3 Ways To Become More Adaptable

I’m coming to you live from our new place in Oceanside!

If you’ve been keeping up with my Instagram, you know it’s been a wild week! First we hosted a film crew, Stillmotion, at our house in Poway for three days while they shot a short documentary film on Jason and then it was all hands on deck packing up our things on Thursday night and moving everything over to the new place on Friday.

I’ve never been so grateful to be a minimalist! With the help of our friends Omar and Nicole, the whole process went fairly smoothly (except for my stand-off with one unruly IKEA screw.)

Before we get into today’s email, here’s a group of snaps Jason and I took as we moved in.

There are still a few last touches to add (at the top of the list are wall art and a few house plants!) but overall it's feeling complete.

My favorite things about the place are, obviously, that view, all the natural light, and my dedicated art studio space on the first floor!

With this being our second big move in basically a year's time, there were some familiar feelings/thoughts that bubbled up as I settled in to our new environment this weekend:

This feels new. This feels different. Everything is unfamiliar. Where do I fit here?

Just like a musician trying to improvise with a band and pick up a new song, I've found that it takes a moment to find the rhythm of a place. To make sense of it all and slide yourself seamlessly into the mix.

But I love that process. I LIVE for that process -- the process of taking in a new environment or new circumstances and adapting to fit with it.

Which got me thinking about the importance of adaptability in life and in business.

When Jason and I met, one of the first things we connected on was our openness to change. Jason moved around a TON as a kid (living in seven different cities before college) and having to make new friends every year at a new school will definitely teach you a thing or two about being adaptable.

While I didn’t have to cope with geographical change (living in just one city), our family dynamics were always changing and evolving. My parents divorced when I was very young and remarried other people (twice in my dad’s case) so there were always new living arrangements, new step siblings to get to know and new bunk bed configurations to figure out .

We both agree that while this kind of childhood had some downsides at the time, now as adults we can appreciate all the change we encountered for the role it played in strengthening our adaptability muscles.

The more I thought about it, the more I realized just how integral this quality has been to creating the lives and businesses we desire and to being content in each new phase that emerges.

We're always experimenting, always changing, always ADAPTING.

But that doesn't mean it's easy. Just like I mentioned above, our lives take on a certain comfortable rhythm, which can be helpful in aiding us toward our goals. Change sometimes feels like it interrupts that rhythm. Whether it's something as big as moving across the coast, or whether it's something as small as our go-to grocery store closing down, when change hits, our beat gets off track for a second.

What I want to share with you today are three ways I've learned to become adaptable in my life, and how you can minimize that "off-beat" time period so that change doesn't throw you off your own rhythm.

3 ways to be more adaptable in your own life:

1. FOCUS ON THE GAIN, NOT THE LOSS

Learn to see change as an opportunity, not just a challenge. 

My friend Eric Proulx made an incredible documentary a few years ago called Lemonade about people in advertising who were laid off during the financial crisis in 2008. While it wasn’t easy for any of them, those that made it out of that big change happier were the ones that came to the conclusion that getting laid off was actually an opportunity to finally pursue what they were really passionate about. They focused on the freedom they gained, not the stability they lost.

This approach doesn't have to apply to something as life-altering as losing your job. For example, when we moved away from our house at Poway, I could have focused on all the things we'd be losing: two acres of open green spaces, the privacy of having so much land to ourselves, etc. But focusing on all our new place is "missing" would only stall me from fully embracing this new chapter. By putting all of the past behind me and focusing all the positives that this new environment will bring, I can minimize that stall factor.
 

2. USE THE ENERGY OF NEW-NESS TO BUILD MOMENTUM

You know that feeling we all get when January 1st rolls around every year? There’s an energy in the air that feels like pure possibility. Not only does the year feel new, but suddenly it feels as though we could be new too. The novelty that comes with the turning of a new year makes us feel like the past has been wiped clean. We're starting fresh. That’s the kind of energy I want you to think about when you encounter a big change.

Use the novelty of a new place or new routine or new job to give your own motivation a boost. Lean into the new-ness and let it catapult you head-first into whatever goal or future you want for yourself.
 

3. FIND YOUR CONSTANT

Bare with me for a second, but are there any Lost fans in the house? Remember when the show got all weird (okay, it was always weird) and doubled down on the whole time travel thing? Well an important part of the plot was this idea of a "constant" -- something that a character traveling through time cared deeply about that their mind could latch onto so it wouldn't unravel from the chaos of floating across space and time.

I think that very same logic applies to coping with big change. To prevent yourself from feeling completely lost in all the new, unfamiliar variables that change can bring, it's helpful to find a few constants that can make you feel comfortable and ease you through a big transition.

For me, that constant is my simple morning routine: wake up with natural light, drink my cup of coffee, take 20 or so minutes to read a book, eat breakfast with Jason, write down my focus for that day, and then launch into work. Starting my day off with this simple series of steps that bring me joy makes me feel at ease no matter where I am.

Whatever that constant is for you -- a routine, a way you like to make your bed, a person you call, you favorite mug -- bring that with you to your new place or circumstances and take comfort in that when everything starts to feel too new.

Remember, change does have to interrupt your progress; if you learn to adapt, it can FUEL your progress.

“Remember, change does have to interrupt your progress; if you learn to adapt, it can FUEL your progress.”

So, this week I want you to answer this question: how good are you at adapting to change?

If you find that the answer is "not very," then I challenge you to read through the three tactics above and intentionally use them as your secret weapons whenever the next big change in your life appears.

Change happens in life whether we choose it or not, so learning to make the most of it can be a huge advantage. 

I'm looking forward to the next week to use these three tools myself in settling into a new rhythm here. Hopefully I'll be sharing a more in-depth photo tour on the blog soon!

Wishing you all a happy and creative week!

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How To Make Big Choices With Less Stress

Today I want to talk to you about choices.

Whether it’s in life or in business, we are constantly being bombarded by choices from every angle.

Choose where you want your next travel adventure to be.

Choose the best name for your brand.

Choose what website platform you want.

Choose what to have for lunch.

Choose. Choose. Choose.

Never has this been more evident than in the past few days as Jason and I have navigated the process of choosing a new place to live!

As some of you know, we moved out here to California from Florida last year and were lucky enough to find an ah-mazing house outside of San Diego to rent with our two friends, Clay and Julia. 

The year has been incredible, and I honestly think this house had a lot to do with it — the natural light pouring in from every window; a dedicated space just for my art; the beauty of two acres of nature surrounding us at all times.

But now it’s time to move on. Our lease is up next month (March 31) and so for the past few months we’ve been on the hunt for our next adventure, the next place to call home.

We’ve looked in several cities: San Diego, Encinitas, San Clemente, and San Luis Obispo. We’ve thought about a house or a condo or an apartment. We’ve endlessly debated whether it’s more important to have a view or have an updated kitchen or big windows with natural light or about a dozen other variables. We’ve scoured hundreds of listings which has led us to tour about 10 different places for rent.

This whole process became substantially accelerated on Friday when after one particular showing of a beachy, modern, loft-like condo in the town of Oceanside, CA, we finally felt like we had a viable option on our hands -- a place we could really see ourselves in.

But on Saturday we already had about five showings lined up in San Clemente, so we decided to go ahead and see those places to get a well-rounded view of what was available to us. As the weekend went on, it became clear that this might be the big moment when we had to choose where we’d spend the next year of our California adventure.

Now, before I get into how that story ends, I want you to think about the last time you had to make a big decision (or perhaps a whole slew of tinier decisions at once.) Did you find the process exhausting? Stressful? Scary?

My guess is YES to all of the above.

Why? Because we’re all terrified of being wrong.

Over the past few years, I’ve recognized one particular archetype over and over again when it comes to decision-making, one type of person that takes this fear of being wrong to the next level. I’ve seen it in my friends and family, and from time to time, I’ve even seen it in myself.

This archetype is a person that I like to call “the Optimizer.”

The Optimizer is someone who is always interested in arriving at the BEST possible decision, the optimal solution to any problem, the greatest reward for the least amount of waste possible.

The Optimizer’s greatest fear is missing out on an opportunity — whether that’s an opportunity to have a better experience, to save more money, to convert more sales, etc. The Optimizer doesn’t just have FOMO, they have FOMOO 🐮(Fear Of Missing Out on Opportunities).

Now, some of you may be thinking — well what’s wrong with being an Optimizer? What’s wrong with wanting to make the best possible decision? Isn’t that what we all want?

Well, the danger with being an Optimizer is this: more often than not, this type of maximum pay-off decision making results in either massive amounts of anxiety OR, what’s worse, complete paralysis which leads to choosing nothing at all.

By the way, as the girl who waited a YEAR to start my first personal blog because I couldn’t decide on the optimal name, I’m speaking with a little bit of experience in Optimizer Induced Paralysis (man I really wish that acronym worked out to be OINK instead of OIP to continue the theme of animal-related clever acronyms. 🐷)

As blogger James Clear writes, our first choice is hardly ever the optimal choice. The first person we date is rarely the one that we marry, just like the first job we have is rarely our life-long career. We need to recognize this, become okay with it, and realize that the important part is simply that we make a decision and we move forward.

So, all that said, here are my three simple steps for less-stress decision-making and avoiding Optimizer Induced Paralysis:
 

1. Recognize the trade-offs associated with optimizing.

The first step is to recognize when you’re overly concerned with picking the optimal option. Bring awareness to what you’re actually losing in the present by trying to optimize your future. This could be your sanity, your sleep, your presence with your family or friends, etc. More often than any of those things, what you’re actually losing is TIME. The more you put off a decision because you’re looking for an optimal solution, the more time goes by that you could be testing, learning and living. Looking back, I kick myself for waiting an entire year to start my blog. That could have been an entire year of writing and learning under my belt and it was wasted because of my decision paralysis.
 

2. Choose hard.

This advice comes courtesy of my new friend and art-affirmation-ally, Steph Halligan. (Steph creates a daily cartoon with a positive message at ArtToSelf.com and even has a book with all her amazing cartoons. Definitely check it out!) Steph said this to me during a call we had last week and I think it could be one of those little phrases that sticks with me forever. Once you do move forward and decide to choose, it’s not necessarily about making the right choice as much as it’s about choosing HARD. It’s about committing to that choice. Going all in. (I shared more on this little bit of wisdom in Saturday's piece here.)
 

3. Close the door on outcomes not chosen.

Remember that FOMOO I talked about? Well making peace with your decision means not second guessing yourself. Don’t keep the mental door open on those other choices because if you do, you’ll find yourself wondering “What if I had chosen that.” Not only will this cause you inner turmoil, but it will also subconsciously have you pulling back from the reality you did choose. In other words, once you order from the menu, keep your eyes on your own food. Don’t waste time wishing you had ordered what the person next to you did. Savor the deliciousness of the choice you made.

And finally, remember:

“The win is not in making the optimal choice, it’s that we simply MAKE a choice (often & with confidence.).”

My challenge to you this week is to take one choice in your life right now that you’ve been dragging your feet on and see if you can use the three steps above to get you to a decision you’re happy with.

To wrap our story up, Jason and I found ourselves momentarily conflicted between a few properties from our house hunt, but ultimately we decided to take Steph's advice and choose hard. We submitted an application and we haven't looked back since. Hopefully next week I'll be able to reveal which place we chose and I'll be able to tell you more about our the next chapter of our lives here.

Choices surround us day in and day out. Don't let the fear of choosing "wrong" keep you motionless. Keep choosing hard and keep moving forward my friends.

Ultimately, an optimal life is the one in which you're not constantly stressed out from the notion of choosing.

Until next time!

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The Power of Sunk Cost Bias in Decision-Making

Happy Monday, friends!

Hope you’re all jazzed up for a new week to begin!

This week I want to kick things off with a quick story…

Two Sundays ago I sat staring at my laptop, eyes glazed over and on the verge of pulling my hair out. I was going on four solid hours of trying to fix a monumental issue between my website (on Squarespace) and my email list (on Mailchimp).

My website forms weren’t collecting properly (a fact I had just found out about a week prior), and after finally finding a workaround to fix that issue, like a hydra, three more had popped up.

I was deeply concentrating, trying to make sense of the complicated system I was patching together — this form to this Google Sheet to Zapier and back to Mailchimp — just desperately trying to manufacture an efficient system that would work properly AND make sure I was sending you guys the emails you wanted to get. Finally, amidst the intense focus, I had the good sense to take a step back and look at what I was doing.

I knew that a solution to my exact problem existed because it was a solution I’d known about for months. My friend Nathan Barry had been telling me about his software service ConvertKit for so long and how it’s built specifically to organize subscribers and send emails for bloggers.

So, the question is, if I knew a solution to my problem existed, why was I practically beating my head against a wall rather than simply signing up for ConvertKit?

Well, for one thing, I had been using Mailchimp since I started my business over two years ago and I’d invested an unspeakable number of hours learning how to use it effectively. I knew how to segment my list and customize my template and check out my stats like a pro. So every time I encountered a problem with Mailchimp and even considered switching, my brain would think of all the time and effort and energy I had already spent. Switching providers would feel like all that work was for nothing, a feeling I wasn’t prepared to confront.

On this particular Sunday though, finally I decided I’d had enough. I popped over to ConvertKit and signed up for an account, telling myself I would just give things a test run and poke around. Within the first few moments, I experienced complete relief from the problem I had just spent hours troubleshooting. The deeper I dove, the more I was kicking myself for not switching over sooner.

That’s when I realized I was the only one responsible for keeping myself in a frustrated and confused state, stubbornly refusing to jump ship on a system that clearly wasn’t working for me. And it was all because of a little thing called sunk cost bias.

Which brings me to what I want to talk to you about this week — how sunk costs can cloud our judgment and keep us fixated on things that simply aren’t working for us.

But first, what exactly is sunk cost bias?

Sunk cost bias is just a fancy psychology term to describe our tendency to keep going with something we’ve invested our time or money or energy in, even if that something is a losing proposition. It’s a way of justifying our efforts when we’ve taken on a cost that we can’t possibly get back (hence the term a sunk cost.)

Essentially, the more we invest in something — the deeper we see it through, the more money we throw at it, etc. — the harder it is for us to walk away.

Now let’s talk about how this can show up in our daily lives. Think about how many times in life we make decisions based on a sunk cost we’ve already put in to something:

A friendship turns toxic but you won’t distance yourself because you’ve “known each other forever.” It becomes clear that a relationship won’t end well, but you avoid breaking up because you don’t want to feel like you’ve wasted months or years of time on it. You keep throwing money toward a bad investment like a junky car that keeps breaking down on you.

Heck, I even know people that are lawyers and hate it but they refuse to quit because of how much money they’ve spent on law school! Can you imagine working at a career you loathe simply to justify an expense that is already long gone?

That’s exactly why acknowledging our sunk cost bias is extremely important.

Decision-making is one of the most essential tools to living our brightest, most vibrant lives. We need to be clear-minded when we’re evaluating which projects to take on, what activities to spend our time on, what relationships to invest in, etc. Part of that sound decision making means recognize our bias and then having the strength to overcome it and discard or disrupt a course of action when it’s no longer serving us.

It comes down to this:

“Don’t let poor investments in the past sabotage the right decisions in the future.”

My challenge to you this week is to identify three ways your sunk cost bias has played into your decision making recently.

Has it stopped you from quitting the job you don’t like? Or scrapping the website you hate but that you’ve paid someone good money to design? Or is it even smaller than that — Have you been using the same terrible vacuum for years because you invested in the expensive attachments?

And when you encounter a decision in the future, I challenge you to ask yourself: Would I still choose this route if I hadn’t invested any time or energy into it at all?

If not, that’s your cue that sunk cost bias is swaying your vote.

I’m still working on the kinks in my new ConvertKit system, but I’m so glad I finally made the switch! Hopefully it means less headaches for me and more quality email content for you!

Wishing you a motivated and happy week filled with decisions that are conducive to living as your best and brightest self!

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3 Lessons I've Learned About Time

Happy Monday, dear friends!

I hope some of you are enjoying a bonus Sunday with the holiday!

Last week, as part of my daily drawing exercises on Instagram I drew this set of playful, colorful watches. As I drew them, I was suddenly reminded of a charming and poignant movie I saw months and months ago called About Time. Have any of you seen it?

The film was disguised as a romantic comedy (and was promoted as such), which is maybe why I never bothered to see it in the theater. (Something you should know about me: I think there’s nothing more luxuriously girly than watching a great rom-com when Jason is out of town in the comfort of my own bed with my favorite yoga pants on. It’s just delightful.)

After the movie ended, I remember just sitting there in bed, struck by all of the philosophical questions that were raised about this powerful force called time. Questions about how we choose to spend it, what we’d do if we could expand it and travel through it, and the beauty of the seemingly mundane moments in the practiced pace of our daily lives.

As these thoughts came back to the surface of my mind, around the same day I had a Skype call with a friend and fellow creative in which she was asking me about things I’d learned on this journey to owning a creative business. I was surprised to find that SO many of them boiled down to lessons on time:

• Charging clients what you’re worth is about valuing your time.
• Being more productive is about getting intentional about your time.
• Completing “less, but better” projects is about recognizing the limitations of your time.
• Prioritizing projects is about demonstrating your values through your time.

It’s about TIME.

“Time is the most precious, non-renewable resource we have.”

Time is the currency of our human lives, with the all-important caveat being: we do not get to replenish the piggy bank. However many days and hours and moments we have until we’re no longer here, there’s no getting more of that so we’d better treat our allotted moments for the precious things they are doing things that matter the most to us.

To further emphasize this fact, in today’s newsletter I thought I’d share just three of the many lessons I’ve learned over the past few years about time, and how each one has helped me live a brighter life and run a brighter business.

+ What you do with your time should be a direct reflection of your values.

People have said “you vote with your dollars” as a way of saying that we demonstrate what’s important to us by the things we spend money on (ie. you opt for the more expensive organic veggies because you care about eating food without pesticides.)

Well, in this case, I say “you vote with your minutes.” You show what’s important to you by the way you appropriate your time.

But, this doesn’t always feel like it’s the case, does it? We can say that family is important to us or that we value deep friendships, but if we choose to work the day away instead of making that phone call to Mom or finally mailing that birthday card, what it appears that we’re saying is: work is more important than those other values. (Hi, I’m especially guilty of this.)

Knowing that I vote with my minutes, I’ve learned that it’s important to take a step back, evaluate how I’m spending my time and to ask myself: Does my schedule accurately reflect my values?

If it doesn’t — if, say, working time is incredibly disproportionate to family or friends or relationship time — then that’s when it becomes clear to me that I need to start making the time to employ those values.

“Making time” usually refers to something we value — something we WANT to do — but something that doesn’t fit into the habitual schedule of our daily lives. It’s something that requires a conscious reallocation of our time to achieve.

This practice of evaluating my time and comparing it to my values has been essential in making sure I’m living authentically — in making sure that what I do aligns with who I am.

+ Time that is budgeted is spent more thoughtfully (and efficiently).

Now, let’s get more practical for a moment. We can have the best intentions about spending our time on what we value, but it always seems to get away from us, doesn’t it? How can we make sure that minutes and hours don’t just slip away from our days? The answer I’ve found is through budgeting.

Budgeting is an incredibly helpful tool to help us consciously spend our money, right? It creates a mental boundary that keeps us from mindlessly allocating too much money to something we don’t need. Well, why wouldn’t we want to do the same thing for a resource even more valuable than our money -- our time.

When I was starting my design business, I couldn’t figure out why it felt like I was working all the time yet never making enough money to sustain myself. That was until Jason did a simple exercise to show me just how much time was leaking out of my day. “How many hours a day realistically could you work on client projects?” he asked. My answer was five. “Now multiply that number times 20 week days in a month.” My answer was 100, roughly how many “work hours” I could charge for each month. “Finally, multiply that number by your hourly rate to get your potential client revenue for a month if you were fully booked and if you spent the same amount of time you quoted clients on their projects.” It was $7,500!

That was thousands of dollars more than I was making at the time and it was all because I wasn’t using my time thoughtfully or efficiently. I would quote a client a certain number of hours but without an intentional way to track my time, I was spending way too long on things and letting hours creep by without noticing.

Here’s the lesson there: Your brain needs those hard stops, those boundaries, in order to operate at its most efficient capacity. Once I started blocking out my time (two hours for this task, 45 minutes for that), my project estimates started getting more and more accurate and I was able to fit in more clients each month.

I truly believe that budgeting my time saved my business. It was that point when things turned around and I was able to get my head above water financially.

Whether it’s your business or your life, experiment with the idea of blocking out tasks on your calendar. I know it might seem overly regimented, but it can be highly effective in actually giving you more freedom within each task because you’ll be at ease with the control you have over how you spend your days.

+ Down time is not wasted time.

I used to feel guilty for spending time relaxing. A moment away from my business or work felt like a missed opportunity to accomplish my goals sooner and faster. But, I’ve now experienced enough phases of burnout to know that down time is absolutely necessary. Rest is an essential part of my creative process. (And, yes, sometimes rest looks like an entire Saturday under the covers watching Netflix.)

Here’s what I believe:

“If it’s spent with intention, it’s not wasted time.”

If I know that I’m having a lazy day because I need to re-charge my batteries, then I have no reason to feel guilty. If I know I’m taking two hours away from my computer to go on a hike with Jason because being in nature grounds me and inspires me, then that’s time well spent.

It’s the mindless, intention-less time that’s the wasteful time. The involuntary scrolling of social media feeds. The 8 minutes spent reading a celebrity news article you got click-baited into because you’re resisting whatever creative work you’re afraid to dive into. Those are the moments that I've trained myself to become aware of. Those zombie-alert moments when my conscious mind kicks up its feet and the habitual mind takes over.

If we want any hope of making that time I mentioned earlier, we have to recognize when we're spending down time thoughtfully and when we're spending it mindlessly. Cutting out social media and senseless blog scrolling has been one of the best decisions I've made for my productivity (and my self-confidence for that matter.)

___

I'm sure I could go on and on because I truly do feel that this shift in being more intentional with my time has created so many positive benefits in my life over the years. I hope that you'll take a few of your precious moments today to think about your own schedule and how small changes in how you view your time could add up to a larger impact.

Because I value this limited resource we all have so much, I can't tell you what it means to me that you all continue to spend yours reading my words each Monday. I choose to spend my allotted hours writing to all of you because I truly value this dialogue we continue to have. I love hearing from you all, and I love knowing that these weekly letters help you stay mindful and ever-evolving toward your best and brightest self.

Thank you so much for that! Now go have a great week!

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State Of The Union 2016

This week officially marks the 100th weekly newsletter to Self-Made Society!

I honestly can't even believe I've hit send on 100 of those babies, but as I've said many times, starting a weekly newsletter was the best decision I made when I started my business.

It's been such a gift to not only document my personal and professional growth week after week, but it's provided me with a weekly opportunity to interact with all of you -- to hear your stories, your struggles and your triumphs. So a huge thank you to those of you that have been reading for months and months, and a huge welcome to all of you that are new to the club! 

For this week's letter, I actually decided to steal an idea from a friend of mine, Paul Jarvis. Paul also has a weekly newsletter and yesterday (in his 175th newsletter - he's got us beat!), he sent out an email called "State Of The Union, 2016." I thought it was so interesting that I asked him if I could rip off the idea and use it here, to which he kindly obliged. 

The idea is simply to take stock of how things went in 2015 and to give you all an idea of where things might be going in 2016. I hope the recap is valuable in illustrating some big lessons I've learned, and I hope it gets you excited for what's in store in the coming months! Let's get to it...
 

***

What went well 

1. Self-Made Society newsletter. 

As I mentioned above, I wrote a Monday letter to you guys every single week of 2015. I didn’t even take a break in December when I was on hiatus (like I had originally planned) because it truly continues to be the highlight of my week.

I still maintain that the two most crucial elements in growing a sustainable, profitable solo business are consistency and authenticity. (You can read more about my feelings on this in a post I wrote for Elle & Company’s blog, The Collaborative.)

The Self-Made Society newsletter is the fundamental way I consistently share my authentic self with you guys, and it has paid off by continuing to grow this community of passionate, positive soulful creatives. My core list grew from 1,400 subscribers to 3,400 last year, and I’m really looking forward to continuing that same trend in 2016.

2. Hiring Laura!

By far the most game-changing decision I made in 2015 was hiring my assistant, Laura. I fought the idea of bringing on help for a long time, mostly because I had no idea how to grow a team and that fear of the unknown held me back. But I finally hit a point back in the fall where all the little things on my to-do lists really started to add up and the notion of trying to keep everything organized was overwhelming. I could feel my anxiety coming into the foreground (something I desperately wanted to avoid), and that's when I realized that even though I didn’t know “how” to hire someone, there was nothing that said I had to do it anyone else’s way but my own.

I found some amazing applicants through the blog, but ultimately Laura felt like the best fit and we’ve been jamming together ever since! Not only has it been immensely helpful to have her get processes in place and organize the various projects Made Vibrant has going on, but the best unforeseen benefit has been having a fellow soulful creative in my corner supporting me and cheering me on with each step in the evolution of Made Vibrant. She reminds me of the WHY behind the brand on a regular basis and that has been the greatest gift.
 

3. Hand-lettering challenges.   

Back in February of last year, the hand-lettering course was selling pretty well and was bringing in a steady monthly income, but I kept thinking there was untapped potential there. I was getting emails from students saying the course had reignited their creative fire again, and I wanted more people to experience that benefit.

Meanwhile I was starting to see some real traction with my semi-regular lettering posts on Instagram, which is when it hit me to start a monthly lettering challenge to encourage people to join the course. In the months following the challenge debut, monthly course sales more than doubled, making it one of the most directly impactful marketing moves I've ever made. 

To date, there have been over 18,000 posts with the #BetterLetteringCourse tag. Even cooler than that, though, is the interesting intersection between lettering and self-reflection that has emerged. The daily prompts we share each month now act as a kind of daily journal prompt, and reading the captions and stories from students as they post is so incredibly rewarding for me. Instagram has turned out to be such a rich and thriving place for this community, which was another big learning that came out of 2015. 
 

4. Transitioning to products (and doing it my way.)  

This is what made the biggest change in my daily life and the business model last year. Late in 2014 I made the tough decision to stop taking on branding clients and to move exclusively to a products-based business. As much as I loved (and still love) freelance design, I had to admit to myself that not only was managing client expectations hard for a highly sensitive and dangerously over-achieving person like myself, but the economics of running a service business (trading time for money) just wasn’t that desirable.

I finished up my final design project in the spring of 2015, and this year I launched two new e-courses, with the most successful by far being the Better Branding Course, which took my business revenue total to over six figures -- 3xing the revenue of my first year in business as a freelance designer (2014). 

Now, I’m not telling you guys that to toot my own horn or to brag about how much money is in the bank (most of it went to paying down debt and buying out the lease on our car!), but I’m sharing it with you as an illustration that it’s possible to build a highly profitable business without e-courses that cost $999 and weekly sales webinars and crazy complicated email funnels and free opt-ins on every blog post.

All those things can be effective tools at the appropriate times, but more often than not they can leaving you feeling overwhelmed and icky and chained to your laptop managing it all. Instead of going that route, I simply created affordable, valuable courses that I was proud of, products that I genuinely knew would help people, and then I promoted them when and how I wanted to in a way that felt natural. Could I have probably made more money? Maybe. But I was still able to triple my previous year’s revenue with a list well under 5,000 subscribers and while actually working less hours, traveling more and staying healthier. That is a win in my book. (If you have any specific questions about how I made that happen, feel free to reply back and let me know. I’m happy to share what I’ve learned!)
 

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What didn't go so well

1. The MV Slack community.  

This was a sort of experiment I started on a whim after I saw such fantastic engagement from the Better Branding Course Slack group. However, what I learned from the experiment was that without a regular content schedule or reason for people to show up and chat about a certain topic, there's no real reason for anyone to pop in. 

To give the Slack community idea the chance it deserved, I should have asked you guys how that group could be most valuable and planned more consistent content based on that. Moving forward my goal is to either come up with a structure and plan for it (like weekly Slack chats around a specific topic for example) OR to potentially close the community so it’s not hanging over my head and taking up mental space.

Again, Slack works phenomenally for a specific topic or community interest, but as a general group without structure, the activity there becomes sparse. (If you want the Slack group to stick around and have ideas for what would make it valuable, please reply back with feedback! I’d love to hear it!)
 

2. Resource Shop. 

In August I decided I really wanted a more formal, easy to navigate place for all my e-guides, worksheets and e-courses on the website. I envisioned it as a helpful place for soulful creatives to go and find resources to push their businesses or lives further. What I found out instead was that most people don’t buy resources directly from that page — they buy them from the various content marketing posts or from this email newsletter.

Since most of the non-course resources don’t have a specific traffic source driving to them, the sales were pretty low compared to my other revenue sources. Just to give you an idea, the non-course products in the shop (guides, e-books, and worksheets) accounted for less than 1% of my total revenue in 2015 (only about $800 total.) I didn’t realize this until I did my end of year financials, but it was definitely an eye-opener to see that as a business opportunity, I’d probably be better off creating free resources and using those to add new soulful creatives to this community. You’ll likely see a shift in that direction this year, as well as more courses since that seems to be the preferred way that people like to consume their helpful content! 
 

3. Completion.

When it comes down to it, this is what I feel like I struggled with the most in 2015. While it feels like I planted A LOT of seeds, I wasn’t able to properly harvest the fruits of all that planting because I had trouble seeing things through to completion. For example, I’d create something like the Better Branding Course, but then when it came to that last 10% of coming up with a well-thought out promotion plan, I’d just move on to the next shiny object project.

The result at the end of the year was this overwhelming feeling like I had a lot of projects out in the ether, but none of them fully baked to completion. My goal in 2016 is to instead curate my list of projects, really commit to one thing at a time, and make sure that I fully see each project to completion. I still have plenty of ideas for what I want to accomplish this year, but in order to do each of them well, I need to let my brain narrow in on one at a time and push myself to fully realize the potential of each idea by completing its intended vision. 
 

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What's ahead for 2016

Now that brings us to this year! What do I have in store for you guys and where do I see the future of Made Vibrant headed?
 

1. Throttling up the intersection between creativity and personal growth.

I started Made Vibrant with the intention of exploring the interesting intersection between life, creativity and business. While the focus skewed a bit more toward business last year (with resources like the Better Branding Course and Your First E-Course), my deep love affair with acrylic art that started back in August feels like it’s leading me to swing more toward the creative side this year. 

I get such immense joy out of commenting on the beautiful relationship between creating things and getting to know yourself deeper — as evidenced by the Better Lettering challenges — but I want to explore that even more this year. The most magical revelations have come to me as I engage in my various creative pursuits, and I want to continue to find ways to share those insights in a way that encourages people to shed their expectations of what art is and simply make what their heart is leading them to make. 

I’d love to make more creative e-courses (similar to the lettering course), and I have at least two solid concepts I’ll start working on soon. I still intend on “reporting back” on the business side of things, as it’s still my personal mission to help as many creatives as possible make a living with their art, but I want creativity to be at the forefront again. My 2016 daily project, Abstract Affirmations, plus the addition of a print shop coming soon will be the first manifestation of that. Color Your Soul, my vision for a digital mindfulness subscription, is also still on the docket, and I can’t wait to see how my art finds its way into that endeavor. 

Given the major uptick in products-based businesses and business resource blogs out there, I also feel that doubling down on the creativity aspect of what I do is my way of tapping deeper into what makes Made Vibrant unique and carving out an authentic niche for my skill set and offerings.
 

2. Staying connected with you guys! 

Other than that, I want to continue to grow the business in a slow and steady way so that I still have the bandwidth to answer your emails and connect with you on social media. I’m not always able to get to everyone’s comments or emails, though I promise I try, but I want to continue to make that a priority since I wouldn’t be able to make a living without this amazing group of people. And I’ll keep sending out these weekly letters if you guys promise to keep reading them! :)

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So that’s the plan, guys! I just want to keep moving forward, learning everything I can, and reporting back to you all in a way that you hopefully find uplifting and inspiring.

As I’ve said since the beginning, Made Vibrant is simply my personal exploration to discover my best and brightest self, and I’m just grateful that I get to share that process with people that are as generous, caring, creative and insightful as you guys. 

If I could issue you just one challenge this week it’s this: create your own State Of The Union.

It could be for your business or your life, but write down what worked last year, what didn’t, and where you want things to go in 2016. The very exercise of writing this down will help you bring forth intentions that you might not have recognized before. 

Again, thanks for sticking with me on this crazy ride. Talking to you is the best part of my week. 

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