I’m so Sick of This I Could Punch a Bird (and I’m Anti-Animal Violence)

Yesterday I woke up and my throat was on fire.

I pulled my book light out of my bedside drawer and waddled over to the mirror to check out my throat (with the help of my book light). It was inflamed…tomato red…and I’ll spare you the other details that made my husband say, “Oh, April…gross.”

Marriage is the best, right?

I also ached all over. My joints and muscles throbbed.

I considered cancelling my pilates personal training appointment, because who wants to exercise when they feel like they’ve got strep throat or the flu?

But, I didn’t cancel.

For one thing, I go to these sessions with my mother-in-law, so if I cancelled, it would mean flaking out on her and I didn’t want to do that. For another, I wondered if working out would make me feel better (if I took it slow).

I doubted it would, but I had hope.

I forced myself to eat some dried apple slices, drank a glass of water and put on my favorite workout outfit which includes this long-sleeved top that has an open back with all these thin straps that show off your sports bra.

Putting on that outfit made me feel more badass. (Hmmmm…I guess it’s not very hard to make me feel more badass if a semi-backless workout top can do the trick.)

Anyways, I went to my personal training session and killed it.

(For those of you suffering with chronic illness looking for some way to exercise, look into pilates. Not the ‘let’s do 18 million crunches on a mat’ pilates–but the pilates you do on the scary looking pilates machine. It’s called reformer pilates. The studio I go to focuses on healing and starts you off with realigning your body and from what I’ve learned, a lot of studios focus on that. Seriously…check it out!)

I came home and within about an hour I realized that I didn’t feel sick anymore. My throat didn’t hurt. My muscles didn’t ache.

I was amazed.

I had a call for my membership program, Sunday Society, later that evening and I felt great during it and after. I still had lots of energy after the call wrapped at 7:45pm.

I believe that the deep breathing and blood flow helped my immune system and gave my body what it needed.

The reason I’m sharing this with you is because this is an instance where I could’ve decided that I had no control and spent the day in bed.

No one would have faulted me. I was sick.

Instead, I took control of the situation. I went to personal training with the hope that it would help me feel better.

I could’ve made other decisions that morning that would’ve made me feel worse such as eating a donut instead of apple slices or not eating anything at all or drinking soda instead of drinking water. Each of those decisions helped me feel better.

I’ve thought about this a lot lately.

How we so easily give up control. We make excuses. We blame someone or something else.

“The reason Facebook doesn’t work for me is because of the algorithm.”

How about you take a good look at your content, because plenty of people make Facebook work just fine. Is your content original? Is it thoughtful? Are you posting regularly? Are you using Facebook Live? Have you learned about what works well on Facebook? Do you actually really try or do you just post something, boost it for $5 and hope you get a sale or two?

“I can’t sell my handmade products because Etsy has changed.”

Get your own damn website! Bring your own traffic to your Etsy shop. Stop relying on Etsy, because you’ll constantly be disappointed. You should never be reliant on another business for yours to work, because you never know when they’re going to change things. They don’t have any obligation to you. Get over it and get business savvy…which starts with building an email list, my friend.

“It’s not my fault if I don’t reach my sales goals, because I can’t control if people buy from me or not.”

Well…I disagree. You can’t control whether people buy from you or not. That’s true. But, you can amp things up when you realize that you’re not meeting your sales goals. And, you can get your products in front of MORE people so that you can increase your sales.

If you’re a product-based business, this might mean contacting double or triple the amount of stores for wholesale accounts. If you’re in mid-launch for a course, this might mean jumping on Instagram and Facebook Live every day for an hour to talk about the program, answering customer service questions personally, running a webinar two more times, contacting colleagues to ask them to promote your course, hosting a giveaway and running more Facebook ads.

If you really want to reach those sales goals, I bet there’s a lot more action you can take. You don’t have to give up control so easily.

It’s demoralizing to give up control. To think it’s up to Facebook or Etsy or other people if you succeed.

When you realize that you have a lot more power than you once thought, it’s motivating if you’re willing to do the work.

But, you have to be willing to take control and do the work.