It's been a few months. I needed them. Let's get back into it.
Eight years ago my hair started falling out. Not all at once, but one agonizing chunk at a time. I learned that stress was a major contributing factor. And I knew exactly the source of the stress: my business.
But I was making good money, so I pushed through.
By the time I shaved my head, I knew I had no choice but to take action.
I see the same patterns in the people I work with.
Full roster of clients. A steady stream of revenue. A business that looks, from the outside, like the thing you meant to build. But underneath it there is an accumulation of things you've accepted as part of doing business: The client who texts at 7pm and expects a prompt response. The project that is out of your wheelhouse, but you said yes anyways to help out an existing client. The incessant slack pings from a client who doesn't understand you are not an employee at their company.
You're not in crisis. That's the problem. Things are just bad enough to be exhausting and just manageable enough to keep tolerating.
So you keep going. Because tolerating feels safer than what you imagine will happen if you stop: losing the clients, the income, and the referral network you've spent years building.
But there is a cost you haven't calculated.
Here's what I didn't expect when I finally stopped pretending.
Saying no felt like instant relief.
Not the terrifying free fall I'd been bracing for. Relief. Like putting down something heavy I'd been carrying so long I'd forgotten it had weight.
Saying no to the wrong things made space for the right ones. The work that actually lit me up. The clients who didn't just respect my boundaries, they encouraged them.
I never took one huge scary leap. I took small steps that added up to a completely different way of working.
If this is you, here's where to start:
Start saying no to small things. The meeting that would stop you from walking your dog. The call that eats into time with your kids. You do not need to make a bold declaration to all of your clients that you will be going to yoga at 3pm every Thursday afternoon. Put a block on your calendar and treat it like a client meeting. Don't skip it. It feels almost too small to matter, but it builds a muscle and it trains the people around you that you do have boundaries. So when it comes time to say no to something bigger, it feels a heck of a lot easier, because you already know how good those small nos felt.
Look at what isn't working with your current clients. Do they have full reign of your calendar? Do they expect an immediate reply on Slack at 9pm? Write down the boundaries you would put in place for a brand new client today. It might feel too late to change things with the clients you already have (disclaimer: it isn't). But every new client who joins you will learn from the start that this is just how you work. Over time, that list stops being aspirational and it becomes your normal.
You might be afraid that change means blowing everything up, losing what you've built or starting over from scratch.
It doesn't. It means finally being honest about what tolerating this is costing you.
The clients you're afraid to lose? Most of them stay. And the ones who don't were the ones costing you the most.
P.S. If this is landing and you want to think it through with someone, reply here. I'd love to have a conversation.
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