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Strategy Hour | Online Marketing for Business Growth
941: Creating Without Guilt: The Middle Ground Between Hustle & Balance
00:33:03
What if we stopped obsessing over whether we’re working “the right way” and embraced creativity for what it is?
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- [00:00]
Unknown Speaker
I realized so much of the thoughts swirling in my head, so much of the judgment swirling in my head are not actually mine. They're not my thoughts. They're thoughts that have been planted there that I have been left to believe over a long period of time. And I'm here to challenge them.
- [00:23]
Abigail Pumphrey
Welcome to the Strategy Hour podcast brought to you by Boss Project. I. I'm your host, Abigail Pumphrey, and I'm dedicated to supporting online businesses. I don't believe in one right way to build a business. I'm here to help you build business your way. One that supports not only the life you have, but the life you want. I'm on a personal mission to help you become financially free. I'm taking all the lessons learned as I turned a layoff into a seven figure online business. I'm here to help you prioritize your life every step of the way. Whether you're creating your first digital product, growing an email list, or scaling an already profitable business. Business settle in. It's time to talk strategy. Breaking news Strategy Hour needs your vote. We're thrilled to announce the Strategy Hour podcast is officially nominated for the Webby People's Voice Award. Recognized as one of the top five podcasts worldwide in creativity and marketing. This is your chance to help us take home the gold. But hurry. Voting closes Thursday, April 17. It takes less than 20 seconds and your vote truly makes a difference. Head to bossproject.comvote right now to show your love and help us snag that Webby. Seriously. Pause this episode and go vote bossproject.com vote. I'll wait. Thank you so much for supporting the Strategy Hour.
- [01:44]
Unknown Speaker
We've been told that work has to fit into one of these two categories. Either you're hustling and grinding and working far too much, or you're striking the perfect work life balance. But what if that's all just a false reality? What if there's some kind of middle ground? I've realized as a creator that some of the work I do actually feels like an escape. Maybe not even work at all. It can feel like play. It can feel like art. It can feel good. And yet there's this constant scrutiny that how I spend my time dictates if I'm respecting myself or respecting my business or building something that's going to last. Today, I want to challenge those ideas. What if we stopped obsessing and judging all these choices that we're making, the way in which we're showing up, and instead just freely created? What kind of environment would that bring. How would that make us feel? How would we show up if we weren't constantly worried about what other people thought or what we thought of ourselves? I remember when I first started my business, I worked a lot and I didn't really talk about it, but it was almost constant. I would get up and think about work. The moment my husband left for work, got in the car and was out the door door, I was at my computer. Now when he came home, I would take a break for dinner and potentially watching an hour of TV with him. But the moment he went to bed, I went back to work, often until 1 or 2 in the morning. And I remember thinking, I'm supposed to be exhausted. This is supposed to be exhausting. And also being confused because that's not necessarily how I felt. There was this already very early on, even way back in the beginning, this constant rhetoric that if you were working all the time, that it had to be bad, that it had to be bad news. And I think in some ways I felt like maybe that was true, maybe there was an imbalance. I mean, I definitely was spending all of my free time on it. I was still spending time with the people I loved and I enjoyed what I was doing. I got into this new season of life, and in that new season I didn't have as much time as I once did to work. I was focused on my health and focused on feeling better after what was a life altering event. I spent many years in chronic pain and in recovery and that absolutely affected the amount of time I had available to work in a capacity that still kept me emotionally and physically well. But I think it was sometime during that time that I started to really feed into hustle equals bad. And prioritizing the people you love and creating this like, work, like, balance was good. But why are they either, like, why are we judging or adding some sort of feeling on top of it? Because do I think hustling too hard is bad? Not necessarily. But if it's going to sacrifice you, like your mental health or your physical health because you're not sleeping enough, or if it's going to start impacting your marriage or your children, then yeah, obviously there's a problem there. But I really start to question, especially in the last six months or so, what if hustling isn't anything and rather you have to assess how you're feeling and how you want to show up and what brings you joy, but also balance that in with the fact that your business still needs you, your business needs you to show up for it to continue to operate. At the end of the day, even if we're running a small business, even if we're running an online business, we're still creators, we're still entrepreneurs. We might identify as a founder and those are creative people. I consider myself a creative person. I want to show up in a way that fuels who I am and the kind of person I want to become. Creativity doesn't fit into these extremes. Sometimes you're doing a project that challenges you, that pushes you to the limits, that makes you show up in a way that's different from your quote unquote normal. But it could also be the exact thing that gets you to where you want to go and you were willing to spend that time on it. So does that make it bad? I don't think so. Some work is absolutely going to be transactional. It's going to be the things that have to get done. There's going to be the administrative stuff, the way in which you have to show up. Now for some of you, that may be the fun stuff, but for me, I don't love email, I don't love project management or utilizing tools that feel like I'm taking up time, just keeping them operational. I want to be doing, I want to be in it, I want to be creative. So sure, sometimes I have to email my accountant, sometimes I have to follow up on a bill, sometimes I have to call the state or figure out some legal thing that I never really anticipated having to figure out. But somewhere along the way, in this like, effort to create balance, to make sure I am living enough, I had cut out so many of the fun and fulfilling parts of my business that I was actually feeling worse despite working less. Which I realize sounds counterintuitive, but we wouldn't judge someone if they were a full time artist and they sat down to paint for fun. We would think that's amazing that you can do your work and you can also fuel your creativity. Like, why is it any different for us when an artist sits down to do that? We're not asking them why are you working so much. We are asking them, what are you working on? I just don't understand. Like, really thinking about it makes me more and more frustrated because I realize so much of the thoughts swirling in my head, so much of the judgment swirling in my head are not actually mine. They're not my thoughts. They're thoughts that have been planted there that I have been left to believe over a long period of time. And I'm here to challenge them. Like, it feels Ironic to me because, like, if that same artist who sat down to do something for fun decided to later turn around and sell that work, we would be excited for them if they sold it. But if an online business does something for fun and then they decide to monetize it, all of a sudden, now it's not good. Now it's, you work too much. Why, like, why are we feeling that need to say those things, even if it's just in our own head to ourselves? Instead, I want to plant this seed. That work that feels like play is still valuable. It is going to be the thing that gives you energy, that makes you excited to show up, that gets you revved up to sit back at your desk because you can't wait to dig in. I was sitting at dinner last night, and my husband looked across the table, and he was like, I know you want to go home and work on this thing, but I want to spend time with you tonight. And in that moment, I felt so seen, because he knew that that work was not necessary, but that I actually enjoyed doing it and was looking forward to it and couldn't wait to get back to it. And yet we have a developed enough relationship and an open enough communication that he could say, I need you and I want to spend time with you. And I'm asking you to prioritize me. And I did. Like, that's what I did. I didn't go back to work. I didn't work on the creative thing that I am so tired to get back to. Like, I don't even want to be recording this podcast. I want to be doing the thing that I didn't do last night because I said yes to spending time with my husband. And I don't regret that decision. I honestly wouldn't have regretted it either way. Like, if I went back to work, because that's really what I wanted to do, and I was able to effectively communicate that to my spouse and then talked about a time that we could make up for it. I would have felt good about that decision. I also felt good about just saying, you know what? I get it. You want me, I'm there. I don't think that it has to be this polar situation where one is good or bad. What if they're both good decisions and we just have to decide how we want to show up? I just don't understand why it has to be different than that. Like, why are we carrying guilt or shame around, enjoying the thing we do by choice? We left a thing. Almost all of us, almost all of us left a thing to do this thing right, or maybe we're still in the other thing, but this is the thing we're doing on this side because we want it to be our future. If that was the choice that you made, if this is the thing you wanted to be doing, then why are you feeling bad about doing it? Why are you feeling bad about showing up for yourself, for doing the things that are going to make a long term impact on your business, that are going to set you up for future success? As long as it's not impacting your mental or physical health and it's fueling you spiritually, by all means. I went into this year with kind of a mantra of sorts that I wanted to create more and consume less. And a big part of that was because when I looked at my phone usage, I was embarrassed. I did not like how much time I was spending on my phone staring at a tiny little screen. Now, I do want to acknowledge and try to give myself grace around the fact that I do use my phone for work, I do market my business on my phone. But a huge portion of of that time was spent zoning out. I wasn't even necessarily doing anything at all. Like I, I, yes, many times would spend the evening laughing and enjoying myself, but I didn't feel any kind of way afterwards. If anything, I had a harder time falling asleep and, you know, just knew that work was tomorrow. There was a lot of joy that I felt like had been sucked out of my life. And I think a large part of it was because I was just like openly giving it away to the void. Like it wasn't intentional. I wasn't being intentional with how I spent my time. I realized, probably on accident that I had gotten into this habit of just only waiting for the weekends where I would work and I would get off at a reasonable time. We only work eight to four, Monday through Thursday, so it's not crazy. And I would stop work. And then if it were a work day, I would just wait for the next workday. I would just sit down and completely lose myself in the evening. I don't know if it was like a byproduct of COVID or just the fact that we were all locked in our house for that period of time. But I had like completely lost touch with the things that I enjoyed. I didn't know what I liked to do in my free time. I didn't even know who I like to spend that with at this point. And with this idea of creating more and consuming less, I realized that this can look like a lot of different things. Sometimes it means sitting down and working on something I would consider a hobby. Over Christmas I always like experiment with like new craft things and I really got into this like making these sequence ornaments. Now if I want to make the amount of ornaments I want for next Christmas, I need to be working on this on a regular basis the rest of the year.
- [17:10]
Abigail Pumphrey
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- [17:31]
Unknown Speaker
The trial and error.
- [17:32]
Abigail Pumphrey
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- [18:18]
Unknown Speaker
When you need them.
- [18:19]
Abigail Pumphrey
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- [18:52]
Unknown Speaker
So that's, you know, part one, right? But I also noticed I, I tried something that like, I just like knew in my gut I would enjoy but never made time for. I sat down and I was like, I'm going to do a puzzle. You know how many hours you can spend on a puzzle? So much time, so much time. And then the next day I worked on Legos and you're like, okay, you're not talking about work. Hold on, I'm gonna get to the point. That time showed me that when I was more intentional with it, I not only got more enjoyment out of the time, that was Already there, that I was just giving away for free. But also it was giving back to me. I vividly, like, had this moment. I had spent three or four days in a row working on puzzles and Legos, which are all very. I don't know the right way to say it. They're all brain exercises, right? And I felt better than I had felt in years. It was like my brain mapped together a missed connection that was still broken, like pre brain injury or from the brain injury, rather. And when it clicked together, it was like a whole world opened up to me. I had more capacity, I had more creativity, I had more excitement. I had so many things. And I think so much of it came back to the fact that I was willing to sit down and be intentional. And so then I was like, if I'm intentional with my free time, what happens if I'm more intentional with my work? And that's when I made some pretty big changes. I changed my work structure so that I only take outside meetings on Mondays. I have nothing on my calendar the rest of the week, except in the evenings for fun and with friends and like, outside organizations. And I was super intentional about how I spent my time. I wasn't just sitting at my desk trying to check off a list. I asked myself, how do I want to be showing up now? The interesting thing is, as I started doing this more consistently, not only did I have more ideas than I've had in a very long time, but I did have a desire to work more. And I think in the past I would have been like, whoa, whoa, whoa, you gotta reel it in. You said you want to prioritize yourself. Is working doing that? And then something like hit me. What if working can be self fulfilling? Like, who said it can't? I think we need to stop asking ourselves, is this work or is this play? Am I monetizing it? Am I not? Like, why are we making so many things polar? Why are we making so many things against the other? What if they can all coexist? Like, what would it look like to just do what feels right for you without judgment, without guilt, without shame? I don't know. It's really wild because, you know, if I were really to sit down and talk to you about the last three months and everything that happened, personally, you would be overwhelmed. I promise. It was a lot. I watched my dad go in and out of the hospital. I had to take him back. And, you know, after doing that in the fall, him being back was a huge rattling that. I was so concerned that I was never Going to get back that time. I thought him going back in the hospital meant this was just going to start setting up a repeat pattern where I would spend the next 10 years of my life caregiving. I was terrified, to say the least. I'm so grateful he has gotten better, he is back and I have been able to focus on other things. But then it was back to back to back. The next thing that happened, I got the worst news that anyone could ever get. Well, maybe, I suppose it depends on the person in the day, but it was bad news. Okay. I go in for what's supposed to be a very normal appointment and I walk out of that appointment unsure if I had cancer. I cannot tell you the weight that sitting in that gap feels like I was terrified and the answers did not come quickly and I still am not 100% in the clear, but did get positive news that they are fairly certain everything is a okay. But when you spend weeks of your life unsure if you're going to have to stop everything you know and understand to go about cancer treatment, I promise you get so much clarity around what's really important to you. But life wasn't done lifing like just beyond that horizon before I even had the answers. Before I had the answers, my husband and I got some shitty news in relation to our fertility, which is never fun and I won't get into that because it's too raw right now. But literally the same day, the same day my husband went to the hospital and ultimately ended up getting an emergency appendectomy, which is not necessarily like a massive surgery by any means, but when you don't plan on anyone having surgery and then it happens, your life is a mess. When are you making dinner? When are you doing laundry? He can't lift more than £20 for a month. I already am on a lifting restriction because of PCOS and endo. Like I don't know, it's just so much. And the interesting thing, despite all of this, like it was one thing after another after another after another. And we're not talking small things, we're talking big things, life altering things, right? I wasn't done, like, I don't know how to explain was as if there was so much clarity around the fact that work isn't just work for me. Work is a huge part of my life and a meaningful part of my life and one that I don't want to give up, one that I look forward to, one that I want to invest my time in and be more intentional with. And I think in A lot of ways, having that mindset made the hard stuff sting a little less. Now, I'm not to say that I wasn't a mess. I spent a lot, a lot of March crying. Well, and even before that, frankly, because this all started. I mean, it's been crazy since January, but I think there was a lot of power in releasing what was shameful, but for no other reason other than that was what I thought I was supposed to be doing. So now I still have structure around my normal working hours. I have structure around the kinds of activities I'm doing on certain days for work. But in the time outside of that, I'm giving myself far less judgment about what it looks like and how I show up. And sometimes that means I'm back at my computer and enjoying it. Sometimes that means I'm with friends. Sometimes that means I'm learning. Sometimes that means I'm going for a walk. Sometimes that means I'm investing in hobbies or spending time on things that make me feel good. And all of those things can coexist. The difference being that I'm not letting time happen to me. I'm being intentional with my time. I think taking it back is hard. It's so easy to give it away. It's so easy to give it to someone else. It's so easy to prioritize everyone else's needs. And even if someone says I need you, the answer can still be no. You deserve to be treated with love and respect. And that starts with treating yourself that way. Do what feels right for you. Worry less about what the world thinks of your actions and be intentional. Create more, consume less. I'll be interested to see what it does for you. I know for me it means leading a more meaningful life and enjoying my time along the way, even on the bad days.
- [30:08]
Abigail Pumphrey
Hey, a few quick favors before you leave. I'd love if you'd share today's episode, send it to a friend who needs to hear it, and post on social. You can show us where you're listening from, your favorite takeaway, or why someone else should listen. Be sure to tag me, Abigail says, and bossproject so we can share it. Okay. Second favor to get podcast updates and all the behind the scenes news from bossproject. I'd love if you'd join my VIP list. Just head to bossproject.com signup to make sure I have all your contact details. Really love this show. It would mean so much to me if you'd leave a rating and review. It not only helps more listeners find the show, but allows us to bring on quality sponsors so we can keep bringing you this valuable content for free. Thanks so much for listening. Until next time.