Navigating an unplanned injury in business.
There have been some big things happening recently. If you follow along over on Instagram you may have a rough idea of what went down. But in summary on a Friday morning I was just minding my own business, taking the morning off client work to help my partner pack up his things to move from Hamilton to Auckland when disaster struck.
One minute I’m just walking along (flat grass), deep in my thoughts as per usual so not concentrating 100% on where I’m walking but out of the blue I rolled my left ankle, then twisted/ over corrected/ lost balance onto my right foot. And snap, crack, pop. The bones literally just broke - I still can’t really believe it (my family was quick to blame my delicious coconut milk lattes).
Cue the ambulance and the rest is history.
Since the injury happened in Hamilton I was in Waikato hospital for seven nights before being transferred back home to Auckland for another six nights. I won’t go into too much detail but given the circumstances but leading up to surgery my ankle was unstable in the cast so I couldn’t move virtually at all, no standing, no crutches, no wheelchair. I literally lay for two whole weeks.
Okay so let’s debrief. As this email list is a place of sharing behind the scenes I thought it might be helpful to share how I navigated this in my business, my favourite parts of this experience and my key mindset takeaways.
So as you can imagine running a small business there was no one to sort things out for me or pick up my client work. I thought it may be helpful to share how I approached this to minimise my stress and also reduce impact on my clients. So this is what went down.
I prioritised urgent emails and updating clients who were waiting for work on what had happened.
Moved all meetings out 2 + weeks.
Popped an update up over on IG to let people know I would be very slow on comms over this time.
Shuffled deadlines around to create more space so I didn’t feel stressed or pressured to work whilst in hospital.
I feel so grateful for all my incredible clients for their compassion while I moved through this. And also the systems and structures I have in place within my business so that I was able to step away for this time and everything did not fall apart and was in fact where I left it pre injury.
As a committed optimist I was determined to pull some positives out of this situation as well. So here are some of my favourite moments from this traumatic experience:
Reconnecting to physical expressions of creativity. My wonderful friends and family came equipped with colouring books, felt tips, cross stitch and paints. I don’t often venture outside of my screen to create so this was really nice to re-explore.
Tackling a crippling hospital/ needle phobia head on. I’m so proud of myself as a chronic needle phobic girl. I now feel properly desensitised. There were a few very dramatic, theatrical moments where people must have thought I was being tortured but by the end I had toned down the drama and moved through it.
Feeling really deeply cared for and supported by my friends, family and partner who spent hours with me in the hospital making this dark situation a wee bit brighter.
And all of you. I was overwhelmed by how many people reached out on instagram and am so incredibly grateful for this beautiful community.
So whilst this was not what I put on my 2024 vision board I now have a renewed appreciation for movement. I also believe with the same certainty that whilst a worse case scenario is possible, a best case scenario is equally as possible. In this situation a slightly less favourable outcome happened but now I appreciate the 6 trillion times I walked and didn’t break my leg.
Anywho thank you for reading this and I hope there was something here for you.
