life, that situation where none of what happened was down to me. I have the power to affect my life now – and I am the only one who does.
I made a plan, and I worked my way through it. I created and started to publish a lot of content which I wasn’t just making to tick a box but that I was eager for people to read and listen to. I started caring less – by which I mean, I didn’t overthink whether this post should go next to that post or whether this was the best way to do a Reel – and as a result I started enjoying sharing on Instagram for the first time in about a hundred years. I looked in my planning app the other day and my first thought was “oh no I can’t put those two pictures side by side, I’m going to have to redo everything” and then I remembered “I don’t care about that anymore” and let me tell you the RELIEF was freeing.
When I started writing this I scrolled back through my Q1 Review just to remind myself of the structure of these reviews. At the very end I wrote what I wanted for Q2 – to laugh more, to sit outside, to make an effort, to create. As I read these paragraphs I realised that I had done all of it.
