Sweetly Simplified

I’m going to be honest, I don’t quite know where to start. Or rather, how to restart. I guess what’s most fitting, is to first, say thank you. Thank you from the bottom of my heart for the absolute outpouring of support, prayers, stories, and emails sent as I shared the news of my mother’s passing.

It means more, and meant more, than you can ever imagine. At a time when I was questioning whether I could go on at any point with this blog and business as my hurt was just so great, the outpour in responses let me know that someday, when it was time, I should, and could, go on.

And second, thank you for your incredible patience and encouragement to take the time and space necessary to grieve. The time I took allowed me to mourn, honor, remember and consider my mother, her life, her legacy, her life’s work, and her role as a mother, and a person. It was enormously helpful in moving forward with the grieving process.

It also, as so often happens when someone close to you passes, allowed me time to reflect on my own life. It allowed me to consider how I want to continue on, and how I can continue on with what she instilled in me. And so, it led me to a new format, a new way of being, and a new way of running things, and that way is, sweetly simplified. 

Slowing Down is a Sweet Surrender

In my time of mourning, I realized that I had become exhausted by ambition and overwhelmed with business education. I realized that always trying to learn more and do more and be more had left me stressed and drowning in duties. It also made me realize that well, you may feel the exact same way.

Not enough sleep, not enough time with family, not enough time enjoying life. For me, and you. Only time reading about how to take care of your financials from one expert, then listening about how to handle your marketing from another, and then finding out what new technology you need to implement from yet another, ugh. Never catching up, and never stopping to just take a break. It’s an awful feeling, and certainly not one I want to be contributing to for you.

And so, in dedication to helping us all slow down, and simplify, we’ll be switching the format of this blog. Rather than a blog post every week, it will be a blog post every other week. They’ll also be shorter, and more streamlined, as we focus on one simple action that you can take in the following two weeks to improve your client experience. Sweetly simplified, that’s the goal.

Time for You, Time for Less

So you’ll hear from me on a Monday, and then won’t hear from me again until two Mondays later. Giving you the time and space you need to take care of other parts of your business, to take action on the simple task I wrote about in the last blog, or to simply slow down and enjoy life. 

As well, life isn’t a race. There is no real winner. We are all doing the best that we can with the time and resources that we have. So go ahead and relax, take the weight off your own shoulders, and simply enjoy – time with your spouse, time with your children, time with your garden, time with God, time with yourself. I promise to do the same. Together, I hope we can enjoy a sweetly simplified way of being.

SWEETLY SIMPLE ACTION: Remove one thing from your life that causes you a great deal of stress. – Whether it’s deleting an Instagram account, deciding that you’re no longer ironing anyone’s clothes, or that Saturday night is now officially beans and frozen veggies night, do what you need to do to stress less, and enjoy more. 

Thank you, to all of you, and I’ll see you back here in two weeks.

Ashley