The Winter Break That Never Happened
Winter Break is supposed to be the exhale.
It’s like a reward for making it through another year. It’s the time you picture yourself finally catching your breath, starting something new and maybe even getting ahead on the stuff you never have time for during the rest of the year.
That’s the dream.
Instead, we were sick. Like actually sick. Someone said to me “maybe you needed to get sick so you’d slow down and rest”……uh, no, this was a threat on my life ma’am.
It was disappointing, not just because the break didn’t look like I wanted it to but because I was genuinely excited about what I wanted to work on.
I’ve just recently started writing on Substack, and to my surprise I really enjoy it. And shockingly, I got a paid subscriber after only two weeks, which feels wild and validating at the same time. I wanted to keep momentum going and then everything stopped.
For two full weeks, we did nothing. We had no choice.
A few months ago I told my therapist that one of my favorite quotes is “If you stay ready, you don’t have to get ready.” She doesn’t love that one, for someone who stays as anxious as I do, always staying ready might be part of the problem.
Fair. Heard.
Jokes on you though…cause staying ready is the exact reason being unexpectedly off didn’t blow up my business. Go me, and my anxiety. 🎉
Nothing fell apart, my clients were fine, they didn’t even know I was rotting on the couch.
I’ve spent years figuring out how I actually work. Not how I ‘should’ work.
I don’t build my business for my best days. I build it for the days when my kids are sick or life just decides to be loud for no reason - which happens often, we’re a military family after all.
It’s all about paying attention to what works for me instead of chasing the latest system, course, or framework being aggressively marketed in my feed.
NO ONE selling you a plug-and-play business system wants you to know that the system that worked for them probably won’t work for you. Their business is built on you believing that they are going to solve every problem you have and bring in 6-figures, too.
My business looks the way it does because my life demands it.
I didn’t stumble into this accidentally, it came from burning out, rebuilding, trial and error, failing, paying attention, failing again….and that’s exactly how I help other people too.
I’m not handing over a rigid system and telling you to make it work. I help you understand your capacity, your patterns, your values, and then building something you don’t have to recover from every few months.
This winter break didn’t give me the slow mornings or focused writing days I imagined. I didn’t get to pour into Substack the way I wanted to but I did get something better.
Proof.
Proof that the way I’ve built things actually works.
Proof that momentum doesn’t disappear just because you rest.
If you’re building a business that only works when everything goes perfectly, it’s probably costing you more than you realize.
