Growing pains. They’re real, they hurt, and in recent months, I’ve been surrounded by them.
With two teenagers and a pre-teen, growing pains are part of our daily routine at the moment. There are the literal growing pains with their limbs elongating by the week, raging hormones, and their insatiable appetites. Added to this are the invisible growing pains: the first heartbreak, challenging friendships, and pushing through studying for subjects that do not complement their strengths or wiring.
Then there’s my business. In less than 12 months, we’ve grown by 300%. This, of course, is great news, but as a family-owned, self-funded business, it also hurts. For the last few months, I’ve had to ruthlessly triage what’s most critical for my business, our clients, and our team and purely focus on that. This is why my weekly newsletter had to be put aside—as much as I love writing and sharing my thoughts with our community, they are not critical to ensure we produce great quality reports for our clients on time.
Next are our clients. I did a mystery shop last week for one of our QSR clients (I like to jump in and do these when I can to stay close to what’s happening). This client is also growing incredibly fast, in both sales and the number of stores opening. The team member who served me could not answer my product-related question, and when she made my order, it did not meet their minimum standards. She was very friendly and tried really hard, but I’m almost certain she was a brand-new employee who was struggling with the basics in this growing organisation.
To keep my children, myself, and my clients pushing through with our sanity intact, I’ve kept repeating two things the last few months:
If you want to grow (or in my children’s case, if you must grow up), some level of discomfort is part of the process. You can fight it, or you can face it. I keep telling myself, my children, and my clients that we’re best off choosing to face the discomfort, sit with it, and deal with it. In my experience, avoiding or denying it will just mean more pain.
I remind myself, my children, and my clients that we believe we can and will prevail. The pain is temporary, and so long as we’re taking action every day towards a sustainable solution, we will prevail. This one is from Jim Collins’ ‘Good to Great.’ In Jim’s words, “Retain absolute faith; you can and will prevail while confronting the brutal facts.” And yes, those facts can be brutal.
The reality is we’re all fine; no one is dying, but it doesn’t mean it doesn’t hurt.
If there’s any pain associated with growing in your world, I hope this post today helps somewhat. Or maybe you’re too busy “triaging,” like I have been, and won’t even get around to reading this; in that instance, you might read this when you get a bit of breathing space.
Right, that’s it from me, back to face the discomfort while retaining the faith that I will prevail.
