Words of Affirmation

I wish words of affirmation weren't one of my receiving love languages. It feels needy. Like I need external validation.

But, so it is. So I get a little sad when clients don't say anything about whether they like the app. Especially friends who are clients, who I've talked to a lot about the business or the app I'm programming all by my lonesome.

Now that we're simultaneously running three group challenges, the problem is magnified.

Whenever a client begins a sentence with "[X] isn't working in the app...", I have heart palpitations. Oh my god. Is there a bug?! Is everyone having this issue?! My old boss/coworkers are using it...will they think my code is shitty?!

Fortunately most of the time it's been user error (which does at least give me good ideas for how to improve the user interface). It's certainly made me conscious of how I speak to other small business owners. Adding those few extra words "I'm probably doing something stupid..." makes the sentence "[X] isn't working" so much less jarring. Remember, there is a person that created that thing...and you may very well be speaking to them!

As a side note, I've noticed my sleep hasn't been good lately. I used to sleep like a log. Now there are times when I can't shut my mind off, or I'm so excited to do a bunch of things that I can't fall back asleep, etc. I think I'm starting to understand the constant low-level anxiety that Tyler mentioned as related to owning your own business. Will figure out a way to chill...