Things opened this week with some easing back into the swing of things after a slower stretch, and a few owning up to weeks that took more out of them than they'd have liked. The energy was more gentle than charged. Real talk, just the way it should be.

This session we dived deep into capacity during lower mental health weeks when the will to work seems to go missing, as well as clarifying the true worth behind what we offer to help us turn good ideas into products and experiences people are willing to pay for.

Low-energy weeks are human, not a personal failing.

What happens when the mood drops but the work continues? Nicola opened up about a recent period where the mental capacity just wasn't there, and as it turned out, most of us knew the feeling. What I noticed was how differently we each met this feeling in practice.

Some really useful approaches to this emerged:

●Simone suggested naming the emotion first, then reaching for its opposite. If the feeling is sadness, try reaching for safety and comfort.

●Pearl leans towards healthy escapism and a change of scenery. A nap, a fantasy series, or an unrelated chore to break the inertia. Heading into a co-working spaces so the day isn't spent alone has also proved helpful.

●I’ve built out a personalized mental health toolkit. A set of pre-decided comforts for almost every occasion so that when I'm overwhelmed I already know what to do to ease the immediate discomfort.

Once the initial discomfort has been dealt with, moving forward in small increments gets a bit easier.

What I keep coming back to is that a mental health days ARE sick days. You wouldn't push through the flu at work, so a challenging mental health period deserves the same honesty.

The half-hour sprint that does more than any productivity app.

One practical fix to distraction, overwhelm and procrastination that kept surfacing was small, unglamorous but wildly effective! Commit to thirty minute work sprints, out loud, to another human.

Who are you nominating as your accountability sprint buddy this month? If in doubt, reach out to the community and see if anyone is interested in partnering up!

Work within the networks you've already got.

Pearl shared that she's stopped chasing brand-new partnerships and started working the relationships already in her corner.

● Most referrals never go any further than, "let's refer each other." The intention is there, the follow-through isn't.

● Asking directly for the referral at the end of a successful call could be the small shift that makes a substantial difference.

● Pearl's now building a simple partner conversation template so that nothing gets missed and so that every call closes in the same intentional way.

What we're each doing in the next week or two

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