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Lila wanted to write a book, and she had about a dozen essays half-baked in a file on her computer. She came to me for coaching because she wanted to actually start working on both the essays and the book, but she was getting stuck.
My first question as a coach is always: What do you dream of building?
My follow-up question: What’s getting in the way?
Most of us are working with a combination of two types of blocks:
internal blocks (like self-doubt, identity-related worries, fears and limiting beliefs)
and external blocks (like scheduling issues, no quiet places to work, health concerns, and beyond)
Lila was struggling to write her book because she had several major external blocks. External blocks cause constraints, which are limitations or restrictions that impact your life by making it more difficult to achieve your goals. I work with many freelancers who’s lives are full of responsibilities like:
caregiving (either for young children, sick partners or aging parents)
dealing with their own mental health needs (like anxiety, depression, ADHD, and beyond)
living with a chronic illness
moving from place to place frequently, either by choice or to accommodate a partner’s work
living with a disability that makes certain work-related activities more challenging
All of these situations are normal! (Seriously, I’d say about 75% of my clients deal with some combination of the above.) But common business education would have you believe that you need to either eliminate or hyper-manage these conditions in order to achieve your work-related goals.
I don’t buy into that.
The facts, however, are that these situations do cause constraints. If we’re caring for young children, we have less than 40 hours to work each week. If we’re managing a tricky illness, we show up every day with different needs and thus, maintaining a daily routine can be difficult. That illnesses may mean that we struggle with brain fog, which makes focusing on work difficult. These constraints can feel like they limit possibility. They can appear to inhibit our dreams.
Lila certainly felt that way. Like I said above, she had some clear external blocks. She had recently been diagnosed with depression and she was learning that her depression tended to be cyclical. Often, she’d experience a few good months, followed by a hard month when she struggled to get out of bed. During the hard month, she wasn’t able to work much because she needed to focus on using her mental health toolkit to keep herself safe. Lila also had a 10-year-old son who was dealing with a chronic health issue.
Lila’s constraints were around focus, predictability of schedule, and time. She didn’t have a full 40 hours to work each week. She didn’t quite know when her depression would hit and she also didn’t know when her son would get sick. She’d tried to set up an “I write X number of words each day” routine, but that often got lost in the shuffle during the Bad Times.
If you’re a human person, I know you can empathize with Lila’s situation. So can I! I’m basically living her story, too.
I’ve worked with dozens of Lilas and here’s what I know: The best medicine for running a business — and chasing creative goals — when you’re dealing with constraints is community. You need to be with other people who are in the same situation.
This is why I’m running a coaching group for business owners with constraints this April. It’s called ADAPT and I’m offering it in two set ups: Either live, on Tuesdays at noon PST on Zoom, or self-paced, which means you can take the classes along with us, but at any time that serves you.
ADAPT is business coaching for those of us who don’t have traditional set ups. The group is already full of incredible business owners who have small children, aging parents, mental health diagnoses, chronic illnesses, and beyond. They’re looking for help navigating challenges like time management, keeping themselves healthy while also building something incredible, trying to plan for a year ahead while not knowing what’s coming, and avoiding burnout. And that’s exactly what we’re going to work on, together.
I’m running this group because we all need each other. I’m also running it because I believe that constraints are actually a blessing in disguise. That might sound counterintuitive but hear me out: The less time you have, the more efficient you can be in that time. (Just ask a mom who’s working during her child’s nap time!) When your life is complex, you have less time for BS.
Yes, you may need to put your dreams on a slower timeline when life gets chaotic. And you will certainly need to build muscles like resilience and flexibility. But what really matters becomes so, so clear when life throws you curveballs. Your priorities are a bright light in the chaos. If you join ADAPT, be prepared to rebuild your business with this superpower in mind.
I love working with people who’s lives are complex and full. If you decide to join us, you’ll walk away from the 5-week session with a new business plan that accommodates your unique needs during this season. You’ll meet a community of curious, entrepreneurial people who can support you in your journey to build a unique business. You’ll get a 1-1 coaching session with me, so we can dig into your personal blocks. And you’ll get access to a huge toolkit of practices and frameworks that you can use to re-evaluate your business needs whenever new things come up — because you know they will!
What happened to Lila? Well, she wrote the book. The draft is finished, and she’s currently querying agents. She also published two essays last year. We designed a business model that allowed her to work for a few months, then take a full month off when her depression hit. She switched her client load so she could work with folks on longer-term projects, which meant that one lost day wasn’t the end of the world. Managing all of the needs in her life was still a challenge — there’s no way around that — but I watched Lila give herself permission to adapt her business month-over-month, based on her own needs and her family’s needs. And once she had permission to do that, she also had permission to work on her book whenever she had time. She finished it in just a few months, after years of hemming and hawing.
Let’s get you there, too.
Early bird pricing for ADAPT ends today at midnight. The group starts in April 2023. And if you have questions, you know I’m here to chat.
xo,
Jenni