Jenny Pace, Author at Jenny Pace

The Big New Idea: working on a website

Hi friends. It’s going to be short and sweet today! Because, you know, creative hibernation.

My head is full of website work, writing, planning and I’m about to go on holiday for a little break. (I know, great timing… But that’s the thing about balancing my business and personal timetables. It’s not always super convenient.)

Here’s the headline news: my new content studio has a name!

Copper Boom Studio

Why Copper Boom? The origins of the phrase “copper boom” lie in my most favourite TV show ever: Gilmore Girls. It is not only hilarious, brilliant, and beautiful, it’s also a great show to watch for entrepreneurs – so much of the storyline centres on Lorelai starting up her own inn with her best friend. Anyway, there’s a scene in which Rory is talking about how she has too much stuff, especially make-up: “It used to be a dab off copper tone, a touch of mascara and zip bam boom, out the door.” Lorelai only picks up “copper” and “boom” from where she is upstairs, and “copper boom” becomes their phrase for “trying to speed things up”.

Right?

So when it was time to find a name, I couldn’t shake this one. And copper is also awesome, and boom is a fun word to say.

And while I’m working away on the website, you can hop over to the landing page and sign up to be the first to know when we’re live!

Other things I’ve been working on:

Our first photo shoot. It happened! We had a pretty good day, with some really positive results. I’ve been sharing photos with the clients who offered us their products for the trial shoot, and the feedback has been positive and really helpful. Now that we’ve had the first real shoot, I can start to see what we need to work on from here. There are processes, documents, forms and much more to put in place. Exciting!
Branding. We have a logo and a style guide. Woohoo! And once I’m back from my week off, I’ll be working with Evan to get the website looking awesome and on-brand.
Setting up the team. There’s a lot to think about: freelance or payroll, how much to commit to in terms of working hours per week, what the different roles will be responsible for and on and on. Progress is being made, and I’m excited about the people who are involved as my launch team.

Right. I’ll leave it at that for today.

Don’t forget, if you want to get email notifications when the studio website is up and running, sign up here.

Until soon!

The Big New Idea: creative hibernation

This time last week, it finally hit home after weeks of anguish and confusion: I need to actively put myself in creative hibernation.

I’d kind of told myself that I wouldn’t be taking on new clients or actively promoting my mentoring services while I set up my content studio here in Cambridge. Well, somehow I still managed to have new clients to call, pieces of work to do, and plenty of non-studio stuff to do. I had told myself this, but I hadn’t really put anything in place to enable me to carry it out.

Then, I was in a spin, because a couple of mentoring clients, for their own different reasons, have paused or reduced their mentoring time with me. A coincidence, and something I know is all about them (because I know them and their businesses well), and yet, because I was relying on income from my current mentoring clients to sustain me during these building months, it hit me hard.

Here’s my thought process: Do I change course and start advertising my mentoring services? I’m pretty sure I need the cash, and I can probably handle the additional hours. [Insert breakdown here.]

Even the thought of taking on more work, investing in new clients, and thinking about quick-win money making threw me into some dark, deep layers. Because it would break me, and I’d feel badly about launching something new that didn’t have my careful thought behind it.

Just adding more workload is something I’ve inherited from other people – it’s not my natural way of working, and I know it doesn’t cultivate my best work. But the messages are so pervasive in the work culture. We compete with busy-ness. We hold our worth by how tired we are. Well, it really doesn’t work for me.

Adding more work would also be self-sabotage, which my fear of success is really invested in! The truth is that I’d delay setting up something new because I needed to make money now, and I’d keep doing that for 70 years, probably.

Here’s what has really helped me to stay committed to the content studio: accountability to other people (our trial photoshoot is booked for this weekend) and investing in the branding. I don’t want to lose the money or time or goodwill I’ve already invested in those two things, and I know that if I pulled out of either now, I would lose momentum, which would be twice as hard to get back later.

After some serious(ly helpful) conversations with my coach and others, it became obvious that I had to re-commit myself. Let me be clear: NOT EASY! I am still reining in the negative voices and the fears. I’m giving them a little space to be heard, but mostly trying to turn the volume down. That allows my true values to show through. The ones that believe in quality, thoughtfulness, creativity and courage.

Thinking about who I really am, how I like to work, and how this is a temporary situation helped me to decide to put myself in creative hibernation.

So what does creative hibernation look like?

An out-of-office on my emails, telling people I’m not available for new clients or projects until August
Proactive emails to people telling them I can’t work on certain things
Making a list of the things / people I am available for
Actively pursuing all things content studio as my main activity
Allowing myself to dive into the work, for extended periods of time
Giving myself a stricter bedtime (10pm) so that I don’t get exhausted

Giving this period of setting something up a name has really helped. I find it easier to tell people, “I’m in creative hibernation right now.” And let that do the talking. There’s no decision about whether to do a piece of work or not – I’ve already decided what I’m doing and not doing.

And I continue to develop my ability to trust. Trusting that this period of creative hibernation (aka struggle, blind faith, deep commitment and investment) will pay off. That clients won’t forget that I offer mentoring, and that I’m really good at it. That this is temporary.

It feels so much better to be able to turn my attention to writing the stuff that needs writing, organise the stuff that needs to happen, and developing relationships with the people who are going to help.

Oh, and photoshoot this weekend! I mean, that’s going to be fun to share…

PS Want to hear from me directly into your email inbox? Subscribe here for blogs, newsletters, and to hear when I’m taking on new clients again.

Here's the thing: the relationship between procrastination and self-belief

I don’t know anyone who hasn’t procrastinated over something at some point.

In fact, when I’m talking with clients, the subject often pings up. Those things that you know you should do, and even want to do, but just can’t quite summon the get-up-and-go to do it.

Yep, me too.

There are plenty of things that I push into the magical time called “tomorrow”. Or I sit down to write or work on a spreadsheet and I find ten thousand other things to do.

Sometimes it’s procrastinating putting the washing on. Sometimes it’s procrastinating sending the email (or even looking at emails). Sometimes it’s getting something new going. Recently, I’ve been procrastinating because of my fear of success.

And what I’ve realised is this: procrastination is all about self-belief.

But often we don’t see it that way. We tell ourselves the story that we’re lazy or that the hard thing we’re trying to do isn’t right (because it isn’t easy). We think that if we just push harder, we’ll get there. Productivity is just about slicing up time differently, right? If I put a timer on for 10 minutes, it’ll be magical, won’t it?

The answer to those questions is: sometimes. If your self-belief is almost there, then yes, tips and tricks and tools can help to get you over the hump. But if there’s a bigger deficit in your self-belief, or if you haven’t realised that that’s what’s going on, you need more than just a shove in the right direction.

Here’s the thing:

If you’re struggling with self-belief, if you’re stuck in a pattern of procrastination, ask yourself the following questions. These aren’t quick fixes, but prompts to help you target the source of your procrastination, rather than shove you out of it as quickly as possible.

What’s the ultimate goal of what you’re trying to do? It’s easy, once we’ve added something to the to-do list, to lose track of why it’s actually important. It can become just another item to tick off, rather than a really beneficial task that adds value. Take a moment to remember what your aim is, and see if that shifts the feelings around the task at hand.
What’s your fear? Let me tell you what 99% of clients say when I ask this question: failure. We’re all afraid of failure, because our culture tells us perfection (especially perfection that looks easy and effortless) is the only way. Write down what you’re afraid of, so that you can start to separate from it. Imagine turning the volume down on the fear, or gently giving it a cup of tea and a book so you can get on with things. You can’t fail at your own life.
What are your beliefs about yourself? Spend some time digging into the deeper, subconscious levels of beliefs you might be holding on to that aren’t true. Do you believe you’re allowed to be successful? Do you believe you deserve a clean kitchen or an organised social media calendar? It might be that your demons are holding you back from moving forward. Give them some air so that you can re-write the story. (And: re-writing the story is often helped by doing the thing you’re not sure you deserve yet. Show yourself you’re worthy by doing it.)
How would you help someone else feel better about this task? We’re often much gentler and kinder to other people than we are to ourselves. Imagine your best friend or daughter or even a customer was trying to do what you’re procrastinating about. What would you say to them? What gentle way in would you find for them? How would you structure a list or a project management tool for them?
How can you reward yourself when the task is done? Perhaps you’ll treat yourself to a lovely break, or a new book. Perhaps you’ll write yourself a note of appreciation. You could even ask a friend (or mentor) for accountability so that they can give you a gold star when you’re done. Maybe your reward will be the self-belief you create by doing the thing, or getting a good night’s sleep because you’re not worried as much.

When you’re stuck in procrastination, anything that promotes your self-care, that encourages you to trust yourself, is going to help. It may seem counter-intuitive, but self-belief is long-term, and needs regular tending.

For me, it’s about writing it all out, giving myself the water and fuel I need, and creating a nice atmosphere to do the work I need to do. I often think of myself as a client, and what I would want to do for them. Yes, I’d want to tidy up their kitchen and order them nice food and write things out in a pretty and achievable list. So that’s what I do for myself.

What’s helpful for you? Do you have a certain thing you’re procrastinating at the moment?

PS Want to be the first to receive my blog posts? Subscribe to get them delivered straight to your email inbox.

Copper Boom Studio

So what does creative hibernation look like?

And what I’ve realised is this: procrastination is all about self-belief.

Here’s the thing:

Notes of Encouragement