A simple & spacious business doesn't happen by accident
Because you are allowed to build, shape, and run your business in a way that truly works best for you...
Pre-s: This is a newsletter that I wrote to my email list recently that I wanted to re-share with you here in case it can be of some encouragement to you in this season of your business.
And if you’d love weekly letters like this to your inbox for fellow small business owners who want more ease, joy, and intentional growth in your work and life you can sign up this way.
I’ve been feeling very grateful for this simple and spacious business of mine recently.
I really can’t think of another job I could have where I can work just 8-10 hours a week, regularly take time off, make around 90K a year, and have a whole lot of flexibility in my working days too.
And this tiny, simple, and spacious business of mine didn’t happen by accident.
In the early years of my business I was working 40+ hours a week, then 30, then 25, then 15.
For years I built burnout into my business model by undercharging, overfilling my packages with calls, and bypassing my own needs and boundaries each week too.
It was a few years into my business where I learned how I needed to price and shape my packages with more intention and for a few years I had what felt like my dream business: 15ish hours a week, 10-12 weeks off a year, doing work I loved with awesome clients and managing it all alongside my chronic illness
And then in 2020 everything changed.
I had my son and then a year later I navigated a flare of my chronic illness that led to my health becoming much more challenging and it was same old business but brand new me.
I thought that my business was shaped to make space for my needs as a human who lives in a chronically ill body (I was born with a condition called Chiari Malformation where I navigate a whole host of neurological symptoms each day) but once the needs of my health became even bigger I won’t lie: it started to feel incredibly scary to have to figure out how to live and work alongside all of these symptoms each day.
The flare I navigated in 2021 damaged my vestibular system so alongside the migraines, fatigue, neck pain and numbness and tingling that I’ve experienced for years I also then started to experience dizziness every single day and regular vertigo attacks too, which are as unpleasant as it sounds.
This is why I’m so obsessed with supporting you and I to build and shape our own version of a simple and spacious business.
Because I navigate circumstances outside of my control every single day that makes navigating the able-bodied society that we live in oh so hard and this simple and spacious business of mine is a key piece of how I’m able to still find purpose, freedom, and joy along the way.
And you don’t need to also live with a challenging chronic illness to want a simple and spacious business.
The awesome clients and humans I work with and support have such varied reasons for desiring more ease, freedom, and flexibility in their work and life: they’re parents and caregivers, they’re neurodiverse, they’re artists who need ample space and time for their creative work, and so often they’re just not a human being who thrives at a go-go-go pace.
And here’s the lesson I’ve learned over and over again from my own journey and supporting hundreds of awesome humans in theirs too: a simple and spacious business doesn’t happen by accident.
It is intentionally designed and gently fought for in a sea of business advice and norms that either don’t understand the depth of our needs or just assumes that we’re willing to bypass them in the pursuit of our desires and goals becoming our reality.
You are allowed to want as much ease, freedom, spaciousness and flexibility as you desire in your business.
And I’m not saying that a simple and spacious business is a perfect business.
Even with the very spacious business I’ve built for myself I still sometimes feel overwhelmed navigating it all alongside parenthood and the needs of my health too.
But my needs are deeply built into the foundations of my business now, my work expects me to have flares and tired days and slow weeks and that’s all built into how I’ve shaped my business model and workload too.
And I’m still here, even in this chronically ill body of mine, I’m still here and showing up and doing good work and having the space I need to take damn good care of myself and for that I am so grateful.
Whatever your circumstances, whatever your version of a simple and spacious business looks like, whatever you desire in your working life, my biggest encouragement to you is this: you are allowed to build, shape, and run your business in a way that truly works best for you.
You are allowed to have needs, to not be able to live up to a version of productivity that feels wildly inaccessible to you, to want to live more than you work, to want to have space to breathe in your business and prioritise other things that matter to you too.
And if you’re unsure of where to start when it comes to making your version of a simple and spacious business your reality my free deep dive kit is here to support you to dive deeper into your business vision, business model, marketing plan, and workweek too.
And if you’d love to never do business alone again and feel deeply supported to bring more ease, freedom, and intentional growth into your business, my group program Your Simple & Spacious Business will be opening for enrolment again next month and you can join the waitlist to get first access to the spots available and an early-bird discount too.
Here’s to intentionally shaping our business to honour our humanness every step of the way, and knowing that we’re worthy of making that choice for ourselves too.
Until next time,
Jen