The start of 2022 did not go to plan, I fell just before Christmas and fractured my ankle in two places. It put me out of action for the start of the new year as I was in a pot for around 9 weeks. The recovery has also been slow and I am still using my crutches as we head into May.
To say it has been frustrating would be an understatement. There have been a few tears, plenty of rest and only a *tiny* bit of feeling sorry for myself.
Once the first few weeks had passed by and the pain began to ease, I could start sitting with my laptop and at least work on my businesses. I couldn’t think of anything worse than watching TV all time so I found a balance between work and rest, all from my bedroom for the first few months.
The worst thing about breaking your ankle is the lack of freedom and independence. At least, that’s what I found to be worst. As I was staying upstairs – Mainly because I couldn’t get around the bend on our stairs on my own and as we have no downstairs bathroom I needed to be able to manage on my own. Later, our boiler also broke so I had to stay where we had a heater which was upstairs!
Although it sounds nice to have people look after you and of course, I am so grateful for those who did. It was frustrating to not be able to get what I needed when I wanted it. I had to learn very quickly to ask for help.
It could be simple things but having to ask all the time, feels like you are being a pain (I probably was at times) but I had to just go for it.
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What I’ve learnt in 2022
There were times when I needed to be brave. I think the fact an injury happens so fast means it takes time to adjust. It felt like I had to have some courage to do anything for the first time, which got exhausting at times. It’s something I am proud of because I certainly did a few things which needed plenty of courage like travelling to another country when I still couldn’t walk.
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A lot of people have asked me about my mental health. I can imagine if you had nothing to do then it would be really challenging. I am so grateful I had my businesses to occupy my time and my mind as just watching TV all the time would have been hard for me. I think all of the years of self-development paid off as for the most part, I tried to stay positive and not get too down. I also used EFT tapping to help with the pain and recovery which I believe helped me.
During my time of being in a pot, I did some interviews on zoom, sold a business and created some new “side projects”. Once I had gotten past the first month or so, I took advantage of the time I had to focus on business. As a business owner, my main focus is always marketing and using social media is easy from bed!
Although I wasn’t able to get outside and create new content or take photos I could still write, start a podcast and build my product businesses. I feel like I have such a focus on these and really embraced these multiple passions, mainly for the first time. I have a vision for I want all of these brands to go and have a plan to make it happen. I was also able to outsource, especially early on and this is something I intend to do more of in the future. Especially when I have healed when I will be at home less.
Keep on learning
I also used the time to learn. I had a bunch of courses I had bought which I was able to finish to gain some new skills and I also invested in some other things to help my development. I took some business-focused courses around Etsy and product development. I worked on my personal brand and I even took a qualification in EFT.
The only positive I can see having a broken ankle gave me was time.
I am not sure how I will look back on this time. I think there will be some pride in how I handled it but also frustration that there were so many things I was unable to do. I am sure I will be happy with all the business foundations I set in place too.
For me, I had no idea how bad an ankle injury can be. It is really debilitating and the healing is almost as bad in a different way. I felt like once I had my pot off I would be back to normal in a short period but for me, that hasn’t been the case.
It’s not been the start of the year I wanted but as you can see there have been a lot of lessons learnt and so much gratitude for anyone who has helped make my life a little bit easier over the last few months!
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