Shim realised that her work was getting tedious and exhausting, so after resigning, she felt completely free to set her own rules in her business. Throughout her career she has known confused, tired and questionable women, who she has proudly managed to help. Shim herself is the best example of how not to get confused by everything around us and continue on our path to success. As an expert, she introduces us to some tips on how we can reduce stress in our lives, to have a better, quality life.
How do you remember the beginnings of your career?
I remember feeling fed up with the rules in the job I was in. At the time, there wasn’t any room or opportunities to grow to the next level and I started to feel very uncomfortable being comfortable. In Jan 2012, I handed in my 30 days’ notice and within that time, I set up my first business and I found a venue to work from and began my business career. I distinctly remember feeling so excited, the freedom to go off and create my own rules, help people the way I want to help them and create a working life on my terms.
When was the point you decided on what to do with your life?
There were two very pivotal and transformational points in my life when I just knew in my gut what I wanted to do. The first point goes back to my teenage years when I started looking at physio courses because of my passion for science and how the human body worked which led me down the path of my very first business.
My other biggest turning point was in Nov 2018 when I changed my career around and let go of my first business and I went a lot deeper into understanding the human body and its behaviours. At the time, I was dealing with a lot of stress that I put my body through over the years of running my first business. This is where my own mess has become my message to business women today.
How would you describe this journey of yours?
The journey has been a huge roller coaster ride with so many challenges, wins, tears, breakdowns and breakthroughs but I wouldn’t change it for the world because it has shaped me to be the business woman I am today. The biggest key to my journey is being vulnerable enough to raise my hand and ask for help with my health and my business. This journey has been so exciting and explorative because of this.
Tell us a little more about your work with business women, how do you know them, what do you give and what do you get from them?
I strongly believe that the manner in which you run your business truly reflects on how you work on your health, and vice versa. Many women that come to me for help are quite confused and overwhelmed on why particular symptoms are coming up in their body, their disbelief of how they ended up in this state and the hopelessness of getting out of it and getting back to the normal they once felt empowered to be in. Highly driven women in business are very committed to their mission and their business, but many sacrifice their health to do this.
The Better Balance Better Business Accelerator Program that was launched in June 2020 gives business women today the exact tools and steps to gain control over their health again so that they can continue serving their clients and moving their business forwards, be the go getters and the hard-workers that they are. This continues to be their reality when working with me and the team at The Gut Intuition. This is what empowers and gives me the satisfaction of making a difference – how all business women can learn from every journey/story told, the understanding of what self-care means to each individual – and how every story coming from these powerful women gives me the chance to enhance my skill-set even more.
How do you manage to turn stress into success?
It’s about taking a pause point, zooming out, looking at the bigger picture; and then taking the right action that’s best for them. The first step is being aware of where you think your stress is coming from and why you feel stressed is really significant to acknowledge. Stress is just perception – everybody views things differently in life according to their own eyes and ears.
If we take the recent pandemic, a lot of people can view this as totally negative and feel like everything is out of their control. However, on the other hand, we can view this as an opportunity to grow because we can’t control outside circumstances. The biggest way to success is how you control yourself: how resilient you are with your physical, emotional & mental well being. Life and business is going to throw a lot of setbacks and challenges all of the time, but the secret to success really is how quickly we get back up and be the best version of ourselves today.
How does stress affect everyone’s life?
The word ‘Stress’ has been abused, stretched and is often spoken in a way of how we talk about the weather to fit people’s comfort levels. However, the more we use and understand it loosely, and don’t acknowledge and understand why we are experiencing a particular level of stress; we miss the signs and clues our body gives us to turn a corner and change it around. There are physical, emotional and mental stresses that occur every day and they tend to show up as weight gain, lack of motivation to get things done in business, not stepping up and taking the lead (not because we want to) and generally feeling doubtful and overthinking.
Can you share with us some tips on how to manage stress in our lives?
There are 3 tips that can bring a sense of peace in a short space of time in our lives when we are feeling stressed and they are:
- Get good quality sleep – we wake up and spend most of our time in artificial sleep like our phones, T.Vs’, laptops which suppress the right signals to the brain which disturbs our sleep. So, avoid digital devices an hour before bed allowing our sleep hormone (Melatonin) to do its job.
- Caffeine – don’t consume caffeine after 2pm because it has a half-life of 5-7 hours. If we have caffeine late afternoon, we disturb the body releasing melatonin therefore resulting in disturbed sleep.
- Breathe – schedule time to just breathe in and out for 5 mins to calm our nervous system down so therefore we can recover and rest as needed.
If you would like to learn how you can transform your stress into success, get your copy of Shim’s free guide on the 7 steps from stress to success by emailing her team at [email protected] and they will send you a copy completely for free!
