On "Crushing It!!!" While Feeling Crushed

🫖 Real talk about perceived success

I’m aware that 2023 looks like I’m “killing it” according to social media and photoshoots and book tours. And yes, many wonderful things have happened this year, of which I am beyond grateful. 

Some not-so-wonderful things have also happened as a side effect of achieving perceived success. 

Let’s dive in…

🤗 the good stuff:

Me & Hubby on our wedding day 10.18.23 (photo by Dillon Heape)

• quit my day job

• moved into a fabulous, rent-stabilized apartment which lets me have a home office while living in Manhattan

• gave birth to a puppy who completely saved my life

• launched this newsletter

• published my first book

• went on a book tour

• PR’d my deadlift

• got engaged 

• got married 

• co-founded an NA drink with my hubby

• signed a card deck deal for my podcast with Lisa Smith

🫣 the scary stuff:

My most used GIF (Grey’s Anatomy)

• suffered from extreme burnout and exhaustion of which I’m still recovering

• increased my anxiety medication

• felt like a fraud

• felt like a failure

• punched a hole in the wall of said fabulous apartment while mid-panic attack

• learned that extreme stress and anxiety trigger my body dysmorphia

• fucked up my menstrual cycle from stress

• considered quitting the whole author/entrepreneur thing to find a “real” job

• thought long and hard about what *success* means to me

• thought long and hard about what *sobriety* means to me

• made very little money from working my ass off

• spent lots of money *on* working my ass off

• cried. a lot. regularly. usually while screaming, “I work too hard to be this broke!!!”

🚧 the stuff I’m working on

Meg White & Stevie Nicks keeping me grounded in my home office

• setting and advocating for firm boundaries 

• doing less

• being nice to myself 

• telling myself that I’m doing enough

• raising my rates

• prioritizing ride-or-die friendships over networking friendships

• learning from other female entrepreneurs

• no longer working for free

• cyclical living

• nesting

• spending quality time with my husband and fur babies because life is more than work, even though I’m a double Capricorn who’s obsessed with working. 

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I share all of this to cut through the highlight reel bullshit. I’m not looking for sympathy or even empathy. I’m just trying to show a complete picture of 2023 because I believe in transparency. 

👉🏽👉🏽 Check on your friends who seem like they’re “crushing it” because we rarely feel like we are. In fact, we often feel like we’re being crushed, even when we’re smiling and signing books and speaking on panels and hitting “publish” on our newsletters.

Happy Humping,

Tawny