Not Knowing Where You Are At Is Okay

This morning I was frustrated.

Frustrated because I really could not figure out what I should post on social media, and I could feel myself putting so much pressure on myself to keep up the standard of Hucklberry that we have created over the years. I was almost forcing myself to commit to posting just because I felt like I needed to keep the business visible, even though we are currently going through so many changes within Hucklberry.

I think what I was really struggling with was the balance between allowing the business to do what it needs to do and still keeping the business alive, while at the same time trying not to put so much pressure on myself to constantly perform. It is a strange space to be in because I know that I need to allow things to evolve, but I also have responsibilities and I cannot simply stop everything while I figure things out.

How many of you have felt this way too?

Emotionally, I am exhausted from all of the personal purging of what no longer serves me and the personal healing work that I have been doing. There has been a lot of breaking generational patterns that I do not want to take with me into my future, and a lot of looking at myself, my relationships, the way I lead, the way I work and the things that I have accepted for myself over the years. I think when you are doing that kind of work personally, it is almost impossible for your business not to be affected by it, because the business is also an extension of you.

So I have been allowing Hucklberry to change with me, but that also means that things move differently.

After more than 9 years of evolving Hucklberry, I can see the business growing into something that I am still moulding. I know there is something there, and I can feel the direction that we are moving in, but I am still figuring out exactly what it is going to look like. I think that is probably one of the more difficult parts of being a Founder, because you are expected to lead and have a vision while you are also still figuring things out yourself.

I was feeling stuck somewhere between what is, what was and what I know is coming, and I found myself confused and frustrated because I could not seem to perform. I could not seem to produce the content that I normally would, and even my intuition felt switched off, which is particularly strange for me because seeing, sensing and understanding things intuitively is such a natural part of how I operate.

I kept thinking that I was supposed to be creating more posts so that people understand who we are, what we are doing and how we can support their vision, and I was putting pressure on myself to come up with something just because I felt like I should be doing it.

But nothing was really coming.

And most of the time, I learn the lesson first before I teach it, which I think is how it is supposed to work anyway. I do not want to constantly sit here and tell other people how to navigate their businesses and their lives while pretending that I am always clear on how to navigate my own.

So, here I am, writing you a blog instead of posting on social media today, because I just felt like I needed to vent.

And maybe that is okay too.

How many times have Founders felt like this? How many times have we been boiling inside with frustration, like I was this morning, while trying to remember to give ourselves grace and somehow struggling to actually find it?

There is such an intense amount of pressure that comes with being a Founder, and yet there is often this expectation that we should just show up perfectly whole all the time. We are expected to know what we are doing, know where we are going, make the right decisions, keep everyone motivated, keep the business moving, create opportunities, deal with rejection and still somehow show up online as though we have everything under control.

But we are human.

I know that sounds obvious, but I think we forget it.

Especially in this age where everyone is striving for perfection and where there seems to be a perfect way of speaking, a perfect way of presenting your business, a perfect way of making decisions and a perfect way of showing up online. Sometimes I look at all of it and just think, no. We are not our best selves in every situation, and that is okay.

We get frustrated.

We get angry.

We get tired.

We sometimes make the wrong decision.

We sometimes take longer than we thought we would.

Sometimes we do not know what we are doing.

And sometimes we just need a day where we do not perform.

I think that is where I was this morning.

If you are feeling this way too, maybe you can do what I am doing and just write down what you are feeling. It does not have to be a beautifully written journal entry and it does not have to turn into some profound piece of wisdom. Just write, “I am frustrated because…” and then keep going.

Get it all out onto the page.

I find that sometimes when I am trying so hard to understand what is happening, I actually need to stop trying to understand it and just allow myself to feel it first. Once it is out of my head and onto the page, I can usually start to see what is actually underneath the frustration.

Because if you are anything like me, being a Founder can feel quite isolating. Some of that isolation is by choice because there are times when I simply do not have the energy or capacity to socialise, but I also think a lot of it comes from the fact that we live a very different life to the majority of people around us.

There is a lot of uncertainty when you are building something.

There is rejection.

There are financial decisions.

There are people relying on you.

There are ideas that you believe in before anyone else understands them.

There are days where you feel like you are making incredible progress and other days where you wonder whether you are actually moving at all.

And then, while all of this is happening, you are also trying to maintain relationships, take care of yourself, be present for your family, have some kind of social life and somehow continue creating content because the internet does not really care whether you are having a difficult week.

I think that is why sometimes I feel like I cannot always be “facey” for everyone.

Sometimes I do not want to show up and pretend that everything is amazing when I am actually sitting with myself trying to understand what is happening.

And I am learning that that is okay.

We are also learning a completely different way of doing business at Hucklberry, and I think that has contributed to a lot of what I have been feeling. We are moving into something that is much softer and more feminine than the way we have operated before, and it is much more aligned with where I am personally now, but it also feels very different.

For years, I knew how to push.

I knew how to make things happen.

I knew how to keep going when things were difficult.

I knew how to take an idea and turn it into something tangible.

But I am learning that everything cannot always be built through pushing, and that is a completely different way of doing business for me. There is something about allowing, listening, trusting and creating from a different place that I am still learning how to navigate.

And honestly, sometimes it is overwhelming.

I think that is something we do not always talk about when we talk about evolution. We speak about growth as though it is this beautiful, exciting thing where you suddenly become a better version of yourself and everything starts making sense, but sometimes growth is confusing. Sometimes you have outgrown the way you used to do things but you have not yet fully learned the new way.

That is where I think I am.

Somewhere in between.

And I am okay with saying that.

I am not entirely sure where I am going with this blog, but perhaps that is also part of what I needed to say. I do not always have to know exactly where something is going before I allow myself to move through it.

I think we put so much pressure on ourselves as Founders to have the vision and the answers, but sometimes the vision is still being formed. Sometimes you can see enough of it to know that you are moving in the right direction, but you cannot yet explain it to everyone else.

And maybe that is okay.

This is a difficult road, and I think it is probably one of the most challenging journeys anyone can choose to go on because you are constantly being asked to grow alongside the thing that you are building. The business changes because you change, and then you have to learn how to lead the business from the person you are becoming rather than the person you were when you started.

After 9+ years of Hucklberry, I think I am very much in that space right now.

I am still building.

I am still learning.

I am still figuring it out.

And I am still leading.

Maybe those things can exist together.

So, if you are also somewhere in that strange space between what was, what is and what is coming, I hope you can give yourself a little bit of grace today. You do not need to have every answer immediately, and you do not need to turn every difficult emotion into a lesson before you are allowed to feel it.

Feel frustrated if you are frustrated.

Feel tired if you are tired.

Write it down if you need to.

Talk about it with someone you trust.

Give yourself the space to actually process what you are going through instead of immediately trying to figure out how to turn it into something productive.

Then, when you are ready, you can start again.

I think that is what I am going to do.

Start again.

Not because everything is suddenly figured out, but because I trust that it will become clearer as I continue moving.

And maybe that is enough for today.

If you see this blog, let me know how it has made you feel or whether it has helped you in any way, because I would genuinely love to hear from you. I think sometimes we forget that there are other people quietly sitting with the same frustrations, questions and uncertainties, and maybe being honest about where we are gives someone else permission to be honest about where they are too.

With love,

Saskia Riley
Founder of Hucklberry