As business owners it can sometimes feel impossible… your to-do list is never-ending, your hours doing all the back-end “stuff” are getting longer, and you sometimes feel a bit isolated.

Believe me, I know!

I’ve kind of been feeling a bit lost lately. Below is an honest account of what I’m doing to try to pull myself back – it’s a bit long-winded but I hope it might help someone who might be feeling the same way.

Anyone who follows my social media platforms may have noticed that my posts have been a bit hit & miss for the last few months. Truth be told my heart just isn’t in it.

Rewind 12 months and I was blitzing my marketing – I had Claire Mitchell’s lovely Marketing Planner and I was doing everything she recommended… monthly topics to plan my social media, newsletters and blog posts.

Most of my weekends were spent in front of the laptop planning my next month, or scrolling aimlessly through Facebook & Instagram feeds…

Then my dad passed away in June.

I don’t really want to focus on that… there are still days when all I want to do is cry but I focus on work and just get on with it.

For the months following his death I just went through the motions of doing my client work, of posting things on social media, I even managed to do a few videos, although my heart wasn’t really in it.

At the back of my mind all I kept thinking was “is this it?”

I spent Christmas thinking about how to get my mojo back, and it occurred to me that I never have any “me” time. My life was becoming an endless routine of spending the week doing all things admin for my clients and weekends doing the same thing but for my own business, so I decided things needed to change.

When I first started the business back in 2010, I used to spend my weekends posting on a blog that I called Weekly Tweet – it was a simple account of wildlife I saw in my back garden and I loved it! I transferred my blog onto WordPress and it evolved into Shazza’s Backyard Blog. I used to follow a group of other bloggers and we all used to comment on each other’s posts. I actually felt like I belonged to this small community and it was great.

Then my business grew and I got busier.

In all the years following, my focus has been on my business and I forgot about my hobby. I forgot about how excited I used to get when a new bird came to the feeders, or the sense of peace I had watching the foxes play out the back. I forgot how I used to zone out everything around me and just sit and listen to the birdsong.

All I did during those years was sit in front of my computer day & night…

I’m ashamed to say that I haven’t been on my blog nor any of those others since 2013. So, the other weekend I logged back into my blog and decided to update it, I installed a new theme and created a post.

I then went onto those other blogs who I connected with previously and it saddens me to say the majority haven’t posted after 2016. I have no idea why or what they’re doing now.

I’ve started properly with my blog again and it’s made me feel excited! It’s reminded me of all the old feelings I used to have pointing my camera at the bird feeders… watching and waiting. We even had a new bird on the feeder today (*gives a mini fist pump!)

I feel like my mojo is slowly coming back – I’m not 100% back to posting on my social media, and don’t even ask about my newsletters… but having a hobby means I’m refreshed when I do come back to focus on my business.

So, you might be wondering why I’m telling you my life history 😉

It’s important to make sure you have down-time, time to spend on something separate from your business… a hobby, something that brings you joy – it doesn’t have to be anything expensive or “out there”, it could be something as simple as a walk in the woods every weekend, or a craft of some kind. Whatever it is, please make sure you do it. Give yourself time away from your business otherwise you will burn out.

And if you’ve read all of this and still made it to the end of this post, a big thank you xx.

How do you switch off from your business? Do you have a hobby? Let me know in the comments…