Just One Thing

Learning to embrace doing less and being imperfect with it so I can finally escape the feeling of always being behind

Every year I set myself a theme. Last year it was “Live Your Future” with the intention of keeping me focused on doing things that were aligned with what I actually want to do in future, rather than getting distracted by quick wins, that never turned out to be quick or winny.

At the end of 2022 I was frustrated with feeling like I was doing a lot, but not getting anywhere with any of it. In part, that is just the nature of a career change, it is going to take time to build up the skills, experience and find my feet. However, I also can so easily get lost in what other people think I should be doing, and forgetting that there are many different ways to do things, and so last years theme was all about exploring that perhaps if I listen to myself more I might actually get somewhere.

Live Your Future worked really well for me. It helped me build the habit of checking in with myself and my goals, and stopped so many distractions in their tracks. I also ended 2023 with the feeling that momentum was eventually building, it might still seem small, but I finally felt like I was actually heading in the right direction.

As I headed into the last three months something was increasingly niggling me though. Despite feeling like I was now spending most of my time doing things I really wanted to be doing, I still felt like I was never doing enough and always behind.

When you’re building a business it is incredibly easy to get lost and overwhelmed in all the things you could be doing. Even when you’re super focused, within that focus there is still a never ending stream of ideas and opportunities that you could be making the most of with it. So while, over the past few months, I’d managed to jettison the stuff that wasn’t working for me, I was still getting overwhelmed and lost in all the possibilities for the things I wanted to do.

Around October I already knew that my next step was to look at what I was doing and figure out how to do less of it, so I could maybe get to the point of feeling like I was doing enough.

A big frustration was feeling like while I had a whole lovely bunch of people who were actively interested in hearing about what I was creating, I was never sharing what I wanted to be sharing when I wanted to be sharing it. I’d have plans to tell my members things well in advance, but end up squeezing in last minute posts just before I actually launched stuff, and then feel even more behind in sharing things with my email subscribers, cramming too many things into one email.

I’d also started this space on Substack, but when I was already feeling so behind with everything else, I kept failing in finding regular time to write. So I decided to look into bringing all those things together in one space, and figured that I’d got plenty of time for it to all be sorted by January. We’re two weeks into the year and it absolutely isn’t 🫣 but I am slowly getting there, and while it might all still feel a bit rushed & last minute for now, I am starting to see a light at the end of the tunnel!

As I got closer to the end of the year it was becoming more and more clear to me that I just couldn’t keep up juggling everything I was trying to juggle, even if it was all stuff that I really wanted to do. It is one thing making sure you’re not getting distracted by things that aren’t right for you, but realising that doesn’t solve the problem of constantly feeling behind is quite a blow!

Bringing my writing, membership & mailing list together was a step in the right direction, but it was nowhere near enough. So heading towards the end of the year my next theme became “Just One Thing” an acknowledgement that I needed to start focusing on one aspect of what I was doing, start achieving my goals with that, and then come back to other things I wanted to be doing.

The biggest part of Just One Thing was about trying not to do everything I could do with my designs all at once. On Spoonflower alone there is fabric, home décor and wallpaper, which there is so much opportunity to do things with. Not to mention so many other things I could do with my designs beyond that. So I decided my just one thing would be fabric for quilting & crafting. That is my focus this year.

Again, it was another step in the right direction, but as this year kicked off, and I was already way behind where I hoped to be by the end of December. I knew that bringing it back to Just One Thing still wasn’t enough.

It is a very odd feeling to find so much enjoyment in what I’m doing, while also feeling so stressed by it that it’s starting to affect my health. When you are so excited by things and want to do them so much, it’s really hard realising that the desire and drive is actually harming you in the process.

Thankfully there was a wonderful Inspired Collective masterclass on perfectionism to kick of 2024, and it helped me unpick some more of the things I’m doing that result in me imposing impossible expectations and ridiculous levels of pressure on myself.

I took a lot from it, including three major things that I am carrying with me to help me move out of feeling so behind all the time…

The first was to let myself be extra messy and imperfect with it all right now. I wanted to start this year with a Substack that brought everything together in a beautiful and joyful way, instead I feel like anyone who visits my Substack right now would probably be confused at the lack of posts on fabric & quilting. The urge to put myself under pressure to fix it all asap is strong, but I know what I need now is compassion & patience with myself, to make progress bit by bit, and hopefully by spring my ideas for what I want it to be will start to emerge more clearly.

The second is that I have to start accepting that I am one person. It sounds an odd thing to say, obviously I know I am one person in my day-to-day life, but when it comes to planning work and setting myself goals, I very easily forget it. I make decisions as if I have the time, capacity and resources of a whole team of people. In building my business I am acting as a designer, all of the business admin departments and the marketing department too, which are three full-time jobs to start with, and I am rubbish at acknowledging that, and being realistic about what that means for what I am actually able to do. No wonder I constantly feel like I’m behind!

Layered on top of that I have the habit of seeing how best to do things and aiming for that. I want to make the most of opportunities, and I can see so much potential. The problem is I don’t actually have the capacity to do everything I want to do, let alone do it in the most optimal way.

I realised I need to ask myself “What is the easiest way to do this?” to try and get myself to find quicker and easier ways of doing things so they are good enough. Maybe in future I will be in the position where I have a team, and we have the capacity to maximise the potential of a particular activity or opportunity… but right now I’m just one person, and so I need to practice letting things be good enough, so I can actually make the progress I’d like towards my goals.

The third thing was just a reminder to come back to what I’m actually trying to do… spread the joy. My career change to surface pattern design came out of realising that while joy doesn’t take away the tough stuff happening in my life, or the horrible things happening in the world around me, it does help me keep putting one foot in front of the other, so that I can keep going through it all. And creating patterns brings me huge amounts of joy and does keep me going through the tough stuff.

Those moments of joy, big and small, are so important for us all, and ultimately all I’m trying to do is connect with anyone who finds joy in my style of design and the things that I create with it.

So this year it is about Just One Thing… it’s also about making sure that thing is about spreading the joy, finding the easiest way to do it, and then having patience with doing it imperfectly.

I’ve already started practicing these things, and it isn’t easy. Part of my brain still wants to do all the things, and it wants to do them all in the best way possible, so no opportunities are missed. It is a daily struggle to gently coax myself away from that, and persuade myself that it is not only okay to not be constantly trying to do my best, but that perhaps even more opportunities – alongside even more joy - can be found within all the imperfection of good enough.

And even though I don’t feel like I’m making enough content to spread the joy with this month’s theme Listen to yourself, trust yourself and be unapologetically you, I am still glad it’s where I’ve started 2024. Hopefully over the next few months I can get better at listening to – and trusting – the part of me that wants to be less stressed and have more space for joy, because I feel like that’s what we all need right now!

Do you set yourself a word, theme or intention? What did you learn from your theme in 2023? And what theme have you set yourself in 2024? I’d love to chat about it with you in the comments below!