choosing ENOUGH as a small business owner
We’re gonna switch gears from my normal website-specific content for a second and talk a little bit about a few things that have become really important to me as an entrepreneur:
Mindfulness + Rest.
There’s a distinct pressure to “wear all the hats” as a small business owner. A pressure to hustle. To do the daily grind of doing everything for your business. To work endless hours to make the dreams a reality.
It’s an endless to do list:
create new products
marketing marketing marketing
weekly email list
weekly blog
post every day on social media
keep your finances in order
research your market + stay on top of trends
learn new skills
keep your SEO good
update your website
network to find new clients
And in that to-do list it’s like there’s barely time to actually DO paid client work - let alone rest and take care of yourself and breathe.
Spoiler: Some of the stuff we do in our businesses is busy work but it’s not really moving the needle.
I’ve had years of hustle. Years where it didn’t feel like I had much space. But mindfulness has become an important part of my everyday life in the last few years and it’s leaked into every aspect of my business too.
Mindfulness in my business looks like analyzing my tasks and time to make sure everything I’m doing is purposeful and essential in my business - and de-prioritizing anything that was negotiable.
Why? Because I want time. I want time for slow mornings and reading and bathing in the summer sun and walks with my partner. I want space to do the things that make me feel alive.
And I think that space + time makes me better at my job.
It leaves space for me to be more creative. To follow my energy and work hard when I’m feeling motivated and productive, and to take it easy when it’s just not flowing.
It comes down to asking yourself: what is enough?
This is a concept my business coaches Jason + Caroline at Wandering Aimfully talk about a lot.
What’s enough income?
What’s enough marketing?
What’s enough blogging, posting, networking?
How can we choose done instead of perfect?
So here are some things that I’ve adjusted in my business to give me more of the space that I’m looking for:
I send out a monthly newsletter instead of the often-prescribed weekly newsletter. This probably saves me about 3 hours a week. I simply don’t have the capacity to write a mindful newsletter more frequently - so I don’t! And I hope that the once a month I pop into my subscribers inboxes is a fun treat and intimate look into my business.
My only social media channel is Instagram and I post there twice a week and I don’t really do stories. I spend about 3 hours a month scheduling my social content and that’s all the time I spend on it. Posting every day simply doesn’t feel necessary to me!
I’m working on building up my blog content so I’m currently writing here twice a month - soon to be once a month. I don’t think my posts are perfect and that’s okay! My coaches taught me that 8-10 foundational articles on your website IS ENOUGH - wow, what a relief.
I have about 5-6 hours of client work scheduled per day which leaves me some time to do business tasks, and leaves my evenings and weekends free… usually.
And sometimes, I still hustle!
Because I give myself time to rest, it allows me to follow the flow of energy in my business - and this happens to often coincide with my menstrual cycle, just saying. Or sometimes it’s unrelated and attached to being really excited about a specific problem.
About 5 days a month, I am driven. I’m down to spend every waking minute in my business. I’m energized and motivated and I follow that energy. Because when it’s there, it’s gold. And when it’s not, forcing it won’t help anyone.
This mindset also leaks into my work with my clients.
As much as I love a firm deadline for my client projects, sometimes they need to be tossed aside. Life happens, burnout happens, physical + mental health needs tending to - you name it.
Prioritizing space and rest has helped me push my own clients to take care of themselves instead of meeting my arbitrary deadlines for our projects. This creates better outcomes in the end anyways because making decisions out of a place of tension doesn’t always lead to the things we really want. Space + ease are where we want to be making decisions from if we can.
And my clients have really appreciated the encouragement to take care of themselves first.
Thanks for reading a bit of a journal entry into the mindset behind some of my business and work! I hope it encouraged you to hustle less + allow more space for rest and flow in your work and life too.
