I’ve dropped the ball on quite a few things in Unbridled Content Marketing since I started. My email marketing still isn’t quite where I want it. I haven’t been showing up on social media for myself half as well as I have been for my client’s lately, so what’s been holding me back? We are going to dive into this right here right now, AND I’m going to tell you when it’s okay to let yourself drop the ball in your business.
While I put on a brave face, 2020 hit me like a ton of bricks. I was terrified that Unbridled Content Marketing would fail. Good news! It didn’t, we’re still here, and we even managed to squeak in about $10k more than we did in 2019, but gosh darn, my goals were so much more than that!
BUT all that fear and scarcity and doubt set us back. I had to pause and find myself again. It’s taken from December to now. It’s been slow, frustrating, at times excruciating, but I’m back baby, better than ever. Full steam ahead!
A Tale of Severe Burnout
When I first started this blog in 2018, I was onboarding a client with every new post. It was pure magic. People would tell me that they loved my blog, and they wanted one just like it. I was so thrilled that people were enjoying my content.
In a span of three months, I took on eight clients who all wanted weekly blogging. That’s 32 blog posts a month, plus my own. To make matters worse? I was only charging $50 per post, meaning I was only making $1,600 a month. HELLO BURNOUT oh my gosh, I was so tired, uninspired, and unaligned.
My own content fell to the wayside as it was everything I could do to keep up with the insane client load I had taken on. I quickly realized I needed to raise my prices.
Prices doubled and I figured it would be no problem. I would let go of the clients I wasn’t inspired to create for, as I replaced them with higher-paying soulmate clients.
The only problem? I wasn’t blogging or posting on social media anymore. Inquiries dried up. I had no one wanting to work with me. Instead of taking a step back and asking myself why I just assumed it was because I was no good at what I do.
Enter Some Serious Aviodance
For the next year, I struggled along. I put all of my energy into nurturing my Facebook community. The problem with that is Facebook lives are not searchable content. I had to do all the work to drive traffic to them myself.
On top of that, we all know that like energy attracts like energy. The people joining my Facebook group (not all but for the most part) were not my soulmate clients! They were uninspired about their marketing and looking for someone to save their businesses.
That’s not what I do. Although I am a practicing witch and love some good magical rituals, I can’t magically do it for you. You are responsible for your results, not me. That being said, if you are willing to do whatever the heck it takes, and show up, and do the dang things, we can make some SERIOUS magic together.
SO there I was, a Facebook group full of people looking for a miracle but not willing to put in the work, 32 blogs a month to write, and a dead blog. WOOF I felt like such a failure. This was right around the start of 2020, and I went into hibernation. I didn’t have any energy for anything.
A Year of Zero Visability and Massive Growth
For almost an entire year, I was barely visible. I posted on Instagram here or there and ran a few launches (two that went surprisingly well, all things considered), but I did not show up like the powerhouse that I was in 2018 and 2019.
Behind the scenes was a slow, painful, messy, but massively needed shift for both Unbridled Content Marketing and me. I’ve grown SO MUCH as a human being over the last year. I wasn’t ready to run a kickass blog or to achieve six-figure success.
I didn’t know how to set boundaries with clients, protect my energy, and create a healthy environment for everyone involved. I would have been writing 167 blogs every month. Can you imagine?! Had I made that six figures, I would have ended up working with people who were not my soulmate clients. That would have made me feel like even more of a failure. I needed to find my self-worth and my happiness before I could make big moves in my business.
An Industry Pivot
Heck! I was in the wrong industry. I started getting subtle initiative hints around mid-2020 to step outside of the horse industry. They got MUCH stronger at the beginning of 2021. My guides told me that I didn’t have to be the winds of change in the horse industry anymore. That’s such a tremendous job, one that I took so personally for two years. It got to the point where it was wearing on my mental health.
If the following triggers you, I strongly and lovingly suggest you look at why. The horse industry is painfully behind the rest of the world. Most (not all but most) horse business owners don’t know how to use technology. Even the ones that claim to be tech experts think it’s okay to build a website on Wix. They don’t see the value in letting their clients book sessions online.
Many equine entrepreneurs don’t want to invest in the proper systems and support to have a real business. Then they get upset when they don’t grow as quickly as they wanted. For the longest time, I was so sure that to create a better world for horses, I had to operate from the inside of the broken industry that uses them up and spits them out like trash.
Now I realize that’s not the case at all. I still work with equestrian businesswomen, but I’m super picky about which ones I take on. I only work with horsewomen and men who see their horses as sentient beings, and always put the equine first. HELLO Warwick Schiller, as soon as you want to start a blog, hit me up man, you’re doing amazing things for horses and people!
Working With Spiritual Business Owners
I’ve also opened up my services to other spiritual business owners—coaches, initiatives, manifesters, healers, energy works, and witches. Anyone who offers a transformational experience to their clients and needs help creating magical marketing and messaging.
Introducing these women to horses is just incredible. They get to experience the magic that I’m lucky to live with every day. It inspires them to learn more about equines and what they need. I can encourage more spiritual business owners to partner and learn from horses or donate to horse rescue. I am still making the world a better place for horses.
Now I can envision a future where I welcome spiritual business owners from all over the world to the barnyard animal rescue nest for retreats where we channel through horses and work on our businesses—sharing horse magic with people ready to accept how incredibly special that is.
These women are not operating in scarcity; they don’t work out of alignment, undercharge, or put ridiculous expectations on individual actions.
They are showing the F up for their audiences – figuring out what it takes to be successful, following my guidance, and seeing results in their business.
THIS is why I started this business. This is what I was meant to do, and I’m so dang excited to see where this new journey takes me.
What if I Hadn't Dropped the Ball in my business?
What if I didn’t drop the ball in my business? What if I had kept showing up when it was out of alignment instead of pausing and giving myself the time I needed to collect my thoughts?
That thought is terrifying. I could have a wildly successful blog that I made myself miserable to create. I could have a huge Instagram following or a Facebook Group of 5k people that are not my soulmate clients.
That would be so much harder to walk away from than my baby blog (that I’m going to update and keep) and my small Facebook Group (that Elli will clean out and we will bring back to life in 2022).
I needed this time to grow and change and discover what I wanted. THIS is what I mean by not forcing it when it doesn’t feel good. We all need to commit to consistency. I’m sure there will be days when the words don’t download quite as easily as they have for this post BUT there is a difference between having a bad day and not feeling aligned.
Give yourself space when you need it. It’s okay to drop the ball in your business when you are out of alignment. The ceiling won’t cave in, your business won’t fail, and you may find the answers you’ve been looking for.
The journaling exercises in the free resource will help you find your magic so you can stop dropping the ball in your business.
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