We were lucky to catch up with Erin DeCuir recently and have shared our conversation below.
Erin, sincerely appreciate your selflessness in agreeing to discuss your mental health journey and how you overcame and persisted despite the challenges. Please share with our readers how you overcame. For readers, please note this is not medical advice, we are not doctors, you should always consult professionals for advice and that this is merely one person sharing their story and experience.
As someone who has anxiety, depression, ADHD, PTSD, is a people pleaser, an overachiever, and a perfectionist, PHEW, I get the struggle. At times, it can feel debilitating… and I’d be lying if I said it was easy for me to just push through. The truth is, there are plenty of days where I close up shop and just call it a day. I look at it like this: I’m not a surgeon. I don’t work in an ER. No one is going to die if I don’t respond to that email right away. The world isn’t going to end if I close my laptop or cancel that friend date (even though it can feel like that at times).
On the days when “I just can’t even,” I have a long list of things I turn to, things I know will make me feel better. Some things on my list include: a phone-less walk outside with my dog, working on a puzzle with my husband, reading a chapter of a fiction book, taking a hot shower, exercising, going for a drive, reading my Bible, etc.
I now make it a point to schedule those intentional periods of rest throughout my day, and it works really well for me. I still struggle some days, but overall, I struggle much less!
I think it’s important to acknowledge that everyone struggles in some way or another, and it is nothing to be ashamed of. It’s impossible to be “on” 24/7, especially as a woman. Men operate on a 24-hour hormonal cycle while women operate on a 28-day hormonal cycle, meaning there are some days throughout the month that it is dang near impossible to be productive. Instead of resisting this fact, why not listen to your body, and take that break when it’s asking for one? I bet you come back feeling more refreshed than ever before!
Let’s take a small detour – maybe you can share a bit about yourself before we dive back into some of the other questions we had for you?
Hi! My name is Erin, and I am an email copywriter and strategist. I love helping other online service providers grow their businesses WITHOUT social media. Yep, just call me your copywriting bestie for all things OFF social media!
Don’t get me wrong. There are plenty of things I love about social media. I’m definitely not a social media hater by any means! I love meeting new people, feeling like I am a part of a community, and the ability to express myself creatively. While social media can be a great place to connect with like-minded people, it can also be incredibly isolating. It’s easy to fall into the comparison trap, and that is where I found myself not too long ago. Social media started to take a serious toll on my mental health (as if I didn’t have enough issues already!).
The problem was that I had built an entire business on social media, so how in the world was I going to be able to build a business without it? I truthfully had no idea. I had no idea where my clients were going to come from, but I knew something had to change, so I gave it a try.
Fast forward to now, and I am pleased to report that you don’t need social media to have a profitable business. Hard to believe, I know, but it’s true.
If you’re curious how to do this, that is where I can help! I help online service providers build simple, sustainable, and profitable businesses without social media through done-for-you email marketing, blog writing, and email funnels/sequences.
My goal is to transform your business into a well-oiled machine that is consistently working for you and without you. If you are finding yourself in a situation similar to mine, I got you! You don’t have to walk this journey alone.
To see if we’d be a good fit to work together, you can check out my website at www.erindecuir.com. I’d love to support you!
If you’re not looking to hire someone right now, you are welcome to grab my free course. It will teach you my exact step-by-step strategy that you can implement to build your business organically and sustainably (without social media!). You can find it at www.erindecuir.com/growaprofitablebiz.
If you’re craving a different approach to building a business, that is what I’m here for 🙂
Looking back, what do you think were the three qualities, skills, or areas of knowledge that were most impactful in your journey? What advice do you have for folks who are early in their journey in terms of how they can best develop or improve on these?
I love this question! I think personal development is so important in life and in business. Here are three pieces of advice I have for those who are on an entrepreneurial journey:
1) Have a willingness to get scrappy, try new things, and take messy action. You’re never going to feel 100% ready, and your circumstances will never be perfect (and if you’re waiting for everything to line up just right, you’ll be waiting forever). Take that first step before you feel ready, and give yourself the permission to mess up! Taking messy action and being willing to fail often is going to get you where you’re trying to go much quicker than if you take no action at all. Keep testing things out, keep failing, and keep pivoting until you find your secret sauce.
2) Anticipate resistance! Your brain will always try to convince you NOT to try new things, NOT to move in a new direction, etc. It wants to keep you safe, and staying comfortable by doing what you’ve always done feels the safest, but safety doesn’t always equal success.
Throughout your entrepreneurial journey, your brain is going to have a lot of thoughts (no matter what stage of the game you’re in!). Your brain is going to try to tell you it’s too hard, you don’t know enough, someone else is doing it better, etc. These are thoughts, not facts. Anticipate that your brain is going to resist you moving forward in any capacity simply because it wants to keep you safe and comfortable. Know that you will experience challenges, setbacks, and even failures. This doesn’t mean anything has gone wrong. It means you are growing! Trust that the work you put in today matters, and every action you take is affecting your future results. Whether it takes one year or ten, the fruit of your labor will show itself. Welcome the struggle! It’s part of the process.
That leads me into my final piece of advice:
3) Learn delayed gratification. There is no such thing as an overnight success, and anything worthwhile takes time and effort. It’s easy to get discouraged when you feel like you’re putting in the work day in and day out, but you’re not seeing results. Keep in mind that we are not always “harvesting.” The harvest is simply a reward that comes later as a result of the seeds we are planting now. In the same way, our future success is nothing more than the outcome of the seeds we’re planting today, so find joy and purpose in the daily work, because without it, there can be no success.
There is a Tanzanian proverb that says, “Little by little, a little becomes a lot,” meaning your work day to day compounds over time! Don’t discount a little progress here and a little progress there. It can really add up! Stay consistent, trust the process, and don’t give up too soon. Your success is closer than you think.
What has been your biggest area of growth or improvement in the past 12 months?
The biggest area of improvement for me over the past 12 months (and something I’m probably most proud of as a recovering workaholic) has been the reprioritization of my life over my business. For too long, I let my business completely consume my life. What’s worse is I used to pride myself on being the type of person that put in 12-, 14-, sometimes even 18-hour days. I claimed it as my badge of honor, but that “work ethic” left me burned out, exhausted, and miserable. I worked myself sick – quite literally!
During that time, all of the things that should have taken priority in my life took a backseat. I’m embarrassed to admit that my faith, my health, and my marriage were all afterthoughts in my pursuit of success. The crazy thing is that I initially went into business for myself so I could have the freedom to give those things MORE focus, not less.
Over the past year, I have made it a point to SLOW DOWN! I am much more intentional with my time. For example, I don’t pick up my phone for the first half of my day. I take that time to read my Bible, go for a walk outside, work on a puzzle with my husband, etc. I also deleted social media off of my phone, and I only check my email twice a day.
Something else I have done in the past year is set and honor work hours. My workday starts at 12pm and ends at 5pm, and I don’t work on Fridays or weekends. These boundaries allow me to focus on the things that are most important to me while still moving the needle in my business. I finally believe that I am so much more than my work, and that feels like a huge win for me.
The biggest takeaway I have from my experience with burnout is no matter how much time we sacrifice now in the name of building our businesses, we don’t get to make up that time later. Once that time is gone, it’s gone. Sure, being successful is great and all, but what good is all the success in the world if at the end of it all, your health is in the toilet, and your family left you because you were ignoring them? Nothing is worth that.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.erindecuir.com
- Instagram: www.instagram.com/erin.e.decuir
- Linkedin: www.linkedin.com/in/erindecuir
- Twitter: www.twitter.com/erinedecuir
Image Credits
sunflower photos: Ashley McKenzie Photography // www.ashleymckenziephotography.com woodsy photos: Erin Ashley Photography // www.erinashleyphoto.com
