How treating your business like a workout changes everything
Running a business is HARD!
You’re probably heard multiple business owners say it, and they’re not wrong, but they also never tell you what kind of hard work it is.
It’s not just long hours or tough clients. It’s the kind of work that tests your consistency, your patience, and your ability to keep showing up when everything feels awkward.
Basically, it’s the same as working out.
You don’t see results right away. You question if you’re doing it right. You wonder if everyone else knows some secret you don’t. But eventually, you start building strength you didn’t know you had.
The warm-up! Everything hurts at first
At the start, everything hurts.
You feel awkward and you’re pretty sure you’re doing something wrong.
You question every move and wonder if anyone else has ever looked this ridiculous trying to figure it out.
Welcome to entrepreneurship.
When you first start a business, it’s like your first week (sometimes month) at the gym. You’re not sure which machine does what or how to do basic workouts so you’re Googling “how to do a chest press” in the corner.
You’re terrified of doing it wrong and pulling a muscle you didn’t know existed.
You’ve got motivation, excitement, and a Pinterest board full of “CEO energy” so you’re ready to crush it.
But then reality hits.
Your systems are a mess (or non-existent), you forgot about needing cash flow (but don’t know that it’s called cash flow.. You just know you need money), and you’ve just realized you’re the bookkeeper, marketing team, and janitor all in one.
It’s easy to think everyone else has it figured out, they don’t. Every new business owner has this phase!!
The routine! You keep showing up
Eventually, the routine makes sense.
You stop overthinking and start moving with more confidence, you figure out which things get results and which ones are just there to waste your time. You stop Googling every other thing you have to do, and you realize that a good system isn’t about the tool, it’s about how you use it.
In fitness, it’s the same thing. You can have the fanciest gym membership in the world, but if you don’t have a plan or consistency, you’ll still feel stuck and not see much growth if any.
Business is no different.
It’s not about doing more, it’s about doing what actually works. You find your groove, learn what feels sustainable and start to build muscle literally and metaphorically.
The plateau! When progress stops feeling obvious
Then you hit that weird in-between phase. You’re showing up, doing the work, but things aren’t moving like they used to.
The clients aren’t rolling in as easily, the numbers have flatlined so you panic a little. You’re working harder, but it doesn’t feel like it’s paying off.
This is where most people quit in business and in fitness.
Because it’s hard to keep showing up when the progress isn’t obvious.
It’s hard to push through when the dopamine hits stop coming from new wins.
But, plateaus aren’t proof you’ve stopped growing, they’re proof you’ve been growing.
In fitness, when you feel stuck, you look back at progress photos or old workout logs and you realize you’re now casually lifting the same weight that once felt impossible. You see muscle definition you never used to have and remember how hard it was to start!
Suddenly you realize how far you’ve come.
It’s the same in business (we just don’t have progress photos that are as easy to see!).
When things feel slow, look back at where you started.
The messy spreadsheets
The endless manual tasks
The late nights trying to figure out how to send your first invoice
You’ve learned things you didn’t even know existed two years ago and you’ve built something real!
So instead of thinking you’re stuck, see a plateau as a checkpoint - a reminder that it’s time to grow differently! It’s a chance to assess what’s working, tighten what’s not, and level up again.
The personal plan! What works for you might not work for me
The thing a lot of people forget, whether it’s the gym or your business, it doesn’t have to look the same for everyone (and it shouldn’t!).
Some people are built for beast mode while others are built for balance.
Take my twin sister Siobhan and I.
Siobhan lifts heavy weights (like beast mode heavy weights!💪💪💪💪)
She’s all about pushing limits, tracking progress, and hitting personal records. She thrives on that kind of structure, that’s what energizes her.
She loves lifting heavy sh!t every chance she gets.
Me? I walk. A lot. Fifteen thousand steps a day is my baseline. I stretch religiously because if I don’t, I feel it everywhere and my workouts focus on mobility and strengthening my bad areas (hips, back, ankle).
My version of discipline looks like showing up for myself daily but in a way that fits my life, my bones, and my energy.
Neither is wrong. Both work because they’re sustainable for us.
That’s the part everyone forgets when they look at how other people run their businesses.
Your business model is YOUR business model! It doesn’t have to look like someone else’s.
You don’t have to work 12-hour days to prove you care.
You don’t have to post five times a week to be “consistent.”
You don’t have to scale if you don’t want to manage a team.
You do what fits your life, your energy, and your goals.
Just like your body, your business has its own bone structure and what feels natural and energizing for one person might be painful for another.
If you’re a morning person, great, build your workday around that.
If you hit your creative stride at 10 p.m., stop fighting it and take an afternoon nap.
If you need Fridays off to recharge, make it part of your process.
It’s your business, you get to design it (you just have to then also commit to it.)
The recovery! Rest is part of the work
Now the most important part… RECOVERY!
In fitness, rest days are non-negotiable.
If you don’t let your muscles recover, they break down. Burnout is what happens when you keep lifting without stopping.
The same goes for your business.
You can’t go full throttle every day. You need recovery time for your body and your brain! The quiet days where you review, reflect, and reset. Without that time, you WILL burnout and stop growing.
Sometimes getting stronger means doing less.
The payoff! You built this muscle
Some days are your personal productivity bests and other days you barely make it off the metaphorical treadmill alive. But every rep, every client, every failed launch builds strength, even if you don’t feel it yet.
Over time, you start to trust yourself more.
You stop asking if you’re doing it right
You stop comparing your pace to anyone else’s
You realize you’ve built something real and you’ve done it your way
Running a business isn’t a sprint, It’s not even a marathon. It’s strength training for your brain, your boundaries, and your patience.
And if you stick with it long enough, one day you’ll look back and realize… you’re the one who built all this muscle.
