Contre Jours is a free weekly newsletter exploring the highs and lows of running a creative business, carving your own definition of success and taking the slow path that leads to fulfilment. If any of my words resonate, feel free to share excerpts on social media or forward it to a friend. Thank you for reading! 🖤
I've been wishing for a magic wand recently, one that would allow me to go back in time and turn yeses into nos.
You'd think that after seven years of being self-employed, I would have learnt my lesson by now and that turning down jobs or projects that don't feel quite right wouldn't be an issue, but in truth? It's still an uphill battle. I still have to keep myself in check. And as you may have guessed, sometimes, I still let myself down and say yes when my gut - my intuition, the little voice in my head that definitely knows better - is screaming at me to say no.
The problem with gut feelings is that they're just that: feelings. And when you're prone to over-thinking everything, it's hard to feel that feeling and not ask why.
Why am I feeling this way?
Why do I want to say no?
Why couldn't this be a yes?
I have overthought my way into yeses time and time again. Sometimes it's because I doubt that it's my intuition doing the talking but instead other, more negative voices: self doubt, imposter syndrome, anxiety. I hear no, but I think it's a no coming from a dark place and I want to prove it wrong.
Other times, most times, I just want to give people and ideas a chance. I want to say no, but I end up saying yes because I'd like to be proven wrong and be pleasantly surprised.
Lately though, pleasant surprises haven’t been quite cutting it. Perhaps it’s been my attitude to it all — perhaps once I’ve reluctantly said yes to something, I go into it expecting to not enjoy it and I make it true by letting my dark-tinted goggles smudge the whole experience.
Or perhaps I haven't felt pleasantly surprised because I f*cking know. I know, deep in my gut, that something isn’t for me and yet I reach for it over and over again because I want so desperately to be helpful and generous; because I want to be liked; because I want to make a living from my work; because I want to do what I think is the right thing.
The ripple effect of these yeses that should have be nos is shattering. I don’t just procrastinate, I freeze. I can’t bring myself to do the tasks associated to them but they live in my head, constantly, sending wave after wave of guilt and disappointment in myself and why can’t I just do the damn thing. I can’t focus fully on anything else, anything that I would actually enjoy doing and that would bring me joy, because there’s always a fraction of my brain reminding me that I’ve not done that thing I’ve been putting off and I don’t deserve to work on other things, let alone enjoy them, until that’s done.
So behind the scenes, the admin doesn’t get done. The writing and blogging doesn’t get done. The marketing and posting online doesn’t get done.
This is where I've been at for a while.
Now let me tell you about ways I'm trying to manage things better and find my way out of this cycle.
Listening To My Body
One thing I keep coming back to is this: I can't build a better relationship with my body if I don't listen to her and if I keep ignoring what she's telling me. That doesn't just include physical needs; this is about no longer trying to rationalise and go against what my gut is telling me about ideas, people, projects.
When my body says no, I must stop my mind from overthinking our way into a yes because in the end, it never serves us.
We know by now what we want and what we don't want. Sometimes, we don't have the right words for it and we can't explain it in a way that would make sense to anyone but ourselves. This has to be okay. This has to be enough.
Asking Questions
Whenever I feel myself asking why and trying to overthink myself out of a no, I sit down and try to answer other questions instead.
Instead of asking Why do I want to say no?, I ask: Would this take me closer to how I want to feel in my business every day?
Instead of asking Why am I feeling this way?, I ask: Would this bring me joy? Would this fulfil me creatively? Would this make me feel excited and energised?
Instead of asking Why couldn't this be a yes?, I ask: What would this need in order to be a yes? Does this align with my big picture goals?
Rejecting Before Attracting
This is what every marketing and social media expert will tell you (and yet this one is really tough to integrate 🥴): you can't please everyone. More specifically, you're not meant to please everyone. Who you are, what you create, what you want to offer to the world, will not click or resonate with everyone. THAT'S OKAY!
By putting yourself out there, showing people who you are and what you care about (and I guess, what your ✨ vibe ✨ is), you are going to put some people off. People will unfollow you. This is good a good thing. This is how, gradually, you'll stop getting into situations where you want to say no but you're not sure, you end up talking yourself into saying yes, and you regret it. This doesn't mean that you won't ever get asked for things that you want to say no to, but by attracting yeses more often, you'll have the confidence to turn down things more easily.
It's hard being authentically yourself online. And by that I don't mean putting every tiny detail about your life on display all over social media to be relatable. To have the confidence to stand proudly in front of strangers and say "This is who I am. This is what I care about. This is what I do, and this is the kind of projects I want to work on, the kind of people I want to collaborate with", is hard. Even these days, I end up dimming and tuning down parts of myself for fear of what some people might think. This might feel like a very safe way of going through life, but it's also rather unfulfilling.
It doesn’t have to be.
I would love to connect with you and I hope to build a space that can inspire and encourage you, and make you feel less alone in that big wide web. 🌞