Defining Your Business Mindset

I want to take you back to March 2020, two weeks before the pandemic lockdowns began. I was heading “back” to work after taking 16 weeks of maternity leave with my son, which really meant that I’d hired a nanny to watch him for a few days per week while I worked from our basement office. I needed to ramp my freelance business back up to make sure I could pay our family’s bills throughout the spring.

Then the pandemic hit, our nanny was unable to start and I found myself with only edges of time — naps, evenings, weekends — to restart my work. I’d also had a traumatic pregnancy and birth, and my mental health had suffered. I struggled through about six months of this work set-up, wondering how I’d survive with my business intact because like it or not, running a small business means watching your personal and professional lives bleed together.

Publicly, I was thriving. But privately, I was completely adrift. Before having my son, I felt a sense of purpose when I filed impressive journalism stories or booked $12,000 revenue months in my freelance writing business. But now, I was filled with existential angst. What was the point? Why was I working myself to the bone?

Looking back, I can tell you that I was facing a misalignment of my values. My beliefs about who I was as a person in the world — a worker, a mother, a partner, a friend, a writer…