I’ve been thinking about the word nourish lately. What it means when it comes to nutrition, creativity, self-care, business, and even lead generation. I guess this time of year is the time when I reflect on my goals in every area and what’s working and what’s not.

I used to divide my task list each day into sections: Work, Self, and Home. It helped me remember that the tasks I did to take care of my household were important, and not just impediments to running my business. The Self section came after that, when it became clear that taking care of myself was equally as important as my business and my household. If I’m not engaged in some creative pursuit, my performance in all other areas suffers. If I’m not taking care of my health, my productivity declines.

This time of year, I look at each of those areas and think about what my goals for the year were and how did I do? Did I get closer? Did I change my mind about any of them? Did I just ignore them and coast along?

After a visit with my doctor last week, it became abundantly clear that I wasn’t making progress toward some of my health goals, which made me reconsider the work I’ve been doing in that area, which led me to the word nourish. As I began to plan some shifts in how I eat (I’ve been following a low carb, keto-ish plan for a few years, and I’m going to move to more of a whole-food, lower fat plan), I also began to think about what else I might need to spend some time nourishing.

Google tells me that there are two definitions of nourish:

1. provide with the food or other substances necessary for growth, health, and good condition
“I was doing everything I could to nourish and protect the baby.”
2. keep (a feeling or belief) in one’s mind, typically for a long time
“he has a long nourished an ambition to bring the show to Broadway”

Those two definitions can apply to all three of my focus areas. There are certain business goals I’ve nourished for a long time (I’m happy to tell you that one of my longest-held income goals is within reach this year). This week, a friend and I have blocked out some time to talk about our business plans for 2022, and help each other figure out how to reach our goals.

Of course to meet those health-related goals I need the right nourishment, and not just when it comes to food. That definition includes “other substances.” In my case that means the right mix of exercise, medications, and rest. The best formula of all of those things changes over time, and it’s helpful to consider what’s working and, for me, right now, what’s not.

Nourishing my creative self is one component of good mental health. The thing that’s been missing here is creative writing. I’m trying to build that habit back, but it takes consistent nourishment!

Do you find that proper physical nourishment improves your creative life? Do you have long-held goals that you keep well-fed?

As a gardener, I know how important it is to keep the soil nice and balanced and full of nourishing substances. If I can manage that, surely I can manage to nourish all the facets of myself, too.

Every spring, and again every fall, I find myself feeling a bit lost. I skip workouts, or ignore my weekend to-do lists, and feel generally either frantic (usually in the spring) or discontented (in the fall). I’ve come to realize that my schedule needs to be readjusted seasonally.

In the spring and summer, most of my spare time is spent outside, either in my flower garden or my family’s big vegetable garden. The weekends are filled with cookouts, trips to the creek, boat outings, free concerts, camping, parties, and other outside activities. It’s hot, so I exercise earlier in the day, usually first thing. I don’t love exercise in the morning, but that’s what works best when it’s 90 degrees at noon.

In the fall and winter, I have to chide myself to go outside. There’s nothing happening in the garden, other than a long list of chores that need to be done, and especially since the pandemic, friends and family aren’t having many indoor gatherings. I want to find the beauty in winter, and be comfortable with the colder temperatures (and let’s be honest here: I live in Tennessee, where it’s rarely below freezing during the day) but I’m still not there. I move my exercise to the afternoon, or in less virulent times, I go to the gym. I detest wearing layers of clothes and constantly cold toes and fingers make me cranky.

Knowing that the lack of sunshine and activity is going to affect my mental health, I’ve started focusing on projects that bring me joy and that are easier to do during the winter. I’m learning to quilt – all by hand – and find it a relaxing, fulfilling hobby. I read much more during the cold weather, and work on making my habitat more pleasant. I cook more and am always delighted to have some of the garden produce preserved. This year, I’m adding writing fiction back into the mix after neglecting it for a couple of anxiety-filled years.

One of the unexpected gifts of the pandemic was a focus on self-care during the winter. Going into the cold months of 2020 I challenged myself to find ways to enjoy being at home, and tried to embrace the idea of hygge. It worked, to some degree. I did much more decorating during the holidays, and wrote letters to friends and family I’d usually see. I printed and framed a bunch of family photos and made a big gallery wall that I love.

Even with all the activities and self care, I still found myself depressed by the end of January. This year, I’m going to try even harder to spend time outside to see if that helps. There are a couple of hikes that I want to do and I’m building a better cold weather wardrobe. I’ve returned to running after taking a year off, and that means being outside — oddly, I quite enjoy running in cooler weather, once I motivate myself to get out there — so hopefully that will help too.

I’m also trying to work about two hours a day more while it’s cold out. It seems reasonable to work a bit more when the garden isn’t calling me to come see what’s blooming. Plus, my work brings me great satisfaction and January is an excellent time for marketing.

Do you find your schedule changes significantly during the winter?

In most of my life, that’s been the key: just picking a direction and going. The hardest part, as the cliché says, is getting started.

Yesterday, I waffled back and forth about blocking here, on my professional site, where I invite prospective clients to make sure I’m real and to look at my portfolio. I want to blog about topics unrelated to content marketing, so is this really the best place for that? Also, I’m planning an overhaul that could include a major redesign, so it seems like a good time to move the blog if that’s what I’m going to do.

I went back and forth like that all day, and was still thinking about it this morning. Finally, I decided that if I want to blog again, I need to just blog again. As I discuss the future of this website with a designer, I’ll reconsider whether or not this is the best place for it to permanent reside or not. Just as there are arguments against writing about gardening, running, pets, personal opinions, or whatever else on my professional site, there’s also the fact that I don’t try to hide my human-ness from my clients. I don’t mind if they get to know me as a person.

Anyway, this is hopefully the first of many posts to come. I’m on a one-person crusade to bring blogging back in the face of social media platforms behaving badly and the world essentially being scary right now. I want to read about other people’s pets and hobbies and favorite recipes and I want to share mine, too. And, really, if I worked in an office, I’d discuss those things with my co-workers, so I don’t necessarily feel it’s unprofessional to talk about them here.

Do you have a blog? I’d love to add it to my Feedly stream. Drop a link in the comments. Let’s bring blogging back together!

Photo of me, contemplating this decision on a walk.

Narrative is just the English major word for story. If I suggest that a piece of marketing needs a narrative arc, I’m just telling you that your piece needs to have a story with a beginning, middle, and end. That may not seem immediately applicable if you work with something very technical like AI, or biotechnology, but stories have the power to forge connections.

For some people, arranging information in story-form is completely natural. I have a hard time talking about anything without turning it into a story. I look for the stories in the things other people are saying. When I meet people, I hoard the information they reveal about themselves in order to create a story that will help me remember them.

Content marketing, even in the most staid industries, needs to tell a story in order to be effective. That story can be conveyed through a theme, a convention such as a metaphor or simile, or it can be a traditional narrative.

One example of a common way to use story-telling in content marketing is the use of case studies. A case study tells the story of how a customer uses a product or service to solve a problem in their business.

You’ve probably heard that good marketing requires good storytelling, but you may not have considered exactly how the two go together, especially if your product or service is particularly technical. Stories provide context, and having context helps people remember your brand.

Without a story, your content is like a barely open sunflower — it has plenty of potential, but it isn’t quite realized.

Each night, my partner and I watch the World News. During the interviews with the bereaved, nurses, doctors, or others working in hospitals, I cry.

Well-meaning friends and family invariably suggest I stop watching the news if it makes me cry, but I’ve found that it’s helping me process the big emotions of our time. Everyone I know is suffering some level of anxiety, fear, or grief. It would be so easy to slide down that slippery slope that leads to a pit of depression.

Taking a few moments each day to cry for strangers feels right.

One of the most human conditions is that of grief. We all know it. We all understand and can relate to how it feels to lose a loved one. Sharing the grief of so many people who are suffering now is one way I can feel more connected to my fellow-humans.

The few moments of grief each evening is, for me, a self-care tool. You’re probably reading about how important it is to exercise, to practice good hygiene, and to take care of yourself during these turbulent times. The website of the National Association of Social Workers has a section on self-care during a pandemic. It recommends self-reflection, staying connected with colleagues and friends, and finding ways to take part in social justice work, among others.

In the face of advice on self-care, you might feel like you need to put on a happy face and maintain a positive attitude.

But is suppressing grief really a good idea? If you’ve ever tried to fake-it-until-you-make-it through trauma, you might have found that squishing the pain down isn’t so helpful. My mother passed away when I was in high school. One of the first things that struck me was that the world just continued spinning, which seemed like a grave injustice. Eventually, I fell back into all the routines of high school, and pretended everything was fine. About a year later, I found myself battling suicidal ideation, and taking unnecessary (and out-of-character) risks. Looking back, I can see clearly how my failure to deal with the grief and trauma of losing my mom led to the depression later.

My nightly grief is, I hope, helping me to process all the pain of this pandemic now, so that I don’t need to revisit it.

If you’re feeling the weight of grief on your chest, and you keep shaking it off by going for a run or baking another loaf of bread, consider exploring it. You may just find that working through the grief leaves more room for love.

Grief.com is a website founded by one of the world’s foremost experts on grief, David Kessler. You may have seen the recently published essay That Discomfort You’re Feeling Is Grief published by Harvard Business Review, that contains an interview with Kessler where he talks about the types of grief we’re all feeling right now. In the FAQs section on grief.com, one question is, “Why not just avoid grief?”

“We think we want to avoid grief, but really it is the pain of the loss we want to avoid. Grief is the healing process that ultimately brings us comfort in our pain,” is the answer Kessler gives.

After I cry for a few minutes, I wipe my eyes, and turn my attention to dinner, or my garden, or my pets. It’s important not to linger in the grief. Acknowledge it, honor it. Feel it. Allow yourself to mourn for that which others have lost.

Then, tie up your running shoes, check on your dough, or spend some time in your garden, and remember this isn’t the first pandemic humanity has faced, and yet we’re here. This, too, shall pass.

I am back to square one, maybe even square negative five, regarding my fitness level. Similarly, but much less drastically, I’m at a low point in client numbers. Fitness and business have always swung along the same pendulum in my life, likely because they both depend solely on my own motivation and willingness to do the work. At this particular moment in time, I’m working on the basics for good health and for a prosperous business. You know, paying attention to what and how much I eat, making a point of doing some form of exercise everyday, making marketing calls, sending out queries, referring back to my business plan.

And it’s freaking hard.

Easing myself into things, as I do, I started counting calories two weeks ago, and have kept it up. Now it’s time to add in exercise, and that is tougher. I’m trying to follow a fun, slightly silly workout plan, that uses the language of RPG (roll playing games). It’s called The Hero’s Journey, and it looks pretty simple. Except, on the first day, I am supposed to do 100 reps of four bodyweight exercises. I’m going to try, but don’t have much faith that I’ll be able to do it. The first set of 25 almost killed me.

Similarly, I started sending out marketing emails a week or two ago, but I know that to see real results, I’m going to have to do much more. Like make 10 calls a day, every day, for a month or two, and continue to send out several emails per day. That’s just how it works. For someone like me, who feels weird and awkward on the phone, and who struggles with any kind of social interaction, this stuff is hard. Probably not as hard as getting back in shape, but still not exactly as easy as writing a blog post.

The important thing to remember at times like this is that it’s only hard for a little while. It won’t take long before I’m looking forward to working out, or before the marketing has done what it always does and I only need to send out 2-3 queries each week to stay busy. Everything in life is that way. When I first built my flower garden, it took a lot of work to break up the grass and fluff up the dirt. But the next spring was easier, and every one after has been too. Any BIG THING is that way. You have to approach it a bit at a time and know that it will get easier.

A friend learned to play guitar as a teenager. Then she got a job, raised some children, and didn’t play. Recently she picked it back up and says the same thing about her practice sessions. They are tough, but she knows they will get easier.

Have you ever started over with something? How did it go for you?

The fourth quarter of 2014 was my most lucrative quarter as a business owner to date. It was the kind of quarter that makes you reevaluate and scale up your goals, and spurs you to begin dropping your lower-tier clients. It felt good.

(You know what happened next, don’t you? It’s so sadly predictable!)

The first two months of 2015 have been less than stellar. They haven’t been my worst months ever — not by a long shot — but my earnings did drop to about 30% of what they were in the two previous months. There are many reasons for the drastic drop, and most of them are related to the delicate balance business owners much strike between feeling good and feeling a little worried.

When I’m a little worried, I pay more attention to marketing — it’s just naturally on my mind more. Since it’s on my mind, I see opportunities while reading for pleasure, browsing online, having conversations with colleagues, as well as randomly in the middle of the night. I’m just more open to finding new work.

On the other hand, when I have lots of work, I’m thinking about getting that work done all of the time. I’m making connections to whatever it is I’m writing — and that is good. It gives my work more depth, and sometimes shines a new light on a topic.

When things are tighter, I tend to hoard my pennies, and my time. I don’t invest much in things like software, or in taking time off from writing to go to lunch or to events. Of course those things can, and do, generate new business.

You might imagine that less work = more time for other projects, but that hasn’t been the case in my experience. For example, when I had more deadlines than usual, I got up between 30 minutes and one hour early everyday to work on my fiction projects. Scheduling becomes more important when you are busy, and sticking to the schedule is critical.

When I have fewer deadlines I tend to let things slide, thinking, “Eh. I don’t have anything scheduled for the afternoon. There’s no harm in sleeping in this morning.” Or watching a movie, or baking some bread, or whatever other purple squirrel I can come up with that day.

Luckily, I’ve been working on my own for long enough that I have some safeguards in place to deal with the current situation. I have a long list of publications to contact, and another list of businesses and organizations that might need my services. I have a plan that I can pull up and follow the moment I realize things are off-track.

Recognizing the downward turn and taking the steps necessary to correct it are two different things, of course, but that’s where experience comes into play. It may take me a month or two to see what’s going on, but once I do, it’s easier to take action.

Here are a few of the specific steps I’m taking now:

1. Sending out a set number of letters of introduction or pitches each week. My number is 10. I do a fair amount of research before contacting a prospect so more than 10 becomes overwhelming.

2. Contacting all former clients with whom I enjoyed working. This one is self-explanatory, and just common sense. It also tends to yield the fastest results.

3. Closely evaluating how my time is spent. If there is “spare” time, I try to fill it with either planning, research, or working on my fiction projects. It feels terrible to realize I’ve wasted time on social media or playing games when a glance at my bookkeeping software clearly says I should have been doing something to support my income! When it comes to my bookkeeping, I might take the advice of friends who recommend that I consider utilizing taxes for freelancers done by an experienced CPA.

4. Getting back to my plan. In November and December, I put together a detailed plan for the next year. It has some good stuff in it, and pulling it out and following the steps is helping me stay on track.

5. Making sure the basics are covered. A couple of weeks ago, this site went down because I forgot to pay my hosting bill. That is just a bad way to run a business!

Have you ever corrected a downturn in your business? What are your best tips for avoiding a slump?