Ten rules for a simple & spacious business

Rule number one: there are no rules

Photo credit: Unsplash

1: There are no rules.

No one actually has the secret answers for the growth, momentum, and freedom that you desire. They have ideas, lessons learned, and strong opinions, but none of it is immovable fact.

So think of these as guidelines and lessons I’ve learned along the way. But your mileage may vary, and that’s okay. Because no one will know what you and your business need to thrive better than you do.

2: Abandoning your humanness doesn’t have to be the trade off for meaningful business growth.

It’s actually often just one way ticket to burnout and never actually doing that beautiful work you want to do in the world.

Taking damn good care of ourselves so that we can actually stay in the arena and sustain the stamina, focus, and creative capacity our business asks of us is an essential piece of this journey.

We’re allowed to make decisions for our business that also honour our needs in the process - and I’ve found that it’s the only way to actually have the capacity to do our best work along the way too.

3: Thinking outside the box is often where the magic happens.

If you’re struggling to see how you can reach your business goals without burning yourself out in the process, sometimes it’s because the norms in our industry just aren’t aligned with what needs to be true for us.

Just because it’s the way you see everyone else steer the ship that is their business doesn’t mean that it has to be the way forward for you.

If you find regular calls and meetings really draining? You could experiment with more asynchronous delivery.

If you find long client projects really claustrophobic? You could experiment with shorter containers instead.

If you feel exhausted at the thought of having to create video courses like everyone else in your industry? Perhaps an audio course is where your magic will happen instead.

The best part of entrepreneurship is the freedom to carve out our own path and write our own rules - so don’t box yourself into everyone else’s when you have everything you need to define your path for yourself.

4: Believing in yourself is a non-negotiable.

Not every second of every day - we’re human after all. But we have to believe in ourselves enough, and the possibility of what we desire becoming our reality, if we’re going to get in the arena and figure it out as we go.

Belief is a doing word. It’s not a permanent state - we’ll wobble and navigate many highs and lows along the way - but without it we won’t have the fuel we need to keep going.

And if you need some extra encouragement when it comes to believing in yourself in your business here’s free access to a resource I created for the awesome humans inside my group program - The Simple & Spacious Self Belief Sessions.

5: It may take longer than it feels comfortable to reach your goals, and that’s okay.

Everything meaningful in my business has taken time.

Stabilising my income in the early years.

Developing my body of work, word of mouth, and becoming awesome at what I do so that I could gradually increase my prices.

Moving through seasons of deep burnout and coming out on the other side.

Building new income streams, marketing channels, and radically evolving my business to work better for me.

Meaningful and sustainable business growth takes patience, time, and a gentle devotion to our desires and goals. It’s okay if you’re not exactly where you want to be yet. You’re not falling behind, you’re not failing.

You’re just an entrepreneur and a human being, doing your best to figure it out as you go.

6: Get your foundations right and you really can’t get too lost.

If you know what your vision is for your business, who your work is for, what your message and point of view is, you’ve built your business model with intention, you’re experimenting with your marketing to see what works best for you, and you’re shaping your working life in a way that honours your humanness each day, you’ve got everything you need to gently thrive.

I’m not saying that means that everything will always feel easy and simple and that you won’t naturally evolve and adjust as you go, I just mean that you’ll have the foundations you need to move forward and grow from an intentional and rooted place.

And my free deep dive kit is here to hold space for you to dive deeper into these foundations if it can be supportive for you too.

7: The clarity, confidence, and answers you crave can only come through the doing.

Busness is one big experiment. We can learn from other people’s experience but there is no one tried and tested path for every single business owner.

We become the business owners we want to be, and build the businesses that we want to run, by gently stepping into the arena and figuring it out as we go.

You’re not doing it wrong if you don’t have 100% clarity yet, if you’re still figuring out what your business needs to thrive, and if you’re still developing your entrepreneurial spirit and toolkit. You’re allowed to be a work in progress, to grow and develop as you go.

Don’t stand on the sidelines waiting to feel ready to steer the ship that is your business - embrace the messy middle of the doing and the trying and see who you become along the way.

8: The real work happens when no one else is looking.

It’s in showing up and gently chipping away at your big picture goals, even if you have to go at a very slow and steady pace.

It’s in the beautiful you work you do for your clients that blooms into testimonials or portfolio pieces that supports your business to thrive for years to come.

It’s in the inner work you do to find the courage and safety to show up, take up space, and keep on rooting for yourself even when things don’t go as you hoped.

And it’s in the daily routines you experiment with so that you can shape your days to work best for you, and in the courage entrepreneurship asks of us each day when there’s so much uncertainty along for the ride.

9:  Growth doesn’t always have to look like growth.

It can look like slowing down to take damn good care of yourself, pausing to recalibrate, or maintaining what you’ve already built instead of chasing more, more, more.

I haven’t increased my income in years - I’ve been making my enough number for many years now and what I’ve prioritised these past few years is radically reducing the amount of hours I need to work to make my enough number and bringing a whole lot more flexibility and spaciousness into my workload too.

Growth doesn’t have to look impressive to anyone else - it just has to look like honouring whatever desires and goals feel most meaningful to you.

And sometimes you’re allowed to just slow down, look around at what you’ve already built, and sustain and enjoy that instead of chasing after more for the sake of more.

10: Don’t go it alone.

I’ve been navigating this wild ride that we call entrepreneurship for a decade now and there’s no way I could have got here on my own.

I have my business besties to bounce ideas off and root for each other, a husband who has walked this journey with me and encouraged me every step of the way, coaches I’ve learned from, fellow business owners I’ve been inspired by, and content, resources, and tools that have supported me every step of the way.

You are worthy of feeling deeply supported in this journey - none of us are meant to do this alone.

Like I said, your mileage may vary. So take what can encourage you from this list and ignore the rest.

My hope is that something here can be of encouragement to you in this season and, more than anything, you know that you’re not alone if your entrepreneurial journey feels like a wild ride some days.

And if you’d love an abundance of resources, community, and my guidance and support every step of the way in your business journey I’d be so honoured to welcome you inside my group program Your Simple & Spacious Business - doors close for this enrolment very soon on Friday 9th February 💫

Here’s what some of the awesome humans inside say about this program:

Until next time,

Jen