In January it will be five years since I started my creative coaching business and I am so glad that I ignored the voice in my head telling me that I had no right to dream of doing this work as I am oh so grateful every single day that I get to call this my job.

I have been forever changed by this work, by the privilege of walking with my clients in their journey and bearing witness to their courage, their creativity, and their stories too.

Just this past year I’ve seen my clients do some incredible things. Get the book deal of their dreams, leave unfulfilling day jobs and do work that actually lights them up, stabilise their income so that they can find more ease and flow in their business, the list could go on and on.

But so much more than all of that, I’ve seen my clients make some incredible internal shifts too. I’ve seen them redefine what success actually means to them and find so much freedom in the process, be brave enough to show up for the work and dreams that truly matter to them, and come back home to their creativity too.

I have learned so much from doing this work in the world and I want to share five of the biggest lessons with you today, with the hope that they can encourage you in your own journey too.

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A question I’m often asked by my clients who are getting their business up and running and off the ground is this:

“Jen, how do I find my first clients? How can I get consistent work?”

And the thing is, as much as that feels like the most important question to ask I’ve found that tweaking it slightly can make it even more impactful for our business.

Instead of worrying about how they’re going to find clients, I encourage my clients to focus on how they can make it easier for the people they’re here to serve to find them instead.

That’s where the bridges to your island come in.

The island is your business, this beautiful space you’re building where you’re going to have incredible impact in the world doing the awesome work that you do.

There are a whole lot of people out there who will truly resonate and connect with the work you do, they just might not know that you exist yet.

That’s why we need bridges that make it easy for the right people for our work to find us and connect with what we do.

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I have this wonderful client who is working really hard right now on getting her business up and running and off the ground.

She’s doing the sometimes messy but oh so meaningful work of figuring out who she really wants to be in her work, how she wants to work with the people she’s so excited to serve, and how she really wants to be spending her days too.

But during a recent call together something felt a little off. My client was feeling scattered and overwhelmed and had made some changes to her messaging and approach that no longer really felt like the amazing woman I had been getting to know throughout our calls.

Digging a little deeper together, what came to the surface is that she had recently connected with a business expert in her local area who has given her some very specific advice on how she should be running and building her business. And even though that advice didn’t really resonate with my client’s own values and vision for her work, she felt like she didn’t have permission to not implement what was being advised seeing as the person doing so was successful in their own work.

And here’s the thing: I’ve seen this happen many times before.

A client is finding their flow with their work and taking bold and brave steps forward towards building a creative business and life that truly lights them up, and then they stumble across a podcast or a blog post or perhaps a business consultant that sounds oh so convincing that can suddenly distract them from their own path.

This isn’t to say that looking for advice and guidance is wrong, there is so much wisdom and insight to be found online and offline to support us in our journeys. But where we can sometimes go wrong is when we take on-board advice that doesn’t truly serve us and our work - the tricky part is being able to tell the difference between the two.

That’s where this simple checklist comes in.

These are the questions I ask myself whenever I’m navigating an external opinion, perspective, or philosophy and seeing if it’s something that I want to take on board in my own work and life.

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There’s this fantasy about being self employed, where you work from home and never have to feel overwhelmed, or bored, or dissatisfied by your work ever again.

But like with most fantasies in life, the reality can look a little different.

Don’t get me wrong, I adore my business and the work I get to do each week. I feel grateful beyond words that this is the work I get to do in the world.

But I’ve also lost count of how many times I’ve found myself in a little bit of a funk throughout the past five years of working for myself too.

It’s so easy to make daily decisions on autopilot that don’t actually support us to find a whole lot of joy in our workdays, and sooner or later things can start to feel a little monotonous along the way.

And because we don’t have any co-workers or a boss to check in with it’s up to us to find a way to bring that spark of joy back into our days, to make working from home feel closer to that fantasy we used to dream so much about.

Here’s the thing: there will always be deadlines to meet, emails to reply to, taxes to file, the list could go on and on. But I learn time and time again that my best work happens when I prioritise making my workday as joyful as it can be, instead of just counting down until I can be done for the day.

How that looks like you for might be wildly different than it does for me, but I thought I’d share with you today five little things that are making a big difference to how I navigate my workdays at the moment.

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Introducing Keep Going, You’re Doing Better Than You Think

A mini guided journal to remind you of how awesome you are…

Time and time again I see the pressure my clients put on themselves to be reaching new goals and milestones, to be keeping up with the pace of those around them, to be avoiding failure at all cost. And what I also see is how powerful it is for them to slow down a little and bear witness to everything they already have to be proud of, to how awesome they already are.

Because I find that it’s only when we start to really believe in ourselves that we’re then able to move forward with the courage and momentum that we need to keep going along the way.

So this mini guided journal is here to help you do exactly that, to bear witness to everything you already have to be proud of, to how awesome you already are. What you’ll find inside are ten journalling prompts to hold space for you to see that you’re not failing or falling behind, that instead you’re exactly where you’re meant to be right now and you’re oh so capable of moving forward in whatever direction you feel pulled to, too.

My biggest hope is that what you uncover in this guided journal can encourage and empower you to keep going, to know deep down in your soul that you are wildly capable of more than you even know.

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I've talked a lot over the years about living and working in seasons.

About how some seasons are for rest, some are for experimenting, some are for staying the course, and others are for intentional hustle too. I'm a big believer in navigating the seasons of our lives with as much intention as we can, in leaning into our natural ebbs and flows and working with ourselves instead of against ourselves in this journey.

And after five years now of running my business and supporting hundreds of clients in theirs too I've seen over and and over again that there are specific types of seasons of business that we all can experience along the way.

Because business isn't linear.

It's messy and complicated and pretty wonderful at times too, but the more intentional we can be with the season that we're in the better we can support ourselves to thrive along the way too.

So let's dive into the eight season of business...

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At the beginning of this year I realised that I couldn’t remember the last time I had given my website any TLC, and although it wasn’t technically causing any problems for my business I knew that it was time to refocus some of my energy back into my digital home.

And if you take a little look around you’ll see that things are looking a tiny bit different around here - nothing’s changed all that much, but a few tweaks here and there have left me feeling excited about this website again instead of it just feeling like an afterthought.

I’ve never invested in outside branding and website design, mostly because I really do enjoy doing this type of thing myself, and also because I’m a little bit of a control freak and it just doesn’t feel like an investment I want to make in my business right now either.

But there was one area of my branding where I was in need of some outside help and that’s why I booked in a shoot with the incredibly talented Sophie Carefull so that I could finally stop using the same old photo over and over again and actually show up and share a little more of myself online.

Sophie booked me for coaching a few years ago now and I fell in love with her work so I always knew when the time was right she would be the person I would choose.

I am oh so shy behind the camera but Sophie put me completely as ease and I can’t tell you how happy I am with the finished result. As soon as Sophie sent me the final set of photos over email I was itching to update my site, but I had a few decisions to make first.

So next on my list was to create a little branding moodboard, which I’ve shared above. I decided to keep my current colour palette and fonts, mostly because they still feel like a good fit for me and also because changing them would turn this mini brand refresh into a much bigger job. But I did give my logo a little refresh to something that felt a little more like me, and I pulled over some of my recent photos from Instagram so that I could see how my current visual style blended with the photos from Sophie too.

What I was left with is a little visual guide that I can refer back to whenever I need to reconnect to this side of my business, and it was also just such a great feeling to feel so settled in my visual style in this season of my work too.

The visual side of my business has never been in my comfort zone. My writing, my ideas, and my approach is always where I’ve felt most at home and the visual side has been something I’ve slowly developed and found my feet in over time. So to finally be at a place where I feel super settled feels so good.

If you’re itching to DIY a little brand refresh for yourself right now too here are the biggest lessons I’ve learned over the years:

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There’s a collection of short stories that I’m itching to write this year.

I have them outlined, their worlds slowly coming to life in my mind.

But I can so easily get in my own way when it comes to personal creative projects, especially where writing is concerned.

Because what if they’re terrible?

What if I don’t have the skills to craft a story and bring a new world to life through my imagination?

Over and over again I ask myself these unhelpful questions and bringing these stories of mine to life inches further and further away.

So this past week I’ve been reminding myself of something that I held onto when I first started my business: good enough can come later.

I remind my clients of this often too.

When they’re starting a new blog, exploring a new creative craft, or maybe launching a new service or offering in their business.

Because good enough can only come if we get stuck in and do the work to actually become awesome at what we do.

That’s why working with beta clients, investing in further learning, and having introductory pricing can be so valuable when we’re first getting started in our business.

Because if we sit around and wait to be good enough we’ll never actually get there.

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After four years now of running my own business, I’ve had to slowly find a home within the job role of marketer.

It’s the role that I know so many of us can struggle with - we dream of doing the work we want to do in the world, but rarely do we dream of having to stand on our soapbox and sell it.

But I’ve found that marketing can actually be a very intentional, simple, and purposeful part of your business, and sometimes it can even be a little fun too.

Because at the heart of marketing, for me, is just human connection.

It’s bridging the gap between your business, your services and your products, and the clients and customers whose lives your work will have a positive impact in. 

Where I see a lot of my clients get stuck is when they over-complicate their marketing strategy. When they focus on all of the bells and whistles - the sales funnels, the opt-ins, the social media campaigns - and forget to focus on connection and communication first. 

Because if you build a business that resonates and connects with the people you’re here to serve, and nurture those relationships every step of the way, that connection ends up doing almost all of the selling for you. 

You don’t have to stand on your soapbox and scream at uninterested passers-by, because your dream clients and customers are already right there paying attention to your work. 

So today I want to share with you my own marketing philosophy, in the hopes that it can hold space for you to explore how you can approach your marketing with more intention, simplicity, and purpose moving forward too. 

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