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I am an exceedingly anxious person.
I always have been.
But it’s only been within the last decade that I’ve had access to the tools and verbiage that helped me understand why I’m the way I am.
I now understand I am a Normal Zebra instead of a Failed Horse.
It’s taken me over 50 trips around the sun to be able to say this with confidence, but I am who I am, and I’m cool with that.
I’ve also acquired the realization that I need to adjust my life to honor my craving for peace and calm, and that’s okay as well. This has become more important as I age too. My desire to “hustle, grind, and conquer” is waning in favor of gentle abundance and stillness.
In the early days of my writing/freelance/virtual assistant career, I would bounce out of bed filled with excitement for the day. Even though I was stoked by the work I was doing and the quality of clients I was landing, the weight of anxiety that I was carrying was getting pretty dang heavy.
My ongoing daily goal was always to “hopefully” chisel away at many things on my ever-growing To Do List and keep my head above the hypothetical waterline of workload. As I struggled to keep up, my mental and physical health began to suffer because I was working too many hours and trying to please too many people.
Another thing that suffered was my own creativity. I could never seem to find the time and brain space to focus on my own projects. Much of that was due to FEAR. I just couldn’t fathom not focusing on the billable hour for the sake of the personal projects. The dread of imagined failure and not being able to pay my bills ruled my business day and drove me to work harder than I needed to.
What I’ve discovered as of late is that pressure, sacrifice, and stress is not my jam anymore.
Don’t get me wrong, I have zero regrets when it comes to how I built my writing business and how many fires I had to walk through to get where I am today. I am proud of what I’ve achieve and would change very little about these last 12+ years.
What I am slowly learning to embrace is the fact that what I am doing now in my business is where I want to be. It’s a place of gentle abundance, working on my own projects, and focusing on quality over quantity when it comes to clients.
I’ve learned that minimalism isn’t just about your closet — it’s about your calendar, too.
The Fear Monster still rears it’s ugly head on a regular basis and plays the “WHAT IF IT ALL GOES AWAY??!!” broken record on my brain. But I’m getting better at telling that monster to hush up and trust that all will be well. As the title of this post indicates, the shorter my To-Do List is these days, the happier I am. I may be doing less, but what I am working on requires laser focus and offers the potential of big rewards.
Readjusting my brain away from a “hustle and grind” mindset to more of a gentle and purposeful pace has been a trip. Old habits die hard, but my mind and body reminds me in not-so-subtle ways when I go off the rails and start over-doing it again.
The best reward from this new business model has nothing to do with money. It’s the gift of being happier, more content, and more fulfilled.
If life goes sideways and I find myself needing to return to the “hustle and grind,” you better believe I’ll do it. I’ve stocked shelves at Menards and gritted my teeth through the most miserable of writing projects to get where I am. If I had to, I’d do it all over again if it meant keeping my boat afloat.
But for now, I am wrapping myself in my new cocoon of “enough” and spending several hours every day exploring the creative side of me that has been dormant for too long.
And daily (sometimes hourly) I remind myself to trust the process and that all will be well.
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