Why I’m Shifting My Focus from Business to Blogging Right Now

Taking a break from a successful consulting business to focus on building a creative blog probably seems like a bad idea, especially when AI is basically writing our entire lives for us right now, but that’s exactly what I’m doing. And since I’m doing it anyway, I thought I’d share why I’m shifting my focus from business to blogging and why I intend to maintain this focus for the next year.

I’ve always loved the idea of a side hustle and have had plenty of them. But the problem with side hustles is they don’t get the chance to become much more than just a hustle because you’re constantly trying to balance your day job with the thing you really want to be doing. I should know: I’ve had plenty of jobs and even more side hustles. The stability and comfort afforded to you while building your side hustle in the darkness of your day job also means you don’t need that side hustle to produce. It’s been my experience that when I don’t put my all into something, it fizzles out, never producing.

So when I started thinking about taking a break from consulting and doing something else, my very focused brain revolted. It did not like that I was about to split my time between two things. It reminded me that we (me and my brain, collectively, although not always on the same page!) don’t do well when we split our focus. If there’s one thing I’m known for in my life, it’s going all in on something. So it’s hard for me to try to get something off the ground when I have to continue to split my focus. And what I want to get off the ground right now is this blog. What’s a girl to do?

Quit consulting.

Yup. I said it. I’m not quitting in the traditional sense in that I’m shutting my business down. That’s not what I’m doing. What I’m doing is wrapping up the remaining contracts I have on tap and politely declining any offers that might come my way for the next little while so I can focus on building this blog.

Why a blog, you ask? Why not a blog?

Here’s the truth: my 5 year plan involves travel. A lot of travel. A lot, A LOT of travel. I’ve done enough travelling in my time to know that if I have a big goal of travelling as close to full-time as I can get in 5 years, then I need to be laying the foundation for that now. Why aren’t I picking up and going now? I have a son who’s about to graduate high school next year. I need a little wiggle room to make sure he’s getting where he needs to go and I want to give myself the best chance for success by creating money for the future.

Oh my God, we’re going to talk about money now. Buckle up.

Yes, before you even ask the question, I could just keep consulting and travel. I’ve done it. A lot. And I know what it takes to keep a consulting business running while you’re out running the roads. That’s not actually how I want to live my life, though. I had to experience running my business on the road to know that in the future, that’s not what I want. And while it looks like the dream, and has been the dream for me for a while, the dream is changing. It’s become more clear. It’s become closer to reality and reality requires more than just a steady stream of income.

The older I get, the less I want to compromise on how I spend my time. And yeah, I hear the privilege in that statement and I’ll be the first to tell you I’ve worked myself to the bone to get here. I’ve literally crawled on my knees in pain because of a chronic illness and I’ve overcoming hurdles most people couldn’t imagine in dealing with my health. Oh and I built a multi-six figure business while I was at it.

Privilege is real, but so is hard freaking work. Just because I built a successful business doesn’t mean that the business I built over the last ten years is still the one I want, because it turns out that it might not be. And that’s okay. I’m not throwing the baby out with the bathwater. This baby has sat in that bath long enough to know the water it getting cold and it’s time for a change.

From Business to Blogging: A Return to Self

As I get closer to having more of my own time back (see: son going away to university in short order), and as I get older, I know that what I’m doing now is not going to serve me in the future. Rather than wait to shift gears when it’s actually time to shift gears, I’m doing it now. I’m giving myself the gift of a new runway, funded by my business (thank you very much) to build this blog and turn it into something that will travel with me. Will it become a travel blog? Who knows.

Right now, my focus is on showcasing and sharing my art, my writing, and my journey during this time of transition. I am creating a course for women who want to start taking on solo adventures of their own and get on the road, which is super fun to me to even think about. I’ve travelled well over 20,000 km on my own in this country alone. I’ve learned a thing or two about just getting out there and seeing what can happen. And now, this entire chapter of my life is inspired by my own life, desires, dreams, and my ability to cash flow the entire thing.

So the question begs itself: what are the desires and dreams I have now? And how does that tie into a side hustle? In a nutshell, my goal in creating this blog is to have a platform for things I create. Whether that’s artwork, novels, courses, or anything else my little heart wants. I’ve been thinking about getting into baking in recent days, too. The possibilities are endless, but not without structure. And that structure requires my attention. So rather than focus on building this blog on the side over the next few years, I’m going all in for one full year and making it my job.

I use job in the loosest meaning of the term. It’s a project. A passion project. Something that will be so fun to create right now and could help support my future goals of travelling later. I haven’t quite figured out how this project will pay me in the long-term, and I don’t expect it to pay me in the short-term. But I know it needs time to grow legs and I’ve got time.

Life Doesn’t Have to Shake You. You Can Shake It.

I’ve been thinking a lot about how sometimes people make big changes in their lives when something bad happens. I’m someone who makes big changes in my life because it’s a Tuesday. That’s always been my jam, so this project will come as no surprise to people who know me. But for the people who don’t know me and are wondering where on earth I get the audacity to start shifting my focus from business to blogging in the middle of a fiscal year, there’s a lot of things that factor into that answer.

And I want to share them with you so that you may be inspired to make some changes in your life too. I’m not saying you have to wipe the slate clean, but I am saying I don’t know how to do things otherwise and in the coming weeks, as my contracts wind down and I’m officially living on my banked earnings for the next year, you’ll see just how capable I am at building something from the ground up.

What Inspired This Change?

A million little things come up for me when I actively think about what I’m doing with my business, not the least of which is fear. Of course it’s scary to throw in the towel and try something else. But trying something new is also amazing and invigorating and I know myself enough to know I’ve got my own back here. Fear hasn’t stopped me in a very long time. I’m not about to let it slow me down now.

And what am I really afraid of? What people will think. That’s it. I’m not afraid I’ll never make another dollar, so what else is there? Fear of upsetting the norm? You can’t hear me, but I’m laughing hysterically right now. I’ve never even been close to circling the norm in this one life I’ve got to live. I probably won’t start now. It’s not really any of these things. What I’m afraid of, and what most people are afraid of really, I think, is doing something out loud and getting it so absolutely wrong that they can never show their faces in public again.

How do I combat that fear? I acknowledge that it probably seems irresponsible of me to take time off in my business to just play around on the internet and see if I can’t build something new for myself, but I also acknowledge that I’m probably just one of a handful of people who would actually do this. Being someone who would do something like this is my superpower and I feel like I have to do it. People will tell me how inspiring this journey is to them, but few will act on that inspiration. I am someone who inspires myself and acts on that inspiration.

And wouldn’t the world be such a different place if we did more of the things we want and less of the things we think we should want? I’ve built a business. It’s been successful. That’s a check in the box for me. Does that mean I need to keep building it? Do I need to burn out or run out of steam in order to walk away right now? No. To all the questions. I don’t need to keep building it. I don’t need to burn out or have a better excuse for walking away right now. This isn’t about running from something or some feeling, it’s about moving toward something else and another feeling.

Doing the Creative Things Now Instead of Later

For as long as I can remember, my best friend and I have been talking about building blogs online. Not the kind of blogs that accompany your consulting business or prop up your digital business, but the kind of blog that stands on its own and in itself, is a product. It’s a business. And while the last thing I want to talk about is business these days (bring me something new and maybe we can have a conversation, but otherwise, it’s all been said and done), I do want to build a different kind of business.

But that’s not what I’m going to talk about on this blog. I’ll check in and give updates and provide insights as I go, but I’ll remain focused on building the blog around art and creation. I’m focusing on making things, not fixing things. And if I had started this kind of blog years ago, the damn thing would be a zillion pages deep by now, probably earning a nice little passive income for me, and tracking the changes I’ve gone through in real time.

But like most pipe dreams we harbour in favour of practicality, the idea dies over and over again in my list of to-dos because it won’t create a massive result right now. Making money always takes priority. But what if, for a short period of time (say, one year) making money wasn’t the priority? What if the priority was showing up and creating instead? What would this platform look like a year from now? What kinds of things would I have made? Who might I have inspired along the way? How might I have changed? If only I had time to do it, I’d do it. But there’s always my business…oh wait! Not anymore. I put her to bed.

The Shift Shifted. Now What?

And just like that, I’ve created capacity in my life to focus on something I’ve wanted to do for years. It’s no longer sitting on the shelf. It’s on its way to becoming a beautiful companion to my life’s work and if business chatter slips in there once in a while, fine. Being an entrepreneur is a big part of my life, but I am working to make my life less about entrepreneurship and more about living and creating things. Creating experiences and evolution and something that wasn’t there before.

And if all of that sounds like dust in the wind, and you’re shaking your head in wonder at how I could even think about doing this, considering there are bills and responsibilities and whatever associated with being an adult, how’s this for a reason? I want to do this.

I’m doing it because I can. I put the work in. I got myself here. I won’t downplay how incredible this opportunity is just because people might not understand it. I understand it. And I’m betting, if you’re still reading this blog post, you want to understand it and change things up for yourself too.

And no, I’m not going to teach you how I did this. I figured this out for myself. You can figure it out for yourself too. There was a time when I would have built something to sell you on how to take a year off in your business, but not anymore. That’s not what I want to make right now. I want to make art. I want to write smutty romance novels. I want to create a place where my ideas come to life and create impact in their own way. But I will end by asking you a question that could help you start on your own sabbatical of sorts: what do you want?

If you’re loving this post and want to get monthly updates from me, feel free to join my mailing list below. If you want to learn more about the smutty romance novels I’m writing or have written, you can check them out here. And if you want to see the art I’m making instead of selling consulting services to organizations, you can see those pieces here.