When You Think You’re Done, But You’re Actually Evolving: What I Couldn’t See Until I Stopped Looking

I never thought I’d be writing a blog post about my instructional design business ever again. And it turns out, that’s true. Because my instructional design business doesn’t exist anymore: Heather Deveaux Instructional Design is gone. Goodbye. See you later, alligator. Alright, maybe that’s a bit dramatic. Because it’s not actually gone. It’s just getting a makeover. A makeover I never in a million years saw coming. And yet, here we are. Let me tell you how I landed here, giving Heather Deveaux Instructional Design a makeover instead of closing the doors like I’ve been saying I was going to do for the last six months. And let me introduce you to Deveaux Learning Solutions.

How it Started

When I started this creative sabbatical six months ago (hello, time! Slow down, please!), I began it with the intention of taking time away from my consulting business to focus on more creative pursuits. And I can confidently say that I successfully did both of those things. With the exception of a long-delayed project, I haven’t been taking on any new work in my instructional design business since starting this creative platform.

I spent the first couple of months thinking I was looking for my next business idea, or maybe I’d get a job that would pay me to work from home. Or maybe I’d become a Facebook reseller, a baker, an artist, a full-time romance author, a coach, a decorator, a full-time traveller. You name it, I thought of it. And I gave every one of those things the old college try. Some of them were so fun: reselling, writing, coaching. And some of them were not super fun: baker, artist, decorator.

The point wasn’t actually to replace my instructional design business with a new business. It was to take time off and try on other interests. To literally engage in a sabbatical where I wasn’t promoting my business or creating new streams of revenue in it. I wasn’t taking on new contracts. I disabled and deleted my entire consulting website. If you’re reading this blog, you’re reading it on the WordPress site that was once Heather Deveaux Instructional Design. I didn’t just archive my work: I deleted it.

How It’s Going

As I think about that move now, it was like I knew: even if I come back to this business in the end, it will be different. I don’t regret deleting the content and the web clout for the business. I was really and truly done with it. I haven’t missed it and I haven’t gone looking for a single thing I wrote on that site since I deleted it. And now, I don’t have backups of it. I wanted a clean slate. I wanted to make a clean break from the thing I had created and built over the last ten years.

I wanted a fresh perspective, new eyes, and a new way of thinking about business that I hadn’t even realized I wanted. As I continued to engage in this sabbatical, it became clear to me that it wasn’t that I never wanted to do consulting work again or build another course or write another blog about instructional design. It was that I just wanted to take a break. That break and the time I’ve taken away from the business has helped me re-imagine what it could be and how it could be better if I made changes. And instead of putting pressure on myself to figure out those things, I just let them remain thoughts without action.

The more ideas that came up for me about how to spend my days, the more I realized that business-building is something I actually really enjoy. But it also helped me clarify that building a business the way other people think it should be built has never been my jam. And that’s even more true now as I set out to relaunch Heather Deveaux Instructional Design as Deveaux Learning Solutions.

We’re Doing What Now? Oh, Yeah. That Makes Sense.

It’s a glow-up I didn’t see coming, but maybe, in the back of my mind, always knew would happen. I love to imagine that is true, but if you’d asked me three weeks ago about my plans for my business, I would have told you it was done and over with. I was moving on. I was going to do something else. Well, I was half right.

Because I am doing something else, to be sure. But it’s in such alignment with who I am and what I can offer people that it almost scares me: I’ve never been this clear about business before. And maybe I couldn’t have gotten here without taking all this time away from the systems, processes and frameworks that built this business. Maybe I couldn’t have seen what I had until I took a step back.

But either way, I see it now. And the best part is, despite my excitement for this new direction of my old business, I’m still going to take the rest of the time I have earmarked for my sabbatical. Meaning, I’m going to keep exploring ideas, thoughts, feelings, creative pursuits, and myself for the rest of the year. My plan is to slowly and without urgency, rebuild my business from what it was to what I see for it as Deveaux Learning Solutions. And as my sabbatical comes to an end, I’ll be ready to launch this vision into the world. I’m guessing Q2 of 2026.

The Evolution of an Idea That Wasn’t Dead in the Water

So how did I land at this place of re-imagining instead of doing something entirely different? I had my heart set on something else for myself. I didn’t know what it was. I thought I’d want to do a lot of things with my life if I had the chance to do it over. I thought I wanted to get away from talking about adult education and instructional design and business.

But the more time I spent reflecting and meaning making, the more it became clear to me that I have spent 20+ years going down this road because I love it, not because I never took the time to make another decision. But that wasn’t the deal maker. No, I wish I could take credit for suddenly realizing why I wanted to not only keep this business, but rename it and rebuild it into something else. But alas, it was not my idea. It was my son’s idea.

I Wish It Was My Idea, But…

Not two weeks ago, my son and I were having a conversation about communication apps. He’s graduating high school this year and he had some choice words to make about the way the grad class is communicating about events and updates. I laughed, saying he should pay attention to that kind of stuff when he starts working. “Pay attention to what you like and don’t like and what you’d do different if you were in charge” (I’ve always thought he’d make a great entrepreneur, but it’s his life to live).

And then I said, “That’s why I have to work for myself. I figured out a long time ago that I couldn’t handle being told how to do something, especially if I thought it was wrong.” To which he replied, “Yeah, but you make a lot of money in your business. When you get paid, you get like, a year’s worth of dollars and then don’t have to worry about money again for a long time. That’s not how most business owners run things.” And I found myself standing there looking at my 17-year-old son with my mouth hanging open. He was right.

Rebuilding a New(er) Vision

I’ve spent ten years learning what I like and don’t like about business and doing my very best to always create and build something that is true to who I am. How much money I make and how I make it entirely my own doing. And when I haven’t liked something, I’ve changed it. This isn’t the first time I’ve burned my business to the ground only to rebuild it better than it was before.

The best part is that I don’t always build it bigger: I built it to suit my needs. And when my business started to become a scale-monster with funnels and email lists and launches and constant posting on social media, I dropped all of that and went into consulting. Quiet, profitable consulting. There are several other “rebuild” stories in there but we don’t need to relive the last ten years of my life. What I do want to pay attention to though is how I knew, every single time, when something needed to change so I could keep working for myself.

As I became more experienced and confident in business ownership, I was better able to make decisions about what was important to me and what wasn’t. And when I decided to take some time off from business and engage in a creative sabbatical, I immediately set it up like a business. It’s like I can’t not do it. Because I love it. I love the building and the planning and the systems.

Change the Game, Not the Player

I just got tired of some of the other stuff. I needed a real-life break. The more time away I had, the more I thought I was really done with consulting. But after this eye-opening conversation with my son, I realized it was just time for a change: another glow-up to get even closer to how I want to be working NOW.

And that was the kicker: HOW I wanted to work had changed and despite the wild success of my exiting business, I didn’t want to keep doing things that way. I wanted growth. I wanted change. I wanted to re-imagine something in my life. So I created this platform. I wanted to use it as a way to get to know myself and discover what was possible for the next phase of my life. I just never thought I’d be re-imagining my business again. I thought I’d start a whole new one or go in a different direction or take up in a different field entirely.

I even looked at going back to school to be a complete beginner again. But none of those options excited me as much as taking what I’ve built over the last ten years and making it even better. Going even deeper into my zone of genius instead of trying to find a new one: yeah, not at all what I thought I’d be writing about here right now, let me tell you.

What Now?

But as soon as I thought it — Deveaux Learning Solutions — I couldn’t unthink it.

So I’m building it.

And that’s as far as I’ve gotten with it.

I’ll be continuing to write on this platform. It’s so much fun for me to share insights, ideas, reflections and everything that feels important in the moment. It’s like a living archive of the last six months of my life. And I’ve got six months of sabbatical left to create new things to share with you. Will I talk about business more now? Maybe. Maybe not. I’ll see what comes up when I sit down to write.

There’s no plan for content here. I write what I think and feel and question. Today it’s business. Tomorrow it might be the fact that there are four Expendables movies that should be studied for ensemble cast and how some of the actors didn’t like each other so much that they shot their scenes individually and they had to be spliced together in editing to make it an ensemble cast. Or you know, romance novels. Whatever comes to mind.

There’s nowhere to refer you to at this time to learn more about Deveaux Learning Solutions. It exists in name only, but it’s a legal name. Registered and replacing Heather Deveaux Instructional Design. I just got my approval letter via email today for the name change.

So it’s real.

Excuse me while I do a little dance.