I had been struggling with feeling enthusiastic about work. I avoided talking about it with Adele, with my business partner, as I do not like hard conversations. I like everything to be okay. Growing up, when my parents would argue, I would cry, “Stop raising your voice!” They would look at me, baffled. “We’re just talking.”
I needed some “professional help” so I asked my friend, Becca, my free therapist. How do I tell Adele, my friend, and partner in business and crime, that I am stuck in a rut?
I said to Becca:
“I no longer like writing the newsletter as I have nothing to say.”
“We are trying to play the game that Substack needs us to play, but we aren’t playing at the same time.”
“I feel uninspired.”
Last week, I fessed up (gingerly). I relayed to Adele that I just wasn’t that into writing anymore. I couldn’t find my mojo. I stopped short of saying I had thought of bowing out entirely. Yet when I spoke, I realized that sometimes we go to the extreme when we feel drained. And as Adele listened, she helped parcel out what the heck was going on.
I forgot how living out of a suitcase for 6 months zapped me of my energy as I narrowed in on the neighborhood that would suit me the best.
Lesson 1: A full course correction or cancellation of an endeavour is not normally necessary. Only some rest.
Adele and I also realized how tending to the business side of things full throttle this past summer brought the doldrums. Adele, it turned out, felt her writing lacked heart. Heart and creativity go together in some inexplicable, important way.
Lesson 2: Often other people are feeling what we feel, but we don’t realize it unless we speak up!
Lesson 3: It’s important to attend to the operations and logistics, but if our attention and time is given solely to that, we can get cut off from our creativity.
Multi-tasking came up as we talked. We prefer to focus on one thing at a time, which we (and research supports) is more natural, satisfying, and productive. At first I happily immersed myself in the tech part of Substack, but I forgot to take a break. As we know from The Shining, “All work and no play, makes….” And what is creativity but play, and play an access to creativity? On business calls, Adele and I talked more about courses and paid member tiers in July and August and not our daily catch-up on how the dog is growing, or what shows we are watching. We missed those conversations about everything and nothing, that sprouted many newsletter ideas that we felt excited to write. When we became all business, we lost a lot more than our little catch-ups.
Lesson 4: Set aside times that enable the heart and soul to emerge. Take your pulse consistently to honor the business to-do-list AND the creative. It’s a constant recalibration.
On our recent inspired call about being uninspired, we talked about Rachelle, our Patagonia hiking buddy who is an orthopedic surgeon, but not an owner of a private practice. Two different skill sets. Two totally different hats. She made a choice to be a surgeon only. But because our desire to write encompasses our desire to reach readers, we wear two hats reluctantly. In an era of multi-hyphenates, we would love to be just writers. We can at least put the business side of things in their proper place by remembering our why.
Lesson 5: Stay clear on your BIG Agenda so the little agenda stuff does not overtake the BIG A, but supports it.
Our conversation allowed us a reset. The breaking down of how we fell into the doldrums and a remembering of how much we like to write and work with other women got us back on track, for now.
The combination of pursuing the creative while also running a business is challenging. The best we can do is keep experimenting by switching from one to the other. We hope we get better at it.
We would love for you to let us know how you balance both. Specifically, how you pursue your meaningful and its attached grunt work.