Starting without a plan

on breaking strategy, and following your gut

When I began writing here, my intention was to be focused, dedicated to a rhythm and a plan. But plans change. And when they did this time, I froze. I couldn’t continue with my plans to write here because I was afraid I had fallen too far behind, or that I had to do it for you all instead of for myself. My motivations were all skewed.

Sound familiar? Have you ever done this in your life? Your business? I have, and that feeling of paralysis brings so many feelings along with it. That maybe my plan wasn’t worth it? or not meaningful enough. My inner critic shows up and tears my ideas apart.

Since closing down Modern Macramé in 2024, I have had a period of complete pause, where no ideas came through, like I was walking through mud whenever I tried to move forward with an idea.

And I have also felt total flow, solving the problem of my exorbitant lease by opening Circle Round. Everything fell into place.

When I exited that business at the end of 2024, I had had many ups and downs, the discomfort of evolving identity, as painful as melting into goo and becoming a butterfly ( I mean it must hurt, right?)

I have been trying things on, careers like garments, thrown over my head, and then often tossed into a pile on the floor.

I am a creative coach! I am focusing on my art! I am writing, I am launching a platform for creatives, I am building retreats for moms, I am leaning this way, that way, and feeling pulled, yanked, contorted, and in many ways, moving too quickly in every direction that I am not even paying attention to how my body feels when I go down one path or another.

My mind maps are massive, page-covering explorations of what I am passionate about, and choosing a single direction has often been one of my biggest challenges.

When I coach people, and we talk about this issue in their own business or creative life, it’s easier for me to show them how they can focus than it is for me to take my own medicine. And sometimes together we find a way to direct our attention to what is singing more loudly than any of the other things. But learning to pay attention to the vibration in our bodies, our innate knowing, takes practice. Our own knowing is often drowned out by all the external noise. Instagram, feedback from people we know who are moving forward with fear instead of love, the vibration of a world in chaos and pain. It’s all overwhelming unless we can truly pause and take a breath. My breath. That is something I always have.

SO! Here I am, writing about how I haven’t been committing to myself here, because I had created an IDEA of what I was DOING here, on Substack, and realizing how much pressure I was putting on myself that wasn’t helpful. I am letting go of the idea of perfection and doing what feels fun instead, what feels inspiring to me.

I still want to talk about travel, writing, and my creative life, but I don’t have a “plan” or “strategy” about how that will look. I don’t have a marketing funnel or a template for making my posts look beautiful. I am still experimenting and trying to be in the practice of writing, and even if it is raw or rough or not grammatically correct, I am ok with that. And I actually wrote this whole post and then waited weeks to share it because I wanted to have examples of my crazy visual mind maps, but I couldn’t find any, and I decided, sheeet, I am going to just share it without them and add them in later when I find them. Not letting perfection stop me.

I do have a few juicy stories to share, about how a book fell off a library shelf and brought me to Hawaii to study Aikido, and how I am heading to London next week for a whirlwind 5 day trip, ( I have already gone on this trip at the time of this publishing!) but those stories will have to wait. One step at a time. One day at a time. One breath at a time.

XO

Emily