It’s been longer than planned since my last blog, well, I say longer than planned I actually have no plan on how often I want to write these. I feel like I’ve been over thinking it so much since my last one and making it over complicated in my brain when really I just started doing this for a brain dump kind of thing and to share some of my 10000 thoughts that go through my head a day! The last two I wrote just came naturally and I think since them I’ve been trying to force it, which just isn’t fun. So I decided to stop till something naturally came up I wanted to talk about, and when I stopped trying, it bloody happened!!
I’ve been reading a book called ‘lost connections: why you’re depressed and how to find hope’. FYI I’m not depressed (right now lol) but it is something I battle with quite a lot, as well as my anxiety, so it’s a pretty big part of my life. So yeah, like I’ve mentioned in my first blog talking about my mental health nursing blip, I’m really interested about MH and different ways to tackle it and also look after it. But how the hell does this relate at all to beauty I hear you wonder. Well…
The chapter of the book I’ve just finished was about work and how much our jobs impact our likely hood of becoming depressed. It mentions multiple studies done on different groups of people to try and figure out exactly what it is about work that can make it a contributing factor of depression. One particular study was done on employees of the British civil service who’s participants were all at the same status in their job, worked in the same office, paid the same wage, but one group had more control over their job than the other. The results showed that the half of the group that had more control of their work were a lot less likely to become depressed or suffer severe emotional distress. It went on to talk about a lady who actually liked the job, but she wasn’t allowed to have any say over her work or make any important decisions, and it was these factors that really effected her. And that got me thinking about our jobs as beauty therapist and the control that we have over our working lives. We run our own diaries, decide our working hours, what products we use, what treatments we offer, we make all the decisions for ourselves (speaking for the self employed). So really, we should be really happy, right?
Wrong. I made a tik tok this week funnily enough about this subject before I read this chapter of my book which kind of made it all click into place. In the post I talked about how frustrating I’m finding it seeing so many negative posts from the beauty community every time I go on social media. On that particular day, scrolling through tik tok waiting for my next client, I came across a post from a nail tech. The post was this person listing off things that made their job so hard or that they hated basically, for example complaining about the hours they work, that they don’t even have time to eat in their 14 hour working day, the hours that they work are actually illegal, they come in on their days off to do clients so have no work life balance, the list goes on. First of all this girl is obviously sick at her job if she is so busy ( you go glen coco) but it was sad to see that it was making her so down/ stressed! Going off this post you would presume this person had a bitch of a boss that was making her do all these things and she had no power to make any decisions, like the people from the study done on the British civil service. Again, you would be wrong. This girl was SELF EMPLOYED, she has all the power to cut down her working hours, make sure she books a dinner out, say no to clients and not work on her day off… but she chooses not too?! And she isn’t on her own, because it’s something that we all do or have done in the past! Running our businesses like clients are our boss and we have to bow down to their every demand and not actually have any of the benefits of being self employed because we really AREN’T making decisions that work for us. I understand how easy it is to get into a habit of not saying no and doing all these things that make you unhappy, but what I don’t understand is the new trend of coming on social media to complain and blame clients for things that really… is our fault.
The reason I think so many people in the beauty industry do this is because I feel like ( and this is just me) that there is this feeling that if your NOT basically a slave to your job, your not doing well. If you’re not having to come in on your day off and work stupid hours and deal with clients who won’t take no for an answer, then your business isn’t successful. What a load of bollocks. First of all, this isn’t me throwing shade to people who do that, if you want to work really long hours and do all those things DO IT, I personally think it’s something to be happy about being so busy and in demand! Having that drive & hunger for success that you work extra days and longer hours isn’t a bad thing, it’s something to celebrate and be proud of. But if you’re doing these things and it’s too much, then stop. If these things are making you soooo miserable to the point you have to come on social media and moan about them, then it’s time to make a change for yourself and your business’ sake. It doesn’t mean you’re not successful if you need to book out a day here and there for yourself, it’s actually a good business decision to look after your mental health.
So clearly, having no control over work makes us miserable. The point I’m trying to make (hopefully) is that YOU are in control. It is so so easy in this job to become flooded with work and to become a client pleaser who has no boundaries and then in turn becomes miserable in their job. No amount of clients, or money you make from them clients, is worth making you hate your job or making you ultimately depressed because you don’t have a life. If anything, it will have a negative impact on your business, because surely clients don’t want to keep getting treatments done when they know it’s making you so unhappy?!
Unlike the people in the British civil service who don’t have a choice, we do! So let’s bloody make good ones and look after ourselves!! And whilst on the subject of negative stuff on social media, current & potential clients can see your posts and i don’t know about you, but if I was the last client in at the end of the 12 hour day that you’ve basically make sound like torture, I’d feel pretty awks. I really don’t know why it’s become such a trend to come on social media ( which by the way is for you to promote your business) to literally bitch about clients and how hard work they are. Don’t get me wrong sharing experiences and talking about our jobs and the struggles we have I think is great, a problem shared is a problem halved ALWAYS (I’m not saying people shouldn’t be open about things they find hard in their job or things that they struggle with). But there is a difference between sharing personal struggles and just basically crossing the line talking about clients online, and I don’t mean light hearted or CLEARLY joking tik toks that are obviously for a laugh… but do people forget clients can see their posts when they are literally quoting things clients have said to them that day that pissed them off? It might be just me but it makes me cringe SO bad and as a client, that wouldn’t be a person id be rushing to book in with. Imagine the anxiety sat on that beauty bed thinking ‘omg I can’t say anything negative to piss her off or she will out me on social media’. It’s really not a vibe. I seen a post that was stating a client was trying to ‘control’ them when the client said ‘oh you can’t stop doing nails then who will do mine’. Maybe that was just a light hearted joke/compliment and not someone trying to dictate what you do with your business? And to quote that online in such a negative way to me is crazy, imagine the client seeing that post after trying to maybe just say how much she loves the way you do her nails?!!!
So yeah, I hope that actually makes sense. It just really made me think about how we are all guilty of not actually taking charge of our working life even though we have the ability too! We’ve all been there, but taking control and looking after your mental health is SO important, especially in a job like this where it’s hard to switch off. I think sometimes we forget how lucky we are to be able to make decisions about our job and have the control a lot of people don’t have! So don’t let pushy clients make you work later if it doesn’t work for you, if you need to book yourself time out to eat and take care of yourself, then do it!! Clearly ( as my nerdy as fuck book states) having that control really benefits us, so take CONTROL.
Thanks for reading my loves, Lydia Lee xx