Here’s why she’s choosing to now scale back, rather than scale up in 2025-and why she advises other business owners to follow her footsteps.
I’ve been running businesses, primarily in the online world now for almost a decade and throughout those years I have adapted and tuned my offers in response to the changing market and the expectations of my audience. In slightly non offline speak, I have “learnt my trade.”
And I have consistently been striving to come up with better products, appeal to more people and create an ever increasing library of learnings that I can sell to aspiring online entrepreneurs.
This has always seemed to be the way forward. What I mean by this is because of the endless noise and overcrowded nature of the online marketplace, not only have customers become more discerning and knowledgeable regarding what they need, they have also come to expect more for less, thereby driving and nourishing a frantic and not always 100% ethical state of play.
There are positives to this, for example it keeps the service providers on their toes, but it also comes with dangers, because it often means that the sleazy sell, accompanied by overused superlatives and inflated promises of instant wealth abound everywhere you look.
It seems that no one is immune to this arbitrary rulebook for success online, so, like thousands of others, I have been following the unofficial, yet constantly reiterated rules of the online space.
Get bigger, get more things, earn more money, don’t stop.
Get more likes, get more followers, get more influence and therefore become more successful and more popular.
But I am starting to realise that these generic milestones do not equate to being happier and this less than subtle instruction to keep on keeping at all costs is fundamentally flawed.
We should never be afraid to streamline and Ihave taken action to reduce the number of offers I provide, by focussing on those that truly align with my ethos and my passion. This has many positive outcomes. Firstly it means my attention is focussed and my creativity and commitment will not be stretched too thin. Also, it means that my messaging is clear, allowing my customers to fully understand what I do, who I am and how I can help them.
I have become more vocal in re assessing the priorities behind running a business, and although wisdom doesn’t automatically come with age, I have realised that the “get to the top at all costs” ethos no longer resonates with me.
What is most reassuring around this is that I am seeing more and more business owners come to the same conclusion. I, and plenty of others, have reminded ourselves that the word “growth” does not have to mean more things or getting bigger, it can mean so much more than this. Growth does not have to be linear.
Growth can, paradoxically, mean embracing less.
I have also realised that reaching the top is relative, success is relative and so therefore are satisfaction and happiness.
Many hugely successful online entrepreneurs are following suit by reassessing and pausing to remember what made them start up in the first place.
What was their why?
Sure, they wanted to be profitable, but in my experience, making more and more money was rarely a reason on its own. It was about creating a life that they loved. A life that they aspired to. A life that allowed them to experience balance, peace, contentment and satisfaction in whatever shape or form that took.
You choose your happiness and your satisfaction, it is yours and yours alone, and it will undoubtedly change over time, but it will never be a tick list, arbitrarily assigned to you and millions of others by societal pressures.
That is why my goals have realigned, and they are goals that encompass a whole raft of different elements. Sure, I will always be creating and working, my brain does not allow me to change this, but I also want to be healthy, to be content and to have the time to look after myself.
Yet I and so many of my peers have, over the years, strayed from our own advice. The pressure to keep up, to strive towards arbitrarily allocated targets of six figures, then seven figures then multi 7 figures becomes all encompassing.
But for what? And, more importantly, at what cost?
Therefore, adhering to the message that I am promoting consistently – it is achieving the life you love that should be the goal, not reaching the next financial milestone.
