10 Questions To Dive Into Your Simple & Spacious Business Foundations

I have ten questions for you today to hold space for you to dive a little deeper into the key pieces of your own simple and spacious business journey so you have this foundation to guide you in everything else ahead to come.

1: What would simplicity in your business look and feel like for you?

Would it look like having a really simplified and streamlined core offering or suite or offerings? Would it look like feeling really clear and focused each week in your work? Would it look like your marketing and content plan feeling really simple and easeful to bring to life?

Think about how it would feel for you to run a simple business. For me it looks like having a clear and streamlined business model, a marketing plan that feels slow and gentle and focused, and most of all a business that doesn’t feel complicated to steer and run each day. A simple business to me is one that is flexible, that can shift and evolve alongside me, and that is built with deep intention instead of feeling a little out of my control each day.

2: What would spaciousness look and feel like for you in your business?

Would it be being able to take all of the school holidays off with your kids? Or only working 3 days a week? Or only working 3 hours max a day? Or having ample space and freedom to travel or focus on creative projects outside of your business?

Give yourself permission to dream big here, to really think about what radical spaciousness would look and feel like for you in your business. I’m not saying you’re going to be able to build to this place overnight but if you know what it is you truly want then you can actually take intentional action in the direction of making it possible.

In many ways I’ve built the radical spaciousness I want into my business - I take 18-20 weeks off a year from client work, including three whole months this summer, I work 8-10 hours a week max, I work two to two and a half days a week, I have in many ways the business I dreamed of when I first started. Looking ahead the spaciousness I’m trying to build in next into my business is just a little less scheduled time in the calendar as now that I’m a mum I’m just craving a little more flexibility in my routine.

3: What’s your enough to get by number?

This is the number that will make your business viable - it’ll pay your bills, expenses, your tax bill, any debt repayments you may have, and some disposable income to actually just get by in your day to day life too. I find that when we’re earlier on in business this number is usually as close to our bare bones necessities as possible but if like me you’ve been in business a while your enough to get by number is usually the amount that allows you to maintain your daily life and have a little breathing room alongside it too.

Now you’ve probably done this financial exercise before in your business so you may already have this number available to you. For me at this stage in my business my enough to get by number is the amount I need to make to sustain our life and have a little to put aside in savings or for unexpected emergencies or expenses throughout the year while also working at a pace that works best for me.

Iin this season my enough to get by number is around 85K a year and I’m able to make this while maintaining the simple and spacious business I’ve built for myself, so regular time off, no more than 8-10 hours a week of work and so on. I’ve had years where I’ve made more than this but in those years I’ve pushed beyond a working routine that feels energetically sustainable for me so the puzzle piece I’m working out in this season is how to increase to my enough to thrive number without increasing what I ask of myself in my work.

I also just want to note here that in many ways, 85K a year working 8-10 hours a week and taking 18-20 weeks off a year feels pretty close to thriving for me already. So often we can hear people’s financial goals and it can feel so huge and beyond what we know we’d actually need to live a joyful life and as someone who grew up working class 85K a year blows my mind a little even if in the distorted noise of the six figure online business world it doesn’t sound like that much. And I’ve had six figure years before and I will say I didn’t feel all that much better off as it just meant more taxes to pay and more working hours too so if I’m going to increase my income I want to do it in a very gentle and intentional way.

85K allows me to provide for my family, live our life on our own terms in a home we love and have enough disposable income to do the simple things that brings us joy and have money leftover to put aside each year into savings too.

The thing to keep in mind here is that your enough to get by number is not in comparison to anyone else’s - maybe yours is 25K a year, or maybe it’s 250K. Our numbers don’t define our worth they’re just whatever is aligned with the life we want to live.

There’s been seasons in my business where I’ve wondered if I should be pushing to bigger numbers just because I could or because that’s what a “successful business owner” would do. But when I put that aside and just get clear on how much I need to make to sustain my life in this season that’s when I have a financial plan in my business that truly works best for me.

4: What is your enough to thrive number?

This is the amount that would truly feel financially spacious for you, that would give you enough to not just get by but also invest in the things that bring you joy and in your future too.

So this may look like more for your expenses and bills if your dream is to live in a different type of home or location, more for your business expenses if you want the option to outsource or invest in more tools, or perhaps more disposable income for travel and investing in your family life, and more for savings and investing in your future too.

And the thing to keep in mind is that your enough to get by and enough to thrive numbers will shift and evolve with you as your life shifts and evolves too.

For example my enough to thrive number in this season is around 120K - that extra a year would give me more to put into savings and more disposable income as now I have a child there’s an extra person in our family to feed, clothe, and invest in their joy and development too. But I already have future enough to thrive numbers in mind for different seasons of life - if we have a second child for example, or when we have older children who will need more financial support in that season of their life. These numbers aren’t set in stone, we can revisit them whenever we want along the way.

And the thing about the simple and spacious approach to business and why I like to define our enough to get by and enough to thrive number is that I’m not willing to stretch to my enough to thrive number if it’s out of alignment with the simplicity and spaciousness I want in my business. I could earn 120K in this season of my business by taking on more clients - I’ve done that before and the extra money wasn’t worth the extra demands on my energy and time. My enough to get by number is my non negotiable and I’ve built my business to a place where I can make that with a whole lot of simplicity and spaciousness, but to increase to my enough to thrive number I’m not willing to sacrifice that so if that means I take a little longer to get there that’s okay with me.

I share all of these specifics to say - you’re allowed to define what you need from your business and what you’re willing to give to make it possible too. But I see my clients crack wide open when they get super specific on their enough numbers in their business, it anchors them to deep intention in their work and guides their next steps forward too.

And if you’re wondering which number to work towards, there’s no right or wrong answer here but what I’ve found in my own business is finding simplicity and spaciousness in my enough to get by number has helped me build a strong foundation to now build up to the enough to thrive number without sacrificing the simplicity and spaciousness I’ve built, but that’s mostly because I’ve built my business mostly focused on client work and now I want to expand a little to more 1:many income. You may find it’s easier for you to go for the enough to thrive straight away - it will totally depend on your business growth so far and what feels most aligned for you.

5: How do you want to be spending your working hours?

What’s the work you want to be doing to make the income you want to make? Do you want to be working with clients? Facilitating group programs? Running online courses? Selling your art? Creating digital products?

You’ll most likely have a blend of options as your answer, you may even find it helpful to give each one of your answers a percentage of priority too.

So for example right now in my business clients take up around 75% of my working hours. The rest is split between content creation and marketing and delivering my group programs. What I’m hoping to shift towards is more of a fifty fifty split between clients and delivering group offerings, so say 40% clients, 40% group offerings, and then that final 20% for content, marketing, and admin too.

6: What’s on your hell no list?

What don’t you want to do, or perhaps not do anymore, in your business to make your enough to get by or enough to thrive number depending on what season you’re in?

So perhaps you don’t want to work with bad fit clients anymore, or maybe clients altogether. Or maybe you don’t want to run a group program you’re no longer enjoying, or take on a certain type of client work. Or perhaps for you it’s your approach to marketing that you want to change, or the way your working week is currently built.

Your hell no list is everything that’s no longer worth it to you in the pursuit of your business goals, the things that drain and deplete you, that take you away from the work and life you want for yourself.

As for my hell no list, it’s thankfully very very small as I’ve had many years now of really simplifying my business and aligning it with how I want to be working each week. On mine now is just not taking on more client work than I feel like I have the energetic capacity for and not feeling any pressure to embrace approaches to marketing that don’t feel aligned for me.

7: What’s on your hell yes list?

Our hell yes list helps us to identify the areas in our business that light us up and bring us joy, and also any areas we want to prioritise more space and time for too.

My hell yes list looks like: continuing to do beautiful work with awesome clients, developing and delivering group offerings that feel deeply supportive and fun too, bringing content to life that I enjoy creating and that resonates with my hell yes people, and giving myself permission and encouragement to just show up as myself and let that be more than enough in my work.

8: What would your simple and spacious workweek look like?

This is where I like to get super specific on how we want to spend our weeks and our days in our business. All the previous questions will help inform this, but I find it super helpful to dive deeper into what we want our working weeks to actually look like.

Here’s what my simple and spacious workweek looks like right now:

On Mondays I do 2-3 hours work - this is usually where I focus on content creation like this podcast and my weekly letters, developing content and resources for my group offerings and I also catch up with my clients over email too.

Tuesday is my client day - I usually do 3 calls a day at the moment but my plan is to reduce this to 2 later this year.

Wednesday’s I take the day off.

Thursday’s is the day that’s in flux - I either do an hour or two of emails and content creation, or at the moment I occasionally have some client calls on Thursday as I’ve had some clients carry over from last year and also have quarterly clients every 3 months too, or sometimes I’ll just zero my inbox and then take the rest of the day off if I don’t have anything that needs to get that done that day.

And then Friday’s I take the day off.

Now sometimes during my son’s nap on my days off I might do a little work but on the whole I like to try and savour that quiet time for some rest, but I do have the flexibility throughout the week to fit in work on my days off if I have something I want or need to get done.

On the whole my workweek is exactly how I want it to be, especially the weeks where it’s only clients on a Tuesday and those occasional Thursdays are only for the next couple of months too. Moving to 2 client calls a day instead of 3 will feel even more spacious I think, especially as I will be taking 3 months off in the summer from client work too to have that extra time to just be with my family and focus on other areas of my business too.

You may have different versions of your ideal work week if you have seasonal projects or different types of rhythms and routines, but my encouragement here is to carve out some time to visualise what a working week that feels simple and spacious would look like for you.

9: Who are your lighthouses?

What are my lighthouses, you may be wondering?

They’re the people who inspire you in your business, who illuminate what you hope can be possible for you too, and who feel aligned with your values and approach to business.

They’re the people who you feel encouraged by and who have built their business in a way that models what you want to build too. You don’t want to copy their business, instead they’re are an encouraging light in your journey that reminds you what’s possible along the way.

And you may find it hard to find examples that really resonate with you, there are only two that truly come to mind for me as people who run their business in a way that truly resonates - those being Alexandra Franzen and then Jason and Caroline from Wandering Aimfully.

But you can have mini lighthouses too, people who inspire you in specific ways even if not everything in their work and their approach to business resonates with you.

10: What’s the gap between where you are now and where you want to be?

Your enough number, your ideal workweek, how you want to be spending your working hours, what a simple and spacious business looks and feels like for you - what’s the difference between being there and being where you are now?

Maybe you’re very almost there, with just a few tweaks you want to make. Or perhaps you’ve got some big changes you want to make or growth you want to facilitate in your work.

Wherever you are, that’s okay. Our business journey is never done, we’re always growing and evolving along the way.

But knowing where you want to be and how you want your business to function and fit into your life is the most important first step. A simple and spacious business isn’t built by accident, it’s built with deep intention one tiny brave step at a time.

Because you’re allowed to want a business that truly works best for you, that gives you space to live the life you want to live alongside it, that feels simple and spacious each day, even on the hard days, maybe even especially on the hard days.

And I’m right here with you figuring out each day too.

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Jen Carrington23 February 2022