How do you know when to say no

in your freelance and entrepreneurial career?

This weekend, I’m part of the

Neurokind

festival - my workshop was last night and you can catch the replay for free here. I designed it to romance the life you’re in, to dance with strands and threads of wonder in our memories. It’s an antidote to our overloaded nervous systems. Come write your heart out with us. More here.

Hi loves,

I’m working on a super clear vision for the year/s ahead. It’s taking some shaping.

I wrote about the goals or lack there of last week incase you missed it.

A 2025 Goals Try On

My brain has been taking me back to times in my life and career when my visions were crystal clear. I guess to reassure me that’s all coming. My appetite to be inside of them insatiable.

No one sets out to be the busiest they have ever been.

That just happens. Or does it? When you’re working on your vision there is much to be done, things are prioritised much easier, you work in flow, you find new ways. Then there’s the other type of busy where you’re avoiding feelings. You create extra things to be busy with that seem strange to those looking in on your life. One of my neighbours is like that. You can also find it in asmr videos on TikTok. They’ll keep you busy. So busy you have to tell people how busy you are. It becomes a business contest.

Busy doesn’t get you what you want though, it doesn’t make time for your path of devotion. Are we all distracted from our visions?

Choice and seeing the wood for the trees.

A few years back, I was working on some freelance consultancy but still saying yes to smaller gigs because we were saving money for our house extension. My career was precarious and I was used to it. I was about to become tired of it I just didn’t know it yet.

Any money we could save and earn helped us build towards the vision (of completing our home). So I said yes to everything and looked at ways to be savvy with the budget we had to complete the project.

As a project manager, I’m very good with budgets. I make money stretch really far and there is always money left over for contingency or paying myself a bonus. It was the same with the house extension.

Throwback to the satisfying pictures I took when finishing a room.

We used a builder that wasn’t VAT registered so save on VAT, signed up as traders with building merchants and the tile shop so we could save money on the fixtures and fittings.

We bought second hand internal doors from facebook market place, made do with second hand furniture we didn’t love for longer, painted whole rooms (messily) ourselves.

We didn’t carpet the house but polished up the 100 year old floorboards instead. They were and still are absolutely gorgeous.

We found a brand new cast iron bath for sale.

Once installed, I victoriously painted the bath a shade of pale pink on Valentines Day.

Honestly, if someone would have been filming it all, it would have been such the achievement and inspiration for others. We were so proud of building a forever home and bringing our cottage back to life here in Northumberland.¹

Anyway…

Inside of all of the activity, I was SO motivated to complete the vision I wasn’t recognising or respecting the preciousness of my own time.

I worked every single Saturday morning for the sum of £40 per session. The class I taught took my entire Saturday morning. I agreed to 10 events in a row and when I saw the £400 in my bank at the end, it was SUCH a wake up call.

I thought gosh x10 it still wouldn’t be enough for how much energy I expended on that project. 10 weeks of driving there and back, buying a coffee (to charge my sleep deprived mum brain), meeting and greeting, delivering, tidying up.

Most of all missing time with my family at home.

And that black and white figure in my bank account changed everything for me.

It’s like I saw it for the first time. I didn’t want to be paid for my time, I wanted to be paid for my creativity, my experience, my knowledge. I wanted to be an entrepreneur but I had no clue where to start.

✨

Where does the time go?

Where does your time go?

My BIGGEST lesson of last year came from tracking my time in my business. The actual tasks you do for two full weeks. The minutes of everything, the distractions, the parenting, the meals.

Have you tried it? I can’t stress how important this task is in your entrepreneurial journey.

I’d really recommend you doing that to get clear and realistic on how your time is being paid for and how it disappears into the business of life…

Let me know what you find out?

You are welcome to read more posts about self seeding your business over here including my new series “I made $100k in 2024 and here’s how” My entrepreneurial journey has been one of necessity and beauty and I want to meet you with authenticity and honesty in your quests and side projects too.

Sending sparkles,

Claire

✨

PS - For readers who support my work with paid subscriptions, we are inside of a 365 days of creativity challenge. A challenge that asks us to connect to creativity for our wellbeing. You’ll find us in our private chat (like a whats’app chat it’s better with the Substack app).

1. Alas they weren’t and we’re not influencers although we did appear on Escape to the Country, you can watch it if you like.