Planning for the future and choosing belief over self-doubt | SHW #18

Hey friends,

This week I spent less time drawing and more time thinking about and planning for the future of my business. It still feels weird to call this thing I do “a business” as it’s just me having fun and doing what I love. But the reality is I am selling products and the goal is for this to fully support me financially, so I’m learning to embrace what it is.

I felt a bit guilty this week for not creating as much as I wanted to. Sometimes planning feels less productive and like a waste of time. But I know that, while it may appear that I’m slowing down in the short term, having a plan will help me move faster in the future.

My main focus this week was to re-think my approach to creating and sharing my art. In a newsletter from a couple of weeks ago, I talked about the power of allowing ourselves to do what feels easy. When we work towards a goal, we tend to think we need to hustle and run ourselves into the ground. We think it needs to feel hard, so we force ourselves to do the hard things. When in reality, if we allow ourselves to do what feels easy, to lean into what comes naturally to us, we have more fun and set ourselves up for success.

Much of my thinking this week was around where I’m making things difficult. What activities drain my energy? What feels like a slog? How would I choose to show up if I believed that it would work?

I realized that I’ve spent a lot of time identifying strategies that work for others and forcing myself to do those things, resulting in burn out. Instead, I want to create a strategy that works for me, and change my beliefs about it. I’ve found that my beliefs about my actions have much more impact over my results than the actions themselves.

So I removed all the judgment around what I think will work or won’t work, and I just let myself dream. I came up with an approach for my business that felt so good deep within myself. As I thought about it and allowed myself to live in it, I could feel my nervous system calm. I never realize how frantic my nervous system is until I experience a little bit of peace. It shows me just how much anxiety I’ve been unnecessarily carrying around with me. And, to no one’s surprise, I’m not at my best when anxiety looms over me every second of the day.

Now, I have a plan that feels good and I’m excited to execute. There’s so much I want to create and share, and it will be a lot more fun to do when I’m at peace.

There’s a little voice in my head telling me I’m crazy and what I’m attempting will never work. I should go find another job and stick to what I know. Stick to doing things that people expect of me.

That voice has been running the show for almost my entire life and it’s not a very helpful guide. So instead of giving in and doubting myself, I’m choosing to believe and move forward.

By the way, I did do some drawing this week 😄 Here’s a little portrait study I worked on.

I also wanted to thank all of you who have purchased my book so far! It’s been so dreamy to package up something I put so much love into and imagine it in your homes. I love getting to share a little piece of myself with you.

If you haven’t grabbed yours yet, they’re still available in my shop. And if you’re a newsletter subscriber, I shared a $10 off coupon with you. It will only be valid through 12/5 (tomorrow!) at 11:59pm, so don’t miss it!

I hope you have a wonderful week. Talk to you soon!

~Rachel