Things are changing!
An experimental update
Mindset Mastery is a weekly newsletter about the psychology of self-employment from Jenni Gritters. If you’d like to support my work, I invite you to become a paid subscriber for $5/ month! Paid subscribers receive monthly journaling prompts, along with other perks.
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Hi friends,
Today’s post is about me and my business! You’ve been asking for an update and I’m (finally) here with the goods.
Over the past few months, I’ve started to see clear evidence that I’m working differently. I’ve talked about this a lot in the past: The way I once worked doesn’t serve me anymore. I needed more support if I was going to run a sustainable business. And my husband left his job about 6 months ago to be (part of) that support system. The experiment is, frankly, ongoing. But here are a few things I’ve learned along the way:
A few weeks ago, I took a 9-day vacation with my family to the Oregon Coast.
While I was there, my business kept functioning in my absence. My 3 assistants worked on editorial research and branding projects. They managed my social media feeds (and made sure all my pre-scheduled content landed just right). Enrollments for SUSTAIN, my new coaching program, flooded in while I was away. Hundreds of people downloaded my free business planning workbook. And I… sat on the beach. I ran in the early mornings and napped in the afternoons. I hiked at sunset.
While I was gone, I checked my email every so often, smiled at the progress, then stepped away. It blew my mind. This is what I’d been hoping to build, but it took more than six months to set up the support needed to step away and not worry that the money wasn’t coming in, or something was going to explode. Granted, I still had hundreds of emails to tackle at the end of the week. But this vacation felt like a sign that things are working in the way I’d hope they would. We’re headed in the right direction.
The nature of my work tasks has changed, too.
Previously, I had to handle everything big and small in my business. I did all the strategy, then turned around and dealt with admin. I wrote long feature stories, then scripted podcasts. I was the do-er and the strategist and the marketer and the designer and the bookkeeper. And I liked it! Doing made me feel productive. It also made me feel tired.
In this new season of my business, I’ve had to get used to not being the doer. Instead, my time is best spent strategizing, organizing, delegating and making sure everyone else knows what to do. I find myself staring at my to do list sometimes, wondering where to start. Everything is a bit squishier, which has been a strange flip. By this I mean: It’s more important for me to go on a hike and think big-picture about my business than it is for me to answer emails. It’s also more important for me to communicate well and delegate, versus just doing the thing by myself. (I’m still learning how to do this well — it’s hard!)
Most of the time these days, I need to finalize the last 25% of a project or task. Rather than building it on my own, I need to polish it. Sometimes I need to provide the content and ideas, too. But mostly, I’m the support. To be honest, this shift has felt both delicious and a bit groundless. It’s so new.
When I launched my free business planning workbook last month, I looked around and thought: For the first time in my business’ life, I’m not working alone.
I created the content, but my assistants designed the workbook. They scheduled promotion and set up a funnel. My husband took care of the kids on launch day, then he (and my editorial assistant) kept the trains moving on product reviews so I could focus on the other side of the business with my whole brain. Then, I was surrounded by y’all’s feedback and enthusiasm all day long. My assistants sent me money for a celebratory drink. My mom freaked out about the plan.
In short, I was receiving true support, something I haven’t experienced… maybe ever. And this is because I’ve been working on not just asking for support but also allowing myself to receive support, which is a whole different ballgame. I used to thrive being a lone wolf. And it turns out, that was a coping mechanism. Being held up by others is much healthier for me.
I recently posted on Instagram about how I’m working at a less-intense speed, and this is making it hard to work at all.
My system is delighted by this slow-down. It wants more and more and more. I sit down at my office and find my gaze wandering to the window, where I can see the river full of paddle boarders. Last month, I stopped working at 2 pm almost every day because I wanted to hike instead. I still managed to get my work done so perhaps the adage is true: Work fills the amount of time you dedicate to it.
But either way, this is a wild identity change for me. I’ve always been the person who works fast and does it all. What if I become a person who works slowly? What if I become a person who wanders through her garden every evening, bakes bread and teaches the people around me how to soothe their nervous systems enough to stop playing the extractive game of capitalism? I have no answers to these questions yet, but I can feel myself shape-shifting yet again.
I don’t mean to sound pollyanna about all of this, because growth comes with a price of hard work, too.
I’m still very much in the thick of dealing with my own money mindset; I tend to freak out each month about how the business isn’t going to generate enough revenue — and then of course, month after month, we’re just fine. But when I feel out of control, I end up placing emphasis on our money.
My husband and I are still learning how to best work with each other. Our dumb marital fights (you know the ones) are making their way into our business processes, too. It’s not pretty and untangling the threads has been a lot of hard (inefficient, vulnerable) work.
I’m still afraid — as much as I am excited — about launching my new coaching programs this fall.
My menstrual cycle has been causing energetic ebbs and flows throughout the month — much more intensively now that I’ve had two kids — and I’ve been working to track those patterns so I can work with them, not against them, in the months ahead. Still, sometimes, my schedule is far too heavy one day and then far too light the next. It’s a work in progress; it always will be.
To end this newsletter today, here’s a metaphor:
We moved into a house in the woods last year and we have an acre of land. Our backyard is huge, and it used to be incredibly landscaped. But because renters lived in the house for a decade, that gorgeous landscaping is buried. Every surface is covered with nearly a foot of debris from the dozens ponderosa pine trees on our property. And nothing is more buried than the dry riverbed, which the original owners built out by hand.
When I stare at the riverbed, I can see evidence of what it used to be. But right now, it’s a pile of rocks covered in old pine needles and tangled weeds. So for the past few months, I’ve spent nearly 20 minutes per day in the backyard, removing the rocks from the river bed, then hand-pulling the weeds scattered around them, before cutting out portions of old liner. In those 20 minutes, I can clear about a foot of the bed. That’s it. And if I look ahead at the 100+ feet ahead of me that still needs to be dealt with, I lose my resolve. So I keep my eyes down and I work, inch by inch. As of last week, I’m about 60% done with the project. I started it in May.
This is how I’m treating my business progress, too: Daily, small movements seem to be the only answer. If I gaze out too far into the distance of my business, I still feel overwhelmed. So I keep myself tied to what’s below my feet and I move them, inch by inch, over and over, banking on the fact that this steady progress will get me somewhere good.
Solidarity,
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!
Such a beautiful metaphor and such valuable insights here. Thank you, Jenny!