So, something broke.
Not the business. Not a deal. My knee.
Well – a knee ligament, to be exact.
When we set big goals, there’s a nagging fear that sits in the back of our minds. What happens if it all breaks? If it comes crashing down and we’re back at square one? You can feel the frustration, the disappointment – and that’s all before you’ve even started.
A couple of months ago, as I trained for my third Hyrox (the one I’m doing in July – a sport my daughter lovingly introduced me to), something in my body simply said no. Up until that point, I’d been confident, building on my foundations, genuinely loving the process. But now I had to stop. Slow down. Rebuild.
This is the moment where I’ve watched so many people throw in the towel. They write off the goal until next year. Wait for a better moment. And for a while, this did teach me patience, as I moved slowly through rehab.
But I wasn’t going to give up on the goal just because not every moment went to plan.
A couple of weeks ago, I got the green light to start building my load back up and get running again. That did not mean “go for a run at the pace you used to.” Instead I had to do 3km, using three run-walk intervals. I wanted to push for a fourth. So much. I almost said yes.
But part of this process is following the work, not the ego. And sometimes following the work means slowing down when everything in you wants to push.
Which got me thinking about business.
I work with many women who have hit burnout because they pushed when they should have decreased the load, stepped back, and assessed what was actually going on. This is the work I do – helping women build a business and a life by design. Days down, dollars up. The strategy that creates more, not the hustle that costs more.
So if you’re in that place right now, here’s what I’d say.
1. Stop treating “push through” like a badge of honour.
Most of us have been conditioned to believe success belongs to the people who keep going no matter what. But there comes a point where constantly overriding yourself stops being resilience and starts being self-abandonment. Sometimes the smartest move isn’t to push through but to pause long enough to listen. Your body notices before your mind does. So does your business. The exhaustion, the resentment, the lack of clarity, the offers that no longer fit. They’re all signals. Not every wall is there to be smashed through. Some are there to redirect you.
2. Stop trying to figure everything out alone.
There’s a certain kind of ego that convinces us we should already know the answer. That asking for help means we’re behind, or failing. But isolation rarely creates momentum. It usually just prolongs the frustration. I couldn’t rehab my knee alone, because expertise matters. Same in business. The right mentor, strategist or community can often spot the thing keeping you stuck far faster than you can while you’re buried inside the problem.
3. Follow the focused plan, not the heroic one.
The temptation is always to do more. More content. More offers. More late nights. More pressure. But sustainable growth is rarely built through dramatic bursts of effort. It’s built through consistency. Strategic, intentional action repeated over time will always outperform chaotic overextension.
4. Learn to celebrate progress while it’s still small.
Six months ago, this morning’s run would have felt insignificant. Now it feels meaningful, because perspective changes when you’ve fought to rebuild something. The problem is most people only let themselves feel successful once they hit the final milestone. But confidence is built by acknowledging progress along the way. If you keep moving the goalposts without celebrating how far you’ve already come, success will always feel out of reach.
5. Stop making setbacks mean the whole plan is broken.
Growth is not linear. Neither is healing. Neither is business. Some weeks feel expansive and full of momentum. Others feel frustrating, messy, slower than you expected. The mistake most people make is assuming a setback means they’re failing – and they get close to giving up, or they actually give up – when it’s simply part of the process.
The goal isn’t perfection. It’s staying in the game long enough for the compounding effect of your effort to finally catch up with you.
The women who create lasting success are rarely the loudest or the most frantic. They’re the ones willing to trust the process long enough to let it work.
Janine x