Have you ever “hit the wall” in your business? I’m wondering if you can relate to any of this story?
Two and half years ago, everything seemed to be going fine. I had transitioned out of teaching and was writing copy and content for other biz owners. I loved my clients and their visions and missions. I’d wake up each day and work 9a-4p, 5 days a week. (Believe me, this was an improvement from my hours I kept as a school teacher!)
Sounds good, right? I was working less hours than when I left teaching, and I was making about double the money ($120k). Well, there was just one problem: I was in demand and I didn’t want to say no to the work that was coming in.
I had conversations with myself, in an effort to rationalize things. The conversations sounded like this:
- Shannon, you are not a starving writer as your father predicted. Take that work! Don’t turn work away!
- It’s okay if you have to work a Saturday once in a while to catch up.
- A 7 day vacation – yes! And it’s fine if you need to work one day during that beach trip. At least you are getting away for seven days!
During that seven day beach trip, (where I actually ended up working more like three days, not one day), my husband and I were sitting on the beach, and I was revealing to him that I didn’t want a business like this. I didn’t want to work on vacation, and I didn’t want to work five days a week. I remember watching the waves come in and out, in and out, and at one point, wishing I could drift away and come back and everything would be better.
This is when I knew I had a problem in my business: I was “hitting the wall”.
You see, my desires had changed. I didn’t want to work like that—even if the money was “good”. Other things were being affected too:
- I lost my desire to write creatively, because I was writing for everyone else.
- I was gaining weight from sitting all day.
- I had lost feeling in my wrists from typing so much.
- And my shoulders and neck? Forget it—being at a computer all day was wreaking havoc on my body—and my happiness.
I left that beach trip quite dissatisfied with things and, honestly, scared about the future of my business. I knew I wanted something different, but I didn’t know what, and I didn’t have a clue how to achieve it—especially if I didn’t even know what I wanted in the first place!!
I didn’t have the words for it at the time, but what I was looking for was a business that was “scalable” — one that gave me lots of time and freedom and lots of money.
Over the next few weeks, on the blog, we are going to look at what it means to scale your business.
First know this: There’s a lot of mumbo-jumbo out there that makes “scaling” confusing—and we ain’t got time for that.
We are going to look at these areas when it comes to scaling:
- more profit
- more time
- more happiness
Because in the end, this is what we went into business for in the first place!
I am hosting a virtual workshop-like program called Scaling Up. It starts in early March, and you can register here. It is chockful of goodness and practical teachings to help you grow in a way that feels really to you. Join us!
