I'm not shameful about it anymore...

Tell me if you’ve heard this before...

“Oh you work too hard, you should relax more”

“You’re working on your business again this weekend? Don’t you ever stop?”

“You are a total workaholic, aren’t you?”

Mm. Yeah.

If I had a dollar for every time I heard these said to me by well-meaning friends, family, or people who don’t know me very well, I would have the same amount as my business made in revenue last financial year ($408,962.03 to be exact 🤯 how tf am I writing that...)

Look, I get it. It’s meant to be helpful and supportive, but there’s a hidden undertone happening here.

People see someone working when they are relaxing, it can bring out the worst in them.

Sometimes they start to compare, maybe seeing it makes them feel lazy or unproductive, and they begin to shame that person because they now feel inferior for choosing to relax instead of work.

Other times it’s masked as “worrying about you”, when in reality they simply can’t understand what would possess you to be working when you don’t have to. Who would want to work if given the choice?

I personally have had friends, family, and even past coaches tell me that I need to learn to relax, to rest, to switch off.

And that might work for them.

But it doesn’t work for me.

My rest looks different to theirs. And yours probably looks different to mine.

If I stop, switch off, sit on the couch, I don’t enjoy it. And enjoyment seems like a pretty crucial ingredient of something you choose to do, right?

I believe that if given the opportunity, you’re allowed to love what you do and be paid for it too.

For so long I used to get so frustrated with these people who would tell me to stop working, so upset with being told I was weird or obsessive about my work.

To me, what I’m creating is my legacy, my gift that I get to share, like a masterpiece canvas that I add a little more to at any chance I’m given.

Over the years, this has meant I needed to set some boundaries.

These days, I don’t do client work on the weekends. Boundary.

If I do client work in the evening, I schedule-send the results for the next morning. Boundary.

And I don’t have guilt about the morning walks or shifting the hours I want to work because I get to choose when I work.

Which makes my choice to work actually a choice to do what I find enjoyable.

Most people see work as a necessary evil. But not me.

(This topic is actually something I talked a little about on The Imposter Syndrome Club Podcast this week)

I get to find new ways each day or week to help other freelancers make money and find their own flavour of success.

That’s my rest. That's my joy. That's my purpose.

So, what’s yours?

p.s. today's email was kinda an intense one to write, so if it resonated with you, hit reply and let me know. I'd really appreciate it.