How I'm Navigating Taking The Leap In My Own Slow & Joyful Way
It was at the end of last year that I decided to take a 6 months leave from my day job to work on growing my creative business. It was a decision that forced me to gather my courage. I’ve taken the safe route many times in my life, and forging my own, unknown path still feels pretty uncomfortable.
Since then, I’ve had plenty of time to contemplate how I want to navigate this time ahead. I’ve thought I’ll do anything to make it work. I’ve toyed with ideas for new offerings. I’ve been worried and excited and everything in between.
As April and the start of my 6 month leap draws near, I feel myself softly grounding in my own way of navigating this leap - one that is true to who I am. This is what I always want us to find, our own way of doing our creative work. Let me tell you what it looks like for me in this leap.
Holding onto my values of slow and joy
When trying to reach a goal we care about, it can be tempting to say we’re willing to do whatever it takes to reach that goal. And there have been times when I’ve thought just that, that I’ll do anything to get my business to a point where I can keep doing this full-time after my 6 month leap.
But when I really think about it, there are certain things I’m not willing to do. I’m not willing to do work I dislike. I’m not willing to sacrifice my health and happiness. I’m not willing to use sleazy sales tactics. I’m not willing to push myself too hard and risk burnout.
When we sacrifice our values and our joy in the name of reaching a result, our work quickly becomes misaligned and we often end up not following through. It’s not just that it feels bad, it’s a bad way of trying to reach goals. You do your best work when you are doing things your way.
So no, I’m not simply going to “do whatever it takes”. I’m going to do do this leap in alignment with my values. I’m going to hold onto my slow habits and my boundaries. I’m going to keep leaning into the joy of the process and not just obsessing about the results. And I’m of course going to keep doing the work that lights me up - creating and coaching to support and inspire creatives.
I want to enjoy these 6 months ahead. Regardless of whether they lead to a life as a full-time business owner or not, I want to look back on this time fondly and smile at the memories. Fortunately, there’s no contradiction between enjoying your work and having it bring you good results as well.
The short term and long term visions
I have a pretty clear idea about what I want my business to be long term. I envision having a range of guides, courses and programmes - I even have concrete ideas about what they might look like. I imagine I’ll always work with a couple of coaching clients, but that it’ll eventually be a limited, high end offer. And alongside I’ll work on my own creative projects, writing novels, exploring photography and trying new crafts.
This is my direction of my creative business. It might change along the way, and that’s completely okay. But this is what I think of when I think some years into the future of my creative journey.
We don’t just need a long term vision though - we also need some milestones for our route towards that direction. So what is my short term vision then? Well, it’s simply this - making a living from creative coaching, and exploring ideas, inspiring and supporting through my free content. That’s my vision for my 6 month leap, it’s what I’m going to try to get to.
A 100% creative coaching business is the simplest version of my long term vision, the closest milestone in my route forward. Once I’ve reached that place, I can start adding more things.
Narrowing my focus
I think of business (as well as many creative projects) as a house. You need a sturdy structure as your foundation, or the house will topple over regardless of how pretty the wallpaper is. In my business, creative coaching is that core structure. I love doing it, according to my clients I’m great at it, and it will inform other offerings I want to create in the future as well. And at this stage of my journey, it will be easier to generate an income from working directly with clients rather than creating and selling courses and programmes.
So for my 6 months ahead, my focus will be pretty narrow. It will be on my coaching and my clients, on reaching more creatives with my work and supporting you, lovely reader, with your creative projects through my free content as well.
I’m always a big proponent of having a clear focus and not trying to do too many things at once. It helps you gain clarity and keeps overwhelm at bay, and it creates more space for slow as well. It may feel a little limiting for us creatives with many passions, but after having tried pursuing many projects at once, I know that the benefits of doing one thing at a time far outweighs the ache of missing other types of work for a while. (For me, at least.) Doing less but doing it wholeheartedly is a beautiful thing.
It’s all an experiment
Careful planning in all its glory, all creative pursuits need an element of experimentation. And this is also part of the fun! When we embark on a new part of our creative journey, we can never fully know how it’s going to work out. I often help my clients navigate this balance of steering and seeing where the journey takes you, of following the plan and being open for how things evolve.
I don’t know where I will be in 6 months time. I have an idea about where I want to be, I have some strategies that I think might take me there. But at the end of the day it’s all an experiment, a process - yes, an adventure. And I’m ready to see where this adventure takes me.
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