The Intersection of Your Enough Number & Your Ideal Workweek

There are two puzzle pieces that shape my daily experience of running a simple and spacious business.

Together these two things are what support me to live and work at a pace and in a way that truly works best for me.

And these two puzzle pieces are my enough number and my ideal workweek.

Because I’ve found that figuring out how to make the money I want to make while only working the hours and at a pace I want to work is why I now get to find so much spaciousness and simplicity in my business and life each day.

And this might sound wildly obvious, because yes of course these two things together shape ease and freedom and spaciousness in our work.

But it isn’t always easy to navigate the messy dance between the two.

You might be making the money you want to make but not able to live and work at the pace you really want to be.

Or you might have a dreamy ideal workweek but not actually making enough money to sustain and support your life.

Or you might be in a season of having neither - not enough money and a workweek that feels overwhelming and completely out of alignment with how you live and work best.

And as I shared in the first episode, it’s taken me a while to get to this place too, where I’m able to make the money I want to make while also living and working how I want to, too.

Because building and running a business is messy and in today’s episode I want to share how you can start to explore your own intersection of your enough number and your ideal workweek and how you can intentionally facilitate them both becoming your reality too.

The first place to start, if you haven’t already, is by identifying your enough number and ideal workweek.

As I shared in last week’s episode I tend to think of enough numbers being in two parts.

The first enough number is enough to sustain your life as it is now. If you’re just getting started you might find it helpful to think of this as your enough to get by number - the amount that would make your business viable and pay your bills. If, like me, you’ve been in business for a while now I think of this first enough number as whatever amount is enough for you to live and work how you want to in this season. My enough number allows me to provide for my family, invest in the things that bring us joy, and have some left over to put into savings each year too.

And then there is our enough to thrive number. This is the amount that would sustain our life and facilitate any bigger financial hopes and goals too - so perhaps your enough to thrive number would allow you to save for an early retirement, or buy a second home, or take that year long sabbatical to travel, or move your family into your dream family home.

And why have two enough numbers you may be wondering, and not just reach for the big one?

If it feels in alignment for you to do so, I say go for it. You are the expert here in your own business and life.

The reason why I find it helpful to have an enough number and then an enough to thrive number is because I’ve found that when we can stabilise our business at our enough (or enough to get by if you’re just getting started) number and align our ideal workweek with it too, we then have a very strong foundation to build up to the enough to thrive number without compromising what we need to thrive as a human being along the way too.

To go from zero to an enough to thrive number can feel like a lot, so it can be really helpful to have an enough number before that that will bring deep freedom and sustainability to our lives, with the enough to thrive number then bringing an even deeper layer too when we feel ready to move towards that.

In my own journey I’ve been making my enough number for years now and my focus has been on shaping my ideal workweek around it in a way that’s aligned with how I really want to be working within my business, as I’m in a place now where I can make my enough number working just 8-10 hours a week. I share more of this journey in episode one. And as I shared in last week’s episode, I’m now in a season where I’m feeling ready to work towards my enough to thrive number all while not compromising the freedom and spaciousness I’ve built into my business at my enough number - it just isn’t worth it to me to work more to earn more as i already make enough to sustain a simple and joyful life.

So whether it feels aligned for you to define your enough number in this season as your enough to get by or enough to thrive or just, like me, enough to sustain your current life, my biggest encouragement is to just define it. Get clear on exactly how much you’d like to earn to have enough in this season of your work and life. Doing this brings deep intention into our business and shapes all of the decisions to support the simplicity and spaciousness we want to build into our work.

And then it’s time to define your ideal workweek. I shared my current ideal workweek in last week’s episode if you’d like to hear that example, but this step is just about getting clear on how you want to be building your business into your life each week. How would you spend your days? How much time do you want to give to your business? What time do you want to protect for you, your own creativity, your family life, your rest, your joy? Get as specific as it feels helpful to.

And then once you have these, your enough number and ideal workweek, you can then start to explore where they meet in the middle and what the distance is between where they are now and where you want them to be.

Because often the biggest disconnect is that what we’re asking of ourselves to make our enough number is more work than is aligned with our ideal workweek.

I’ve been there, years ago when I was doing 10 client calls or more a week to support me to make my enough number when that was more than double what was actually truly energetically sustainable for me. I made it work, because the bills needed paying, but I feel so much better now in my business having a workload that’s aligned with my true capacity.

And as I look towards my enough to thrive number, I know that taking on more clients than I currently work with is not an option for me, working beyond my energetic capacity isn’t worth the extra income for me when I already in many ways have enough. That’s why in this season of my business I’m building a new group offering, something that embodies the magic I’ve found one on one with my clients but that can serve more people in a new way. This is my plan to increase my income without increasing my workload and I also have a more intimate mastermind type offering that I’m developing for later this year too as a new way to go deeper with clients in a group setting. And this is a big business model shift I’m working towards, two new big offerings and I’m walking my way there very gently and slowly as I’m not willing to burn myself out in the process to do so.

This is why I find having two enough numbers so helpful - as once we stabilise our business at the first enough number we then have the freedom and ease to work towards our enough to thrive number at whatever pace works best for us, without an overwhelming sense of urgency along the way.

So the most important question to ask ourselves is: what needs to be true to make my enough number in a way that facilitates my ideal workweek?

This is where a deep dive into our business model comes in - and if you’re feeling stuck on this we’re going to be diving in a lot more in-depth in upcoming episodes so look out for those.

If you look at the hours you want to have available to your business each week, what does that break down to in your workload?

How many clients? How many sales of your products or programs?

And keep in mind how you want to be spending your working hours too - I adore diving deep with my clients so stabilising my business model with client work has always made the most sense to me - but you may find you much prefer delivering group offerings, or evergreen products, or physical offerings instead.

And as you dig into this you may start to feel a little disheartened - perhaps what you want to be possible feels really far away from what your current reality is. And that’s okay - sometimes it takes time to make the changes we want to make, but we have to know what those changes are to actually make them.

You may need to work towards increasing your prices, or diversifying your income with group or evergreen offerings, or building stronger marketing into your business so you can start to attract hell yes customers and clients for your work.

My biggest encouragement? Let deep clarity be your guide. Be so clear on your goals - for your income and your working life - and build your next steps in alignment with those.

And remember that there is never a perfect next step to take - don’t stand on the sidelines of your business waiting to know what will guarantee your goals becoming your reality. Make a plan with as much intention as you can and experiment from there.

What I’ve found most helpful is having an ideal business model in mind - the offerings, the amount of clients or customers for each, the other work around it to sustain the business such as marketing tasks and customer support, and aligning that with my enough number and ideal workweek.

This is then my North Star. This is what’s guided me as I’ve reshaped my 1:1 offering and pricing over the years to be better aligned with how I want to be working in my business, and shapes and guides the other offerings I have brought to life too.

And I want to say again, it’s okay if this feels messy right now. Business is messy - there’s no set blueprint to follow, in so many ways in our business our biggest work is actually just figuring our business out and finding our way one step at a time.

There may be seasons where you have to work a little more than you’d prefer to make your enough number - I’ve had seasons like this and I am grateful for them and that I was able to provide for my family and have the ability to pivot my business to where it is now too. Or you may have seasons where you earn less so you can work in a way that’s more aligned with how you want and need to. When necessary it’s up to us to decide what compromises we’re willing and able to make - as the breadwinner for my family I haven’t ever really had the option to compromise on my income so that’s why I’ve had seasons of taking on more work than would be my ideal, but I’ve still found joy and purpose and meaning in those seasons, I’m just obviously more at ease in my business with the schedule I have now.

Don’t let the distance between where you are now and where you want to be put you off from slowly and gently with a whole lot of intention making your way there.

Because the intersection of our enough number and our ideal workweek is the heart of our simple and spacious business. And it’s not a fantasy, I’ve seen it be true for me and for so many of my clients too. But it can take time, and devotion to figuring it out, and the willingness to sit in the messy middle and show up anyway.

Have your business model in mind, the one that will facilitate you making your enough number and working within your ideal workweek, and go from there. And this may be a simple evolution of your current business model with just some tweaks, or it may be a big shift from what you’ve built so far.

Reverse engineer it - what needs to happen next to walk your way there? Start to create a focused plan for yourself to work towards, one simple step at a time.

For me it looked like increasing my prices, diversifying my income streams with evergreen offerings and group offerings too, and evolving my 1:1 offer to be more simple and spacious for me to deliver too. And alongside this continuing to prioritise nurturing my audience and sowing seeds that lead to hell yes customers and clients along the way too.

If you’re aching for a more simple and spacious business, start here with your enough number and ideal workweek. Let them inform your business model and plan of action ahead to come. Revisit them when you need to remind yourself what you’re building and why it’s worth doing all the scary things this journey is asking of you. And remember you can always evolve and update your enough numbers and ideal workweek whenever you want to, too.

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Jen Carrington2 March 2022