On changing goals
You might remember back in the January newsletter, that I set 3 goals for the business for the year. As a recap these were:
To increase sales by 50%
To increase Instagram followers by 75% (from 2000 to 3500)
To increase the number of newsletter subscribers from 200 to 300 (an increase of 50%)
We're now more than a third of the way through the year and I'm not gonna lie, it's been a tough one. Work is stressful and tiring and lock down easing, whilst amazing, is also bringing with it a fair amount of stress and anxiety.
I want my small business to grow but I also don't want it to become a burden, another thing on my endless To Do list. It's hard to hold back from trying to sprint to the end, but I know in my heart that way lies exhaustion and burnout. I'm the kind of person who wants to do ALL THE THINGS and sometimes I struggle to prioritise. Maybe if I did more social media? Or updated the shop inventory more frequently? Or ran more sales? Or collaborated with more bloggers? There's always something you can be doing and I find it very hard to relax and do activities that feel 'unproductive', like running, reading or just watching TV without knitting or planning on my phone.
We're going away next week with the Turtle, for our first overnight trip of the year. I'm very much looking forward to unplugging and will be using Do Not Disturb mode to allow myself the head space to have a proper break. To try to reduce my stress for the next 4 months, I've also decided to lower my goal standards slightly and instead aim for the following:
To increase sales by 30%
To increase Instagram followers by 50% (2000 to 3000)
To grow the newsletter community from 200 to 250 (an increase of 25%)
These feel a lot more manageable and once I get over myself and the unhelpful feelings of guilt, shame and failure that go hand in hand with accepting I'm not going to achieve what I set out to achieve, I can see that additional bandwidth will help me relax and enjoy the process. I don't want to be a Luke Skywalker, always looking over the horizon for the next big thing (plus getting your hand chopped off, falling in love with your sister and ending your days alone on a barren island, spoilers).
As Andy Bernard says in one of my favourite TV shows, the American version of the Office, "I wish there was a way to know that you're in the good old days before you've actually left them".
I want to enjoy these good old days.