75. Shifting Gears When The Month Looks Different Than Expected
Last month looked different than I had planned and that's how it goes sometimes
With self employment, every month looks different.
Some months are PACKED.
Hours and hours of design work. Discovery calls galore. Eating easy-to-make meals after long days.
Other months are quieter, with more internal work and optimizing systems.
Reaching out to potential new clients. Cooking homemade dinners with the extra time in the evenings.
Both are good, just in different ways.
When May started, I thought it would be a quieter month. Filled with content creation, reach outs, and building out resources for my clients.
I didn’t have a lot of projects lined up. And after a busy first quarter I thought it would be a reset month.
But as May continued, it turned into one of the busiest, biggest months yet.
Discovery calls, projects, bookings, home upgrades, a sprained ankle, unplanned challenges, networking events, a 10K race, the list just kept going.
The quiet month I had imagined didn’t happen.
It was more like the exact opposite.
And it was amazing. Even if it took me a minute to adjust. Even if the month brough challenges. I’m so grateful for the shift.
When things don’t go as planned in any given month, whether that’s work or personal, here’s a few things I do to help navigate the changes:
1/ Be honest about whether the change is positive or negative:
Sometimes change is hard to take in stride, but that doesn’t make it necessarily good or bad. Taking a minute to really notice whether the shift to my month is positive or negative is so helpful.
For this month, most of the changes were positive (new projects, for example!) and the changes that weren’t so positive (sprained ankle, for example) were things I could still handle. Keeping this in mind helps to reframe a month that looks a bit different.
2/ Get outside as much as possible:
Anytime a month is busier than expected, I try to get fresh air and movement even MORE than usual. It’s silly how well getting outside works to regulate our nervous systems and keeps us feeling grounded.
3/ Prioritize, prioritize, prioritize:
When unexpected opportunities (or challenges) come up, I find it really helpful to focus on the core priorities of my month and just let go of the extra or ‘nice to have’ tasks or events.
This means KNOWING your core priorities though (and they’ll look different every month) so I try to have an idea of the priorities at the start of each month.
4/ Try to stay open to change as it comes:
This is something I’ve never been great at but I’m trying to get better. When plans change, I’ve been really working on embracing the change, even if it’s hard.
This is NOT easy. But I love the line, “man plans, God laughs” and I try to remind myself of that when things shift unexpectedly. Our plans are not all our own and change can bring us so much that we never even imagined.
— These are just a few things I’ve found helpful as May turned into a very different month (in great and challenging ways) than planned.
There’s so much good to be found in things not going the way we initially hoped. We just have to take the time to recognize it.
🤠 What’s Cool…
It’s lilac season here in Calgary and that is very cool!
Everywhere I look there’s purple blooms that smell like springtime. On my walks through the neighborhood I smell them and there’s a tree in our neighbor’s yard that wafts the delectable scent through our front door.
Each Spring, the lilacs blooming marks another year in this city that I love. Three years ago, we packed up two cars filled with everything we could fit (our moving truck cancelled on us last minute, long story) and drove 12 hours to our new home.
The very first week here, we were walking around our new neighborhood and stumbled into a big market. Now, we go to that same market (fittingly called Lilac Fest) every year because it’s special to mark milestones, even in small ways.
📚 Currently Reading…
I never knew how much I would enjoy listening to Stanley Tucci talk about pasta and tomato sauce for 8 hours, but here we are!
I grabbed his book “What I Ate In One Year (And Related Thoughts)” this week on audiobook and I had a great time listening to him describe food (mostly pasta), travel, and name drop some of his famous friends of course.
He lives a very unique life as a celebrity, but no one is immune to crazy travel days or having kids who are picky eaters, which made for a great range of stories.
His dry humour was entertaining, and although the book wasn’t riveting or anything, it was great background listening as I cooked dinner and went on walks last week!
🍊 Working On…
Here’s what’s going on at Belle White Creative HQ this week…
Homepage Design: Before diving into the full website, we always start with the homepage! This week I’m working on a clean, modern homepage design and I’m so excited to get it finalized before moving forward on the rest of the project.
Branding & Messaging Concepts: Another client project is kicking off this week with the brand and messaging concepts. This phase is so special because it sets the tone for the rest of the website!
Watching the Oilers in the Final Round: The final round of the Stanley Cup starts this week and I’m SO nervous. Husband has been an Oilers fan since he was a kid so this is a bigggg deal in this house.
Cooking on My New Stoveee: We upgraded our appliances (something we’ve wanted to do since moving in) and it was SUCH a journey to install everything but I’m so grateful to have appliances that work and our kitchen looks so pretty.
Thank you so much for being here and chat next Wednesday,
xo — Belle