Warning: Sugar Can Cause Stress

If you are making a living in the sugar world, or even as a side venture, you have by now realized that it is not as glamorous as it appears to the outside world.

It can be stressful.

There are hard deadlines.  A birthday cake or wedding cake can not be delivered a day late or even a few hours. 

Yes, it’s just cake, or cookies, or candy, or pastry,  but it’s not.  It is someone else’s celebration.   They have a lot of emotion riding on this.  This is more than just a piece of food for them.  It is what it represents.

There is Murphy and Mother.  Murphy’s law can, on occasion knock you upside the head.  Or Mother Nature can throw you a less than ideal situation to test you.

There are clients.  Most of them are amazing and grateful and gracious.  But there is always that one...

There is life.  Stuff outside of your bakery happens.  It has to be dealt with.  And no one cares how many orders you need to fill in the next 24 hours.

And there is that voice in your head that has all kinds of conversations with you, seemingly just to mess with you.

Sadly, many of these things are out of your control  (and if you are a control freak you can just add that as a stressor, too).  However, some are in your control and there are things you can do to take that stress down a notch or ten.

Protect Your Calendar

• Don’t overextend yourself. Schedule only the amount of work you can handle.
• Learn to say no to the things/people/events you don’t want to do so they never end up on your calendar.
• Schedule time for people you love and things that make you happy. Schedule it.  On the calendar.  Before you get overwhelmed with work.
• Try to leave a little wiggle room. You never know when an exciting opportunity might pop up.

Protect Your Health

• Exercise and nutrition are always a great way to keep stress, any stress, at bay.
• Sleep is often overlooked in the sugar world due to the hard deadlines that have to be made. Make sure you get your share regularly.  You can’t make up the sleep you missed all week on Monday mornings.  It doesn’t work like that.
• Make sure you are doing whatever rituals you are doing to keep your mental health in the safe zone. If you don’t have any rituals, find some.  Ask your friends what they do.  Google it.  Keep looking until you find something that helps you bring ease into your life.

Protect Your Relationships

• This was already touched on. It is vital that you make time for the people you love, your support, you IRL friends. 
• Relationships are cultivated, put effort into those that are of the most value to you.
• Prune the relationships that may be hurting you.
• Show appreciation to your tribe, as small or as big as it may be. Appreciation helps both you and them. 

It is also important to remember that you are the master of your feelings.  You get to decide how happy you are.  Yes, some days that is harder to do than others, but it is still your choice. 

Amazingly enough, if you lower your stress levels it can make you more creative. 

So choose to be happy and go forth and create!