We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Jessica Harrington a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Jessica, thanks so much for taking the time to share your insights and lessons with us today. We’re particularly interested in hearing about how you became such a resilient person. Where do you get your resilience from?
Life.
When I was younger I learned how important my actions were. In the Simpson there is one episode where Bart and Lisa are fighting. They are doing that thing where they are not touching each other, but they are yelling to get their moms attention. “Mom, Bart is hitting me” Because of this Bart would get in trouble. Like most of us, I did this growing up especially as a middle child. I learned that when I did this my parents would react. This is where I learned my actions mattered. Growing up in a house with addiction, divorce and abuse I learned that getting back up mattered.
Resilience is when we recover quickly. I did not learn this until later in my life. Growing up, I thought it was getting back up after being hurt physically or emotionally, putting a smile on then moving on with your day. My action was smiling and moving on with my day was my resilience, acting as if I was not phased. This might have worked for a while, but did it really?
Recovery is healing and taking a break. This was not something I practiced at all growing up. I pushed everything down and put a big bow on them. When I took time to truly heal, that is when I learned my strengths and healed my weaknesses. When I learned and loved more of myself, I became more and more resilient.
Thanks, so before we move on maybe you can share a bit more about yourself?
I, received my Master in Public Health at West Chester University. I am the owner of Journey to Yourself, as a speaker, and stress management health educator. Through my career and education, I realized that we all have a common issue—everyone, at some point or another, struggles with handling stress. Through my own life journey, I created my business called Journey To Yourself.
If you had to pick three qualities that are most important to develop, which three would you say matter most?
1. Self-respect 2.Open-Minded
3.Believe in taking breaks.
Surround yourself with people who believe in you. I want to say believe in yourself, and this great, it can be hard when you are starting off. Find those who you can call when times are hard, and have them be the same person you can when you have the small wins. It can be easy to find the people to keep us in the lows. It can also be easy to find the people who only want to celebrate the big wins.
When I say be open minded, I mean be open to other people’s perspectives and opinions. You for sure do not have to take anyone else’s advice. Hearing others perspectives gives you the time to see other ways to improve or just see how others are viewing you and your work. Either way you are only going to grow from it.
Take breaks, make this habit. Working the 80 hour work week does not get you to the top faster if anything it gets you to burnout faster. When you personally grow, so does your business. Work on yourself, to work on your business. Think about it this way, when you are in the shower all these great ideas come to mind. Think about all the magic that can happen if you give yourself breaks.
What is the number one obstacle or challenge you are currently facing and what are you doing to try to resolve or overcome this challenge?
Charging, as a service based business it can be hard to charge. I struggled with this a lot in the beginning, giving random discounts. I felt that others couldn’t afford my prices so I would give discounts without even asking. We all know what happens when we ass-u-me. That is what I was doing I was assuming my clients could not afford me, so I was giving them a lower price. Another perspective is how rude of me to think that my client did not have the money to work with me. This also came from my own personal mindset surrounding money and my own worth. There was some work that needed to be done. I went to the books and my therapist and we worked on growing and opening my money mindset.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.journeytoyourself.net/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/journeytoyourself101/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/JourneyToYourself101/
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jessica-harrington-journeytoyourself/
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCj977TKZZ5HLcVajCeQZqWg
- Other: Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/journeytoyourself101/ Podcast: https://www.journeytoyourself.net/podcast
Image Credits
Marikate Venuto https://www.marikatephotography.com/
