On staying the course and changing tack in our business

Strategies + questions to explore (+ a bunch of favourites!)

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When we work for ourselves, there are so many decisions that we, and only we, need to make. We need to make decisions about when and where to work, about how much to charge for our products and services, about how to market ourselves and on which channels. One of these decisions that clients come back in our sessions together is how to stay the course with their business. As a small business owner, freelancer or artist, you’re the one who’s set the course—and just as easily, you can be the one to change it.

But how do you know when to stay the course and when changing tack is the right decision? How do you make this decision? In this post, I’ll share some of my thoughts and strategies around staying the course and help you figure out for yourself when to stick with something, or when to change things up.

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Staying the course and knowing when to shift

In general, I tend to be big on staying the course. I have a lot of in-born perseverance and in the past have persevered with something well past the point where any sane person would give up. This trait served me well when I was writing my dissertation: while my colleagues were struggling with motivation and procrastination, I declared that I didn’t believe in inspiration and just sat down every day at 9 to write (yes, I must have annoyed them tremendously).

It’s been eleven years since I got my PhD and since then I’ve certainly gotten more relaxed about perseverance. I’ve learned that in my post-academic life, I am much happier going with my energy and that at times, “simply” sitting down and doing the work is certainly not the right approach. I’ve also found the joy in not persevering with something: in following my gut, my intuition, what feels good, rather than persevering for the sake of persevering.

One of the biggest challenges many of us face when working for ourselves is that we have no immediate colleagues to bounce ideas off. There’s no one to tell us what to do (yay!), but there’s also no one to give us any parameters or help us make decisions. It can be so easy to doubt yourself and your decisions, especially when you see other people doing things differently, when business is slow, or when the next big hype arrives.

So how do you stay the course, and how do you know when staying the course is the right thing to do?

What I’ve learned over the past couple of years is that my biggest asset as a business owner is my inner compass, and being able to connect to it. It’s taking a step back and asking myself why I want to stay course or, alternatively, why I want to do something different.

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Substack for small business owners, freelancers and artists is available €35 to help you make Substack a part of your business. It takes a gentle, effective and anti-overwhelm approach that I’m sure will resonate with you.

Or, in the words of Amy who bought the course:

“You are providing a very useful service to those of us who are ready to move over and I appreciate that you made your course amazingly informative and affordable.” — Amy A

How I decide to stay the course—or change tack

I’ve written and spoken a lot about my decision to not market my business on social media. The biggest reason why I made this choice is because social media doesn’t feel right for me. It doesn’t sit right with my business values of slow and gentle, and being on social media makes me unhappy. You might say that in life we all have to do things that we may not enjoy doing—but if we decide to work for ourselves, surely we have the chance to make our day-to-day life as pleasant as possible?

A less black-and-white situation around staying the course came up a few weeks ago. I was reading through some comments on a Substack post where writers were sharing their best tips for growing their newsletter audience. One tip that kept coming back was to send previews of all paid posts to all subscribers. Whenever they create a post that is only fully accessible to paid subscribers, they send a little snippet to free subscribers as well who would have to upgrade their subscription in order to read the full post. According to many people this works well to convert people from free to paid subscribers, and I can imagine that—only if people see what they’re missing are they likely to upgrade their subscription.

But it doesn’t sit quite right with me (which, by the way, doesn’t mean that it shouldn’t sit right with you as well). The majority of you reading this newsletter do so in your inbox and I want to respect that space. I don’t want to fill it with things that you didn’t technically sign up for. However, I do want to show free subscribers the posts that only paid subscribers get: because I believe in the value of those paid posts as well as because I want to grow my number of paid subscribers.

I checked in with myself. What did I really want? Going with the advice felt wrong to me and, at this point in time, wrong for my business. So I figured out what does align with me and my business: I share about the posts in free posts (as I do in this one: scroll down to see what you might have missed) and a couple of times a year I’ll send a preview of a paid post to free subscribers, as I did with the reflect and plan-guide a few weeks ago. I’ll only be doing this when it feels right, and only in a way that adds value and that respects your inbox.

Staying the course when business is slow

It’s easier to stay the course when everything is going nicely than when business is slow, when it can be so hard. At those moments, we can be most susceptible to other people’s advice and we might be doubting ourselves the most. If money is not coming it, it becomes especially hard not to question your decisions. Maybe running your business the way you do is not the right thing? Maybe your products are not as useful as you thought? Maybe you should market your business more or differently?

If you’re in that place right now, just know that you’re not alone. We all have quiet periods and it took me years to get to a place where I felt like my business was really gaining traction. It’s hard.

If possible, give yourself a little bit of space and time from your business and bank account, if only by going outside for a hour or two to clear your head. When you return to your desk or studio, try to look at your business with a bit of distance. How did your choices feel when you made them? I very much believe that we all have an inner compass that we can access if we silence all the shoulds and stories that surround us. As much as you can, tell you inner critic to come back at a later time. How do your products and services feel? Are they in line with how you want to run your business and live your life? How does your marketing feel?

If your choices align with your values and how you want to live your life, you’re on the right track. If they don’t, that’s okay too—it might be time for some experiments. Depending on your situation and personality, you might experiment in a small way, for example by pitching to podcasts or trying a new marketing channel, or in a big way, by radically pivoting what you do.

For me, I am always guided by whether something feels aligned with me and whether it feels exciting and expansive, rather than anxious or rooted in scarcity.

Finally, have you given your business enough time? If you’re miserable then giving it more time will probably not make things better. But if business is slow, as it is at times for all of us, giving it more time rather than changing things up and adding new things can be the best thing to do.

Take a moment to think or journal about these questions:

1. Where do you currently struggle to stay the course in your business? What is that feeling rooted in?

2. Which parts of your business feel good and align with your business values?

3. How can you root deeper into trusting yourself as a business owner? You might try affirmations or reminding yourself of past successes.

I’d love to know how you feel about staying the course: is it something that you tend to struggle with or not? How do you make decisions in your business? Leave a comment below to join to conversation.

If you’re new to Substack: you can comment by clicking the button below. You’ll be prompted to set up an account (or profile) which requires very little personal info and takes only one minute of your time.

community | The Aligned Community is one of my absolute favourite places to hang out online—I get so much support and connection from this community for gentle rebels. ✨ The doors are now open for new members!

a book | I just reread Aminatta Forna’s novel Happiness and loved it all over again. It just does such a good job of capturing what it means to be human (affiliate link).

another book | After reading Happiness I returned to one of my all-time favourites, Eleanor Catton’s The Luminaries. It’s big and expansive and gorgeous and I just can’t fathom how this entire world and these beautiful words came from the mind of just one person (affiliate link).

softening | This question from

Kerri ní Dochartaigh

‘s Substack has stayed with me: “how we might learn what it means to soften— how that looks for us individually— and what the ripples of that softening might look like for those around us.” Read it here.

What’s on your lists of favourites this month? What did you read, see, hear, drink, eat, observe that made your day?

• Reflect. Rest. Dream. A mid-year audio guide for gentle reflection and intentional looking ahead.

• What living with mental illness means for my business.

• What does success in your business look and feel like?

This month I supported clients with adding more rest and downtime to their days, moving their newsletter to Substack and creating long-term plans for their business.

I’d love to support you to do this and much more too: to create a business away from the norm that supports all parts of your humanness, whether that means starting or building a business alongside a family, another job, (chronic) illness or any other needs and desires.

There is a slower, gentler and more profitable way of running a business, and I’m here to help you achieve it.

Send me a message or check out my website for ways of working together: from one-off sessions to flexible packages. I’d love to be by your side this year.

Have a really good, calm rest of your week 💌 I’m taking a slower pace this month and will be back in your inbox with a free newsletter in August. Paid subscribers will get a post on “passive” income in their inboxes next week and the chance to ask me and the Female Owned community questions about income streams.

Until next time xx

P.S. New to Substack? Once you click the button above to upgrade your subscription you’ll be prompted to enter your email address (but you will not be paying anything yet). You’ll then be directed to a page where you can select the subscription you’d like to have, including sticking with the free one. Find more info and an image of this in my blogpost.