Advice Clinic: Make your beauty business a reality, one step at a time

Dear Grit Doctor,
I felt really motivated during spring and summer to stay fit. I took up running towards the end of last year hoping to lose weight for my wedding in June, which I did – two stone in fact. I kept the weight off for a wonderful honeymoon and was very motivated for everything, including trying to change my job.

I have worked as a PA for years but have fantasised about becoming a beautician with my own little business ever since I was at college. I have a background in this area and am already qualified so it makes good business sense.

I can afford not to earn any money for a few months as my husband has a good job and is very supportive.

However, I just seem glued to the couch now, eating takeaways, piling on the pounds and waiting for winter to set in, doing nothing to change my job at all except imagining what the front of the salon will look like. What is wrong with me and how can I get my mojo back?

I love that your question has both a running and a lifestyle element to it – my two favourite topics. And the good news is, resurrecting one (the running) can really help to kickstart the other (“project beautician”).

It is no surprise that your mojo is flagging, what with all the energy you expended on getting everything right for your wedding and honeymoon, and all the euphoria that surrounds these events. A natural high is inevitably going to be followed by a corresponding low.

Everyone has a post-wedding and honeymoon come-down. It is entirely natural and to be expected. No one can sustain that level of interest and enthusiasm indefinitely, so don’t beat yourself up about it.

That being said, you have now sufficiently overindulged on the sofa, and the time has come to stop pouring over the wedding photos, and start taking the necessary action to regain that healthy glow and fit body before it disappears under the crushing weight of all those take-aways.

Long-term goal
Maintaining a healthy weight can be a lot harder when there is no obvious goal to aim for or big event to focus the mind and direct the scales towards. The most obvious and realistic long-term way to maintain a healthy weight is through running. As this is an activity which you have already embraced, it will require very little effort to start up again. Just lace up and go.

It is such a great way to help stave off those excess pounds without having to resort to crazy diets, plus it will galvanise you into action elsewhere in your life where you are feeling a bit “meh”. And I guarantee it will lift you out of your post-wedding slump.

As for your beautician business idea: go for it. Many of us would kill to be in your shoes: just married, no kids yet and a husband who can bankroll you for a couple of months should be enough to have you firing on all cylinders. After all, it is not as if you are embarking upon a crazily risky random business venture or whacky invention.

The “beauty” industry is a growth industry, apparently immune to the recession, and one in which you are already qualified to practise.

It doesn’t get any better than this. You need to grasp the nettle, right now. How? By working out how to break this project down into bite-sized doable chunks and start tackling them one by one. Use your running as thinking time to work out what that first step is and to help motivate and inspire you to follow through. Remind yourself how anything only ever happens by putting one foot in front of another.

Essence of change
And, if you can't think for the life of you what that first step must be in "project beautician", then just get cracking on cleaning one shelf of one kitchen cupboard. Why? Because action is the essence of change.

And any worthwhile action will inspire another action, and then another. The key is always to get started on something. And complete it. So next time you are in the kitchen, just open one cupboard without fanfare or fuss and get it clean, pristine and in order.

Once you are done, and ideally with another run under your belt, hopefully there will be enough energy and clarity to get cracking on that first “shelf” in “project beautician”. If not, clean another shelf of the kitchen cupboard and think on it some more.

The Grit Doctor says:
No one else can make this happen for you and it sure as shit isn't going to happen of its own accord. It has to come from you. You don't want to look back on this time – these halcyon days – and regret not having taken your chance when it came calling, with bells on.

If there is any area of your life in which you need to ‘Get Your Shit Together’ and would like the Grit Doctor’s advice, please email your questions (gritdoctor@hotmail.co.uk) or tweet (@gritdoctor). No subject is off limits.