The stability vs freedom paradigm
What if you could have both?
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If you’re tired of just surviving and want to move your business into a more intentional, less chaotic mode this fall, my new business coaching membership program is for you! It’s called SUSTAIN and sessions start in September 2023.
Lola had two asks for our business coaching work together: Over the course of 12 sessions, she wanted to find more stability in her business. But she also wanted to maintain the freedom she already had.
She noticed that whenever she tried to add stability to her workload, she started to freak out. What if putting clients into a less chaotic workflow meant that she had less freedom? She loved being able to surf whenever she wanted. She loved being able to take a week off without anyone noticing. She ran her own business because of the freedom and she didn’t want to be accountable to anyone else. But the chaos was also starting to wear on her.
The word stable can be defined in a few different ways. At a basic level, something that’s stable is not likely to overturn. If something is stable, it’s fixed — often to the ground or the wall next to it. But stability is also defined as sanity and sensibility. And it something is stable, it means that it’s not deteriorating.
Often, people come to my coaching room worried that stability and freedom are polar opposites. Like Lola, most of us get into self-employment because we want to control our time. We want to have the freedom to do what we want when we want it.
But placing freedom and stability at opposite ends of the spectrum is what we call in the coaching world a false dichotomy. This is black and white thinking. It says: Either I have freedom, or I have stability. I can’t have both.
If you buy into this, you’ll reject stability in your business at the cost of your own mental health. If stability is all about sanity and sensibility, and if stability is non-deterioration, then not implementing stability in your business means losing all of those things. You’ll start to feel deterioration! You’ll feel less sane and less sensible!
Avoiding stability meant that Lola ran a business where the revenue fluctuated month over month to such a degree that she ended up with more than she needed one month. The next, she couldn’t pay her bills. In her business, a lack of stability was also obvious in her non-repetitive client relationships; each month, she had to start finding work from scratch. For others of us, a lack of stability shows up as a business where you struggle to explain to other people what you do, because what you do is always changing.
Sure, you might have the freedom to do what you want when you want it. Lola could surf at any time she pleased! But you probably also feel unsteady and like things could explode or fall apart at any moment. As Lola said to me: All of this has me considering whether or not I should just get a full-time job instead.
Sound familiar? If it does, it’s because almost every freelancer I’ve worked with approaches work in this way from the start. Freedom is enticing! It gives you a high! And at first, it’s totally worth it. But over time, the lack of stability can start to erode, making the freedom feel almost not worth it.
Here’s what I want you to know: You can have both. You can build a business that’s stable and gives you the freedom you want and need. Putting freedom and stability at two opposite ends of the spectrum creates a false dichotomy. The reality is that there are a zillion shades of grey; you don’t have to choose between one or the other. In fact, adding stability to your business often gives you more freedom.
When I explained this to Lola, she agreed that she wanted both. So over the course of a few months, we worked studiously on two things:
First, she needed to create repetitive client relationships. One of her services was social media management, and she mostly worked on one-off projects for five different companies who approached her ad hoc. This made it tough to plan ahead. Thus, it was time to get some of those clients into retainer agreements. So Lola scheduled calls with each client and proposed working together for $1,000/ month, 10 hours each month. Three of the clients agreed to this proposal. The other two couldn’t swing it financially, but they were able to share their editorial calendars to give Lola a sense for when work might be coming from them.
Lola also set up a canned email in her inbox to send to each non-retainer client two weeks after they’d finished up a project, to see what other work they needed help with. This, too, ended up being a game changer because the gaps between projects were significantly shorter — and Lola began to feel like she could trust that this work would come in. (This is called rotating stability.)
Second, Lola needed a new financial structure. We worked together to look back at patterns of income, to see how much she was making each month if she averaged out the highs and the lows. She opened a business bank account, started to pay herself a paycheck instead of using all the money as it came in, and created an assignment tracker.
It was like watching a magical transformation: Lola still had the freedom to control her schedule but she also had stability. She was getting what she wanted and what she needed from her business. Her worries about needing to get a full-time job quickly disappeared.
This is a big moment for most of my clients: When you realize that you can build stability into your business, you’re then able to see how this could work for you for years to come.
We’re starting with this paradigm shift in my new business coaching membership program, SUSTAIN. We’ll spend September talking about retainers, rotating stability, finding new clients, and so much more. Then in October, we’ll talk about making more money.
If you’re like Lola, you’ll want in on this program. It’s $149/ month, and I can promise that you’ll make that back in a few short months. I want you to have that magical moment that Lola got. I want everyone to have that magical moment that Lola got. Because when you start to feel more stable — more sane, more trusting — you can do your best work for your clients. That’s how we change the world.
xo,
Jenni
Curious about my background? I’m a writer and business coach based in Central Oregon. I have two small children and I work part-time so I can spend a lot of time with them. Lately, I’ve been obsessed with non-linear business building and teaching people how to build successful businesses that support their human needs first. Check out my coaching offerings here, follow me on Twitter & Instagram, or download my free business plan for creatives!