Birthday Letter
Hi, it’s my birthday! I’ve been wanting to write about what's been happening for me behind the scenes in my personal life, and therefore my business life. I thought maybe I would send this in January as a recap to my year…but sending a letter on my birthday felt more me.
You might have noticed that I've been laying low here, on Instagram, and my email list (if you're not on it but want to be, you can sign up here). In early August I got Covid and while I wasn't all that sick when I got it, I ended up having some major breathing issues a few weeks later when I thought I was better. I ended up in the ER to rule out a pulmonary embolism that I thankfully didn't have! I was able to recover with some steroids and lots and lots of rest. Like literally could only lay on the couch rest. Managing my mind during this time was probably the hardest part. I was so anxious during those 2 weeks. I was mad about being sick in the summer. I was worried about my asthma being out of control after years of it being well-managed. I was convinced I was going to have Long Covid. The school year was supposed to start for my son and my husband in a few days and I wasn't ready! AKA the house was a mess and my systems were not in place.
During this time, I was also deep in the throes of the interview process for a full-time civil service position as an office assistant. I was feeling more of that anxiety about not being “settled'“ for the school year start. A huge part of that anxiety is the chaos that ensues in September & October (and also in June) when you’re married to a teacher and have a school-age child. Some of that anxiety also comes from my past experience working for NYC schools. I mostly love the cyclical nature of the school year, almost entirely because I love having a second “fresh start” in September, but there is a frantic energy that is hard for me to work through.
But wait, back up…your girl was interviewing for a FULL-TIME job? Um, what? Ah yes, THE Big Decision of this past year. You can read the whole story and back-story here. The short version is that in May, I started having inklings that I wanted something different, but I was mostly in denial about the feeling of wanting to blow up my life. Again. I realized I was so unhappy being alone in the house building my business. At least half of it was the massive pressure I felt for not choosing to be fully immersed in owning our new home and parenting. The other half was feeling like I wanted something I was really good at that didn’t burn me out. Building my business and figuring out how to make money has felt really difficult…especially in the midst of a global pandemic, living with my in-laws, and feeling generally confused about my next career steps. In retrospect, maybe I was being a bit dramatic about blowing up my life, but damn do I struggle with transitions. You’d think I would be better at them by now, but trauma is a funny thing.
Things finally started to fall into place and make sense to me in early September. I spent Labor Day and the first day of school for my husband and my son doing a virtual conference all about VIP days and how to implement them as part of your business model. It felt great to be back into my work routine and learning, especially about a new way of making my business work for me. I interviewed for a job the next day. By the end of the week, I had accepted an offer and was officially going back to work full-time. And at the same time, I had the beginnings of a plan to change my business model that I’d been trying to make sense of for months. There were the things I knew, some of which I was having trouble allowing to be true (I didn’t want to work full-time on my business right now and I wanted it to be more of a hobby at least for a little while), and there were things that just had to be happening in the right timing. I have really been working on trusting myself and how things feel, and this was one of those things that just felt right even though I still couldn’t really explain it. All I knew was that I was taking September through December to try things out, let go of some things, not put pressure on myself to figure out what was next, etc. I had to give myself (and my family) the space and capacity to get through this major transition. Of course the funny thing was that giving it some space gave me some breathing room and made a major transition seem a little less stressful.
So now, at the end of December, the end of the timeline I gave myself, I have some sort of plan. If you know me at all, you know that there is always a plan. So for me to not really be clear on the plan required a sense of trust in myself and my business that I haven’t really been comfortable having before. I’ve also realized after forgetting for a long time, there are many different ways to have a plan. Strategic planning is my wheelhouse. And usually, the part where I’m freaking out because I “don’t have a plan”, I’m so close to the actual thing that I don’t even realize. I want the plan to look a certain way…in my mind right now, my plan should be dialed out in Asana with a cross-functional project plan, color-coded with beautiful checkboxes, etc. etc. But that’s not actually going to get me to what I’m envisioning, even though on the surface it might feel like that. It might look like that eventually, but right now, the plan actually looks (and is) way simpler.
I’m pivoting my business model to only offer 2 ways to work with me next year: VIP days for Business Coaching and my Signature Group Coaching Program, Resilient AF. I will only be offering 1-on-1 Coaching in the first quarter of 2023 (Jan, Feb, & Mar) and this Coaching will be more structured than my typical coaching to help me build out my 2 major offerings. I may extend offering 1-on-1 Coaching into the second quarter (Apr, May & June), but I haven’t made a decision on that yet. I’ll be sharing more details about this change to my business model soon, but for now this is the big picture view. I’m looking forward to next year and all that it brings!
