Dear Friends,
After falling into the burnout-from-no-boundaries trap, the past 5 years of my 14-year entrepreneurial journey has been focused on managing the tension between self-employment, creativity, and self-care.
Rather than chasing hyper-growth as so many entrepreneurs do in this world, I've been quietly nerd-ing out on what it means to "rightsize" one's work.
In other words, in this society of hustle culture, we’re taught to set aside creativity and self-care in order to be successful. But what if you want to be successful and lead a creative life where you also take care of yourself?
I'm learning it's possible IF you think and act from a YES-AND space:
YES I want to be successful; AND I want to create space for my creativity to stretch, grow, and thrive.
YES I want to build financial security; AND I want to take care of my body, mind, and spirit along the way.
YES I want to be grounded in the numbers and practicality; AND I want to talk about energy and spirituality in the same breath.
Is this a tall order? Maybe. But I also think it’s a path worth exploring.
A few years ago, I made this mind-map to explore how three things - self-employment, creativity, and self-care - overlap and encompass all of my values and goals.
As I write this from my laptop at a homestead in Maine, this sign hangs on the wall at my house in Pennsylvania, scratching at me to do something with it.
Through my own journey of simultaneous pursuit of these things, I’ve discovered that it’s not a one-size fits all solution - it’s an ongoing practice of collecting and refining bits and pieces that resonate with you, embracing what you love and letting go of what doesn’t serve you, experimenting with your personal model and continuously tweeking to adapt to life’s ever-changing circumstances.
I don’t have it all figured out by any means, but I do have a collection of All The Bits that have helped me along the way. For years I’ve been squireling them away - notes in journals and word documents about gold nuggets and realizations and things I want to remember/share/put somewhere because they are so juicy.
Today, I'm excited to carve out this corner of the internet to finally put all the bits I’ve saved somewhere.
If you are self-employed and value creativity and self-care, I invite you to join me on Substack here:
Thanks for reading my first post and for your support - it means a lot :)
Onwards & Upwards,
Avi
P.S. I’d also love to do mastermind calls where we all can support each other in designing and manifesting work-lives for ourselves that serve us financially, creatively, and health-wise. So, if this is of interest, drop me a note!
