Taking a (rare) break from work
One of the scariest decisions we have made in our first year of business was to take a break from it.
From the very beginning, Mustard has consumed our minds, our time + our hearts. There are days where it feels like it's the centre of the universe + it can being really challenging to separate from it even just for the evening.
We counted 8 different channels that we can be contacted on and because we operate in two hemispheres it means we are switched on 24 hours a day. It is often said that running a business is like living on a rollercoaster and this has certainly been our experience. Each email that comes is has the potential to make or break your day. Yes, it's good to develop a bit of perspective and perhaps a tougher skin or a dose of 'non-attachment' but the reality is every peak and fall belongs to us.
The lead up to Christmas was more about couriers, orders and invoices than festive movies and socialising (what's that again?!) So by the time it rolled around we were exhausted! We'd really been curious to see whether our products would be the kind of thing that people buy for Christmas presents, they are pretty big to fit under a trees after all! It turns out that yes, we had an extra busy month and we did our absolute best job to get them delivered on time. We were kept very busy til the last minute!
On Boxing Day we each flew out to Thailand with a total of 14 of our family to meet up for a holiday, a rare chance for us to all be together (mostly they just want to see my kids but that's ok!)
After much discussion we decided to keep our shop live but delay shipping, emailing and most scarily of all, to go cold turkey from Instagram! As much as it's an essential part of our lives and business it was refreshing to be on holiday without thinking about what to post, whether what we were looking at was Insta-worthy or to care what anyone else was up to!
We pretty much didn't talk about Mustard for the first few days, we both needed the headspace, to unwind and truly switch off. But as the days went on the energy returned and we had lots of good, deep chats with our family, we talked through our worries and workshopped our ideas. With the day to day demands always taking up our time it was an opportunity to think ahead, think bigger and reconnect to the things we love most about starting our brand.
When we eventually turned our computers back on and reconnected with the world we were grateful to know you were all still there!
Our sales were low, our social media missing the attention and our inboxes jam packed but honestly, a break from Mustard was absolutely the best thing we could give to our business.
Becca x
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