Your Flare-Up Lasted Longer Than You Thought, Now What?

Welcome to Crafted to Thrive, the globally ranked podcast for entrepreneurs living with chronic illness. I'm your host, Nikita Williams, and after being diagnosed with multiple chronic illnesses myself, I figured out the surprisingly simple missing links to growing a profitable business without compromising my health. Since then, I've helped dozens of women just like you learn how to do the same. If you're ready to own your story and create a thriving business that aligns with your health and wellbeing, you're in the right place. Together, we're shifting the narrative of what's possible for entrepreneurs with chronic illness. This is Crafted to Thrive. So we've all been there. You have at some point been going through a pretty good bout of life, right? You found your flow. You find yourself, you know, eating differently, incorporating foods you haven't had in a long time. You're more active, you're hanging out with people, and you're like scared to kind of like even be excited about feeling better. Because we often have experienced what I like to call just the bottom out, like the bottom out when a flare-up hits you, right? And you start to feel like at some point you've done something wrong, even though deep down inside, you know, it's just a part of this process as a chronic illness warrior that you're not always going to feel great. And at times it's gonna feel very inconvenient that a flare-up happens. We've all experienced that, right? Been in your business, you're going, you've been doing the things, you're feeling better. You found like the healthcare people to support you. You found that holistic functional medicine doctor that gets you and helps you find the supplements you need, and you feel like you have more energy and time. And then one evening or middle of the day, something shifts for you. It's like all of the energy is like yanked out of your body. Like you literally feel limp, like you will collapse. Have you been there and had the thought, oh no, a flare-up is coming? A flare-up is not even coming, it's here, right? And not only thinking about that, but you're like, I have planned, I'm doing so many things and everything's going in the right direction, and now I have to deal with this flare.. And not to mention, is this flare not just like a normal flare? It's something different. It's something new symptoms. It's something that you've never really experienced. It feels different. Now, if you're listening to this and you're like, Nikita Williams, oh my gosh, please stop triggering me right now. Stop like, you know, making me think. And if I'm going through this, you either get it right now. You feel like you, you either fully understand what I'm saying because you're experiencing it right now, or you have experienced it and it feels kind of like jarring to your system, but I want to talk about this because what happens when the flare-up that we're used to, right? Maybe it's a week, maybe it's a couple of months, give or take, turns into 6 months to a year. And you're still trying to figure out what's going on. It shifts things for you. I'm sharing this because this has happened to me in my journey as an entrepreneur, multiple, multiple times. Multiple times to the point that now it doesn't surprise me. It doesn't knock additional wind and energy out of my body and my mind energetically. It also is not something that I beat myself up for. It's also something that for the most part, I don't think, what did I do to deserve this? Or what did I do to prevent this? Yada, yada, yada. Right. It's just a part of this journey as a chronic illness warrior. I'm going to have some stuff. I can do everything right and a flare-up can still happen. It will still happen, right? But what happens when it feels like it happens at the most inconvenient time and lasts forever? And when you have a business, this is probably the most challenging, I feel, things to get accustomed to as an entrepreneur, right? Depending on your flare-up, it could be pain, physical pain. It could be mental and emotional drain, fatigue, brain fog, migraines. It could be so many different things. It could be swelling. It could be losing your voice. It could be that you visually, like how you appear, you're having breakouts. Your, your, your skin is irritated at everything you do or every space you contain. So all of the things are on fire, it feels like. And you're like, how am I going to run a business? How am I going to show up and be visible? How am I going to do anything? And how is this not going to once again put a wrench in my plans and I will forever be taking forever, right? This is a topic we've got to talk about. Right. This is one of the things my clients come to me often feeling, and it's probably the biggest thing we work through when I'm working with my clients, which is this feeling that when flare-ups happen, they have to experience this feeling like they're starting all over again every single time they re-pick up or figure out a way to manage this new thing that's going on and run their business. And they feel like they're always at a stop and stall, like stall and go, and— or just a like, like we're back at square one and starting, starting all over again every time this happens. And when your flare-up happens and it lasts longer than you would have wanted or even imagined it could, it puts a real damper on your mindset and your creative joy and juice. And it's a lot of times because of the way we're viewing it. And also, it's really hard. So I'm sharing this because I think it's something that we all need to talk about in order to see that, one, let's normalize that flare-ups are going to happen in our journey as entrepreneurs. Let's also normalize that there are going to be times when we don't know what's happening, and it's going to be brand new, and it's going to require us to learn and pivot and do things a little differently and to be more loving and self-compassionate with ourselves even more than we already were, right? And I think these things are skills that we develop as chronic illness warriors, but when it comes to our business, we don't do it as often. We kind of like beat ourselves up. We kind of put— we put ourselves back at the starting point when we are dealing with these things and coming back to quote unquote our business. So for me personally, I have, especially in the last 2 years, I've had some new random, I've had new diagnoses, I've had new stuff going on. Like currently right now today in 2023 of August, I am dealing with a new kind of brain fog cognitive situation. We don't know what's going on. Lots of blood work. I'm working with my functional medicine doctor, waiting forever to meet with a neurologist that like there's a 6 or 9 month wait. Can y'all like, just for a moment, let me digress. Is that not ridiculous? Is that not ridiculous? Okay. I'm back to what we were talking about, but I'm at that place. Right. And it's at a, at the most in my, in, in, in my head, it's like the most inconvenient place. I'm getting ready to launch, relaunch my podcast episodes. You're listening to the relaunch of the podcast. I have done a pretty big pivot in my business to realign or more align with what I've always really kind of had, which is learning how to embrace your story and how life is a bit different running a business as a chronic illness warrior. And this podcast, how it has been such a huge vehicle, not just only for my personal healing growth, but also for my business growth, also for my clients, the community it's built. So I've been doing a lot, literally since March, of shifting a lot of things around on top of having days where I literally have to just go lay in bed. I, and I usually don't have to do that throughout the day. I have a lot of space in my calendar. I have a lot of flexibility in my business. I've designed my business that way and it's a lot like when people look at my calendar, they're like, geez, Nikita, how are you still doing anything? And I'm like, well, I just prioritize the things that are most important. And I give myself grace around the things that will get done when they get done. But during the season where I feel like I need even triple the amount of time I've already given myself for space in my business, I'm finding myself taking more naps. I'm finding myself being more exhausted after short periods of time and like mentally, physically fogged. Like I cannot even see. There have been times recently where I cannot drive because of the intensity of the brain fog and the dizziness and the lightheadedness. That's what I've been dealing with for more than 6 months. I've had bouts of having like a weird cognitive experience like this for maybe like 2 or 3 weeks, but we're into months of this. Okay. And here are some of the things that I have just learned over the years that I want to impart to you as an entrepreneur with chronic illness. During this time, it is counterproductive. It is absolutely counterproductive to beat yourself up for what you should or think you could have been doing if you were not in this situation. It is counterproductive. It creates more pain. I have found when I have found my time, like at times where I'm really in a just dark place, it really does make it so much more difficult to get out of that place. So the, the, the, the, this amount of time you're spending on thinking about what you could be doing or what you would be able to do if you weren't in this situation is only intensifying the symptoms in the situation now. So give yourself permission to realize it is what it is. Like, that's one of the greatest pieces of peace I find is just realizing It is what it is, and this too shall pass, or this too shall be the next thing that helps me learn how to cope in a different way. And this too shall serve me in the future. I'll be okay. Right. The other thing you want to do during these times is really lean into the easy. I say to my clients all the time, let it be easy during certain times of our life, especially when we're in a flare-up that's lasting longer we thought it would, we start to, if we're still in that first mindset of like, oh my goodness, this is gonna throw a wrench into all of the things. And it's all of the negative thoughts. We tend to try to do all the hard things first, right? The hard things that are already hard before you were even going through this flare-up. Like, why do we do this? Why do we do this? Stop doing that. Lean into the simple, easy things. Go back to the basics. And let me put a caveat in here: if you are in physical pain, it is really hard for your brain to override physical pain and be like clear. So prioritize finding ways to manage and deal with this pain over everything else. Right. Maybe it just means you need more rest. Maybe it means you need to take certain supplements. Maybe it means you need to go to a doctor or a functional, whoever it is that are your healthcare people and talk to them about, I need pain management support specifically because in pain, it's not easy. It's not easy to try to focus on doing any kind of work, easy or not. So do that first. Okay. Do that first and think about the things that you can do and deliver in a way that is easy. Lean into the simple and the most profitable things. And here's the surprising thing I want you to know during this season. I find that during flare-up seasons, I usually make more money, which is insane. It's insane. And I'm about to explain why this happens. I stop spending a lot of time in areas that do not produce income. I go back to the things that matter most for my business. My business has been connections, connecting with people, being of service to people. And what I have found for me and my business, and I found this to be true for my clients, is when I slow down, my business tends to do what it needs to do. Can't tell you how many times I work with my clients. I have this framework that I use called the reset with every client, and it had— we use the reset at different portions in their journey, but especially when they first come to me. And recently I helped one client recently who is launching her podcast, um, brand new. And we had— I had to implement an aspect of this with her, which was the reset, which is stop consuming and doing all of the things and just focus on this one baby step at a time. Just do that. And the amount of time and things you get done, it's amazing. The— even if you give yourself 5 minutes a day to do something that is an income-producing activity. And when I say income-producing activity, I mean, to me, income-producing activities are different for everyone, but for me it is reaching out and connecting with someone., um, that I've worked with in the past, it's producing a podcast episode because I can post it and it serves, goes to thousands of people one time. That's income producing, right? For some of us back in the day, for me, it used to be before I was like really, really into my podcast, it was social media. I would go and comment on other people's content and really get to know these people and engage with them. And usually those people turn into sales calls that then turn into either guests for my podcast, and then therefore some of them turn into clients. So I focus on the people, right? And I don't over— I don't overextend myself trying to do new tactics or learn new things or like learn new strategies and keep learning all of this stuff. You know, I leaned into Eazy and that has been the same thing to be true with this podcast. Literally the reason why this podcast exists is because I was recovering from my my surgery that I have for my endometriosis. And I wanted to do something easy, and I wanted to— it to have a ripple effect in my business where I would only have to do simple things. Simple things. It was new, but it wasn't like that new for me because it was something I was already doing naturally. I just needed to figure out a way to make it work from a digital standpoint, standpoint, like online. And it works perfectly. It's like The thing that I teach my clients now, how to use a podcast and leverage it, even in the timeframes when your flare-up is lasting longer than you thought. So I mentioned, keep it simple, stick to the things that are profitable and easy. Take your time, Brest. If you already have a really busy schedule because you haven't created a schedule that allows you to have more space. Reevaluate your calendar, reevaluate it, move things around. One of the biggest things I think holds people back from doing this as chronic illness warriors is the fear that people think that you are incapable or that you are lazy or that you are not dependable. I've had all of these thoughts myself. So I'm not saying that you have these thoughts and you're the only one. I have totally had these thoughts. But when I realized that cancellation policies reside in pretty much every business I've ever been a part of, including refunds, right? When we shop at the store, when we go to the doctor's office, when, um, there's, there's a reason why these things are in place for cancellations and refunds is because life happens and it doesn't mean anything about you unless you allow it to mean that about you. And so I realized that rescheduling an appointment or telling someone, hey, can we do this in a different way? Instead of doing it on Zoom with me on the camera, do you mind if I show up and do our conversation on Zoom, but I won't have my camera on? Or is there an app? Or can I record a Loom video, which is a video that you can record your screen and share some content or whatever and talk about it and coach a person without even being like on all of the time. There's different ways. So give yourself the permission to pivot, to rediscover a way to deliver a service or offer in a certain way. Okay. So here are some practical things that could help you besides obviously taking care, acknowledge the pain and the frustration that you're experiencing. Acknowledge it. Don't ignore it. Be real about it. Get the support you need, okay? I'm not a doctor, I'm not a psychologist, but I will say your healthcare team is really important during this time. Also realize that momentum will serve you even in this, even in this season of a flare-up lasting longer than you thought, okay? So here are some practical things you can do. For your business. If you have the capacity, give yourself the 15-minute rule that I call showing up for your business 15 minutes a day. Or maybe it's not a day, maybe it's like 3 times a week, maybe it's once a week. What can you do for 15 minutes for your business? If 15 minutes is too much, maybe it's 5 minutes, right? The point is, give yourself a goal of one thing, the simple thing, the easy thing, the thing that is profitable in the long run, if you have the capacity to do that. Next, let your previous work work for you. So let your previous content, let your previous clients work for you in this season. So what do I mean? I mean reuse, rehearse, and relaunch things you've already done. If you're a social media person that uses a lot of social media, do not be afraid to repost that stuff. Do not be afraid to continue to use the same information that you've done before. If it served you before, it will serve you now. And guess what? Do not get in your head about and have to keep creating new and up to date trendy content, whatever, whatever. That's not true. Think about businesses that have commercials. We see the same commercials over and over and over again for years sometimes, and you wouldn't see those things if it wasn't still producing some type of leverage or sales for their business. You can do that too. You absolutely can do that too. And especially when it comes to social media, 1% of your audience is even seeing the content. So every time you post something over and over again, another 1% is seeing it. Another 1% might be seeing it, or the same 1% might be seeing it. But with all the content we consume, we forget. I will never forget one of my coaches explaining to me, and she's like, she said to me, she's like, you expect people to like remember that they're holding this thing that they 15 seconds or a minute maybe saw while they're carrying all of their stuff to remember, hey, I need to put this down, I need to go look at this, I need to come back at this. But if you keep showing up and if you keep doing something over and over again, it's a constant reminder for them. Whether it's the same content or new content, it will serve you. And the same thing is true during this flare-up that's lasting longer than you thought. Reuse the work, right? Maybe find ways to recreate the same work. So if you're using long-form content, AKA like a podcast, find ways to use clips, create quotes. With all the social media platforms out there, you can do blog posts, you could do a YouTube channel, you could do— now there's Threads. Now you can grab quotes and put it in Threads. You can do so many different things with the work you already done— you've already done that doesn't require you to recreate anything. It just requires you to repurpose it, right? The next thing is, it's true that sometimes you need to take a pause in your business. Sometimes you need to take a pause to take care of yourself because At the end of the day, y'all, like for real, at the end of the day, a business is only as good as you being alive and functional. And I want you more than functional running your business, and I'm sure you do too. But at some point you might have to literally put it down, and that's okay. But when you put it down for a moment, you have to have faith, you have to have confidence in the work you've already done, that when you pick it back up, you only are picking it back up. You're not starting over. And a lot of times I think we think that people are like looking at us so closely to see when we're picking up and picking stuff, you know, putting things down, picking stuff back, back up, right? They aren't. They're consumed with their own life hurdles and drama. Okay. So give yourself the permission to take a pause if that's what you need to do and have the faith and the conviction and the confidence that the content and the work you've done will continue to serve you. But this is also the reason why I 100% recommend you use long-form content like a podcast to help you during these seasons you put things down. So for example, this summer, because of these other brain things that have been going on with me personally, I chose— I wasn't planning on going on like a break of my podcast or relaunching it, but I thought, man, it would be really good. Because I think I need to figure out this new normal for me. I need to figure it out. Okay. And so what did I do? I put the podcast on, on, on, on, on break, right? While I did some repivoting and all of these different kinds of things, but it gave me more space to kind of get back into an equal rhythm of what's going on with this new flare-up situation, right? The other thing is while I was doing that, because I had this long-form content, this community-driven, solving your problems in a way that feels good, that's authentic, was that I could look and see, hey, 100 people today downloaded this, or 1,000 people today downloaded this. And I didn't do anything new. I didn't promote it anywhere. It's just being found by the people who are looking for the solutions. I have. You can have that too in your business. So I want to talk about something else that's really important to keep in mind when you are dealing with a flare-up that lasted longer than you thought. They will usually come at some point in your journey as a chronic illness warrior. They will happen. And so this is why it's so important, why I work with my clients to work on creating systems and tools to help them during the seasons that they do like physically just put the business down, but it's still doing its thing on its own, right? And the other thing that I think is so important is that a lot of people will tell you to save for the rainy day, which I think is important. But one of the first things I did in my business was save for help. Having assistant in my business has been a game changer in a lot of different ways. There have been different times where I've had assistants and when I haven't, and yada yada yada. And now I have assistant again. And so what I have found is that being there also adds another layer of me being comfortable and finding ease to put it down. But I also have systems in the back end. I have content systems that, that is like a sales funnel, a sales flow that brings in leads, and people book calls with me so that I can continue to grow my business even though I technically put it down. So when you have a flare-up and you know it's coming, right? Because we know it's coming at some point. We don't know the day or the hour, but we know that a flare-up is likely coming. The best way to prepare yourself for it is to prepare your business in a way that aligns with life happens. Life happens, right? Chronic illness, life as an entrepreneur happens a lot more than just life happening, it feels like. Okay, and when it lasts longer, go back to the things that really are simple and easy and give yourself the permission and the self-compassion and the grace to do things differently, right? Take more time. You will still get to the destination of where you want to go, but at least when you get there you won't be burnt out, right? You won't be burnt out. So that's what you do when your flare-up has lasted longer than you thought. You take your time, you take a pause if you need to, you focus on taking care of you first, you lean into the simple things that you know are profitable and easy, you acknowledge what's happening, even the negative thoughts The more we try to deny that those negative thoughts are happening, the more it makes— I believe, and I've seen it— the flare-ups last longer, right? Ask for help. Build in help into your business. Have systems in your business that support you. Have systems for your marketing and your sales that can do the thing that it does even when you've taken a break. Okay. Find 15 minutes a day or a week or every other day to spend in your business if you have the capacity. If you can do more, do more, great. But always lean into what you can do versus what you can't do. It doesn't serve you to live in the thoughts of what you can't do and what you haven't been doing, okay? Live in what can I do. So I hope this episode helps you because I definitely think we have all been there. And it's just been really a big piece of my journey this last year of being like, man, stuff is lasting way longer than I want it to last. But I'm looking back now, even though I'm still in this flare-up that's still lasting and seeing how much I have accomplished by even— I've slowed down and look at what is happening. I can't tell you, it's just been amazing and it feels good. And I know that goes counterproductive to everything you hear in the world online. But trust me when I say, when you slow down and just do what you can do, you still will see results. You will not be starting over. You will just be picking up and continuing to walk. You won't have been going backwards. That's not true. Don't want you believing that when you're in these seasons. Okay. All right. That's it for today's episode. The next episode that you guys are going to have is with an amazing guest I have who is about systems. We're going to be talking about how we can start implementing a few systems in our business automations. And it's from another chronic illness warrior who is an entrepreneur. That's a wrap, y'all. Thanks for tuning in to Crafted to Thrive, the podcast that helps entrepreneurs with chronic illness to thrive and build a holistic business and life. Check out our website at craftedtothrive.com for this episode's show notes and all the gifts and goodies. Connect with me on Instagram @thrivewithnikitawilliams for more tips and behind the scenes and more. Tag me to share what you loved about this episode and I'll feature you on an upcoming episode. So until next time, remember, yes, you are crafted to thrive.