Stress & The Critical Thinking Lobotomy

I want to continue the conversation about spa owner stress and how to minimize it this summer. I know for a lot of you this season is a hectic time, plus there is added pressure if you have kids, and of course, if you want to enjoy some time with friends and family.

You may already be feeling like things are heating up around the spa, and you’re spending more time putting out fires as things get busier, so I want to make sure you know how to manage your stress because there are serious implications for the decisions you make if you’re energetically tapped.

The Critical Thinking Lobotomy

The fact is, when you’re working in your spa business, and a situation comes up that requires problem-solving, such as a client complaint, or issues with a staff member you will use either The Thinking part of your brain or The Reactive part of your brain.

And when you’re feeling tapped out of energy, time, and responsibilities, you will almost always be operating from your Reactive Brain. It is really hard to do any problem solving from this place, and unfortunately, our well-meaning co-workers and friends often feed into the emotions that keeps you in Reactive Brain by continuing to talk about and engage in the drama when what you really need is just some good old logical problem solving actions so you can move on.

If you haven't already, I encourage you to go back to last weeks post where I gave you 4 tips to help manage your stress levels this summer so you don't find yourself experiencing a Critical Thinking Lobotomy. Please note - if you are already in this situation right now, your first order of business is radical self-care. Most likely, you’re actions are a large part of the Queen Bee Role of your spa business, and if you know anything about how a hive works, the queen bee must be protected at all cost. The hive can not be sustained without her.

The bottom line here is that you must give yourself enough self-care at regular intervals so that you can fulfill your Queen Bee Roll. You want your spa business efforts to be from place of passion and profit and also with energy to fulfill your larger purpose and potential. Feeling drained of all of your energy day in and day out was never a goal.

I encourage you to think back on the last three to six months and look at where you may have found yourself in this place of having a Critical Thinking Lobotomy, when you were emotionally triggered and went right into the Reactive Brain. How long did it take you to shift back into your Critical Thinking Brain and finally be able to begin problem solving? Minutes (ideal), hours (not bad!), days (draining), or weeks (impacting all opportunities)? The big goal here is to be able to problem solve efficiently so you can move on and enjoy your business.

If you are finding yourself stressed and overwhelmed and don't know where to begin, please contact me. You most likely need to implement systems into your spa business to make it easier for you to operate. We can chat about which systems are a priority for find peace of mind.

**The reference of Queen bee comes from the book ClockWork: Design Your Business To Run Itself by Mike Michalowicz.