“Oh sure, yeah, I guess I could do that for you.”

Newer business owners often find themselves saying this without realizing the cost of agreeing to what is usually poor-fit work. I’ve seen it often in clients, and I get why:

• You feel like you need to take whatever money you can get.
• You believe that making your client happy means letting them take the lead.
• You’re not sure what kind of work you most like doing, or what kind of clients you enjoy working with, so hesitate to call yourself a specialist.
• You have no systems to vet whether a project is a good opportunity for your goals.

When an opportunity comes our way, we can forget that we can’t be everything for everyone. We cannot do everything for everyone – even if they’re paying us.

When freelancers or creatives start agreeing to work on “whatever,” taking anything and everything on, they often end up creating poorer quality work: their processes are out of whack since they change so often; they’re too confused about what they offer to effectively market it, they spend too much time spinning into different gears. Their message gets blurry, they start resenting their clients, they get burnt out and overwhelmed.

You can waste a lot of time (sometimes, years) when you have a vision or North Star for yourself but add on too many side quests.

But here’s what happens when you intentionally consider your values and commit to your own trail map:

• You kindly and confidently say no to clients you get bad vibes from in discovery calls. (You know, the ones who are super insistent or who don’t like your boundaries.)
• You are able to give more attention to the clients you actually enjoy. You don’t resent the people you work with… or your business itself.
• You become clear about who you do and don’t want to work with, saving you time, energy, and emotional swings.

It’s scary to make these shifts. But when I see clients commit to them, the universe typically finds a way of rewarding them. You turn down a bad potential client, and all of a sudden a great client enters your ecosystem. You become clearer in your own thoughts and how you position yourself, calling in dream clients.

And it pays off for your clients, too. By having the courage to not be for everyone, you guarantee more ease for the clients that you deserve, that you decide to work with. They get the best version of you!

I want every creative freelancer and every business owner to know that they have the ability to deeply consider their own values and philosophy when they make decisions. And that the more they listen to their core selves, the better their businesses become for everyone.

This is part of what we’re covering in Back to Self, a four-week reset and refocus program to build your decision-making confidence from the core.

People come to me because they want business coaching. But what we truly end up doing is decision-making coaching.

It’s tough work, but necessary if you actually want the business you say you want.

Take a look at the four group coaching sessions here and let me know ASAP if you’re on the fence. This is the only group program on the calendar (more on that later) and is the most affordable coaching program I’ve designed, since I want to make it accessible to folks at all stages of building a business.

Talk soon,

​​​