The fact that so many sirens are rising around the world makes sense that for many of us, we feel our calling shifting.
I believe our epidemic levels of burnout and our converging world crises are connected.
Seeing the world burn around you and feeling forced to sit at a computer or tied to a client’s to-do list and ignore it every day can crush even the strongest of spirits.
Your desire for meaningful work is
not a pipe dream.
And your growing dissatisfaction
from the work you used to love
might make very good sense.
- Have been feeling unmotivated or drained by your current work (even if you used to love it!) because of its lack of meaningful impact in the crises you care deeply about, and know something has to change
- Feel pulled to play a bigger part in building solutions to climate or social crises
- Are looking for support in gaining clarity about the impact you want to make and a transition plan to begin that keeps your motivation high, your time balanced, and your finances stable
This space is for women who...
You're not alone.
sirensrising.co
My professional photoshoot, circa 2019, while secretly deep a career crisis
Smiling but secretly feeling unmotivated and miserable by it
Feeling isolated
& lonely
Client work they don't know why they're procras-
tinating on
Success metrics decent but void of meaning
Climate and social crises looming
Of entrepreneurs in career crises
WERE ACCURATELY LABELED
If smiling-at-the-laptop photoshoots
I started my first business after quitting a teaching job I had adored, but had become super burnt out (my first lesson in finding balance in creating impact). I quit and started my own business in order to have freedom to focus on the impact I craved.
At first, I loved the time freedom and creative license it gave me. I used the freedom to travel and explore, and the lifestyle was a 180 from my teaching career. After a few years, I was pulling in good money and had decreased my hours to about 10 hours a week–what was supposed to be the “holy grail” of working for yourself.
Imagine my confusion when I realized I felt completely unhappy. The job I had designed, that I once was so proud and excited about, was what I now dreaded the most. I craved being a part of meaningful change. I craved collaborating. I craved feeling passionate about my why… I had no idea if those were even possible as an entrepreneur.
How it Started
My Story
- I increased my self-care (maybe exercise would save me?).
- I created a values statement (how else does someone “re-align,” right?).
- I designed in more contact with people (maybe I was just lonely?)
- I outsourced more (scale, baby, scale).
- Maximized that passive income (then I could do whatever I wanted with my time!).
- I added a new offer to business (maybe I just needed a little pizzazz?).
- I better filtered my clients (maybe no draining clients would mean a less draining business?).
- I read books to figure out if I was just self-sabotaging (maybe I was SCARED of success??).
- I hired a coach to help me with management (maybe I just needed to better articulate my original vision?).
What I tried… and didn’t work
It took me a long time feeling lost and much trouble-shooting to realize that if I was going to start work gave me a sense of meaning, I needed to totally rethink how I thought businesses could be run.
1) I realized “normal” business strategies are designed for overbusy-ness and burnout, because they are based on capitalist cultural values. No wonder everyone is so burnt out.
2) And they certainly weren’t designed to give us a sense of meaning, or take into account our global crises that need all hands on deck.
How this work began
In other words, I wasn't unhappy because I wasn't following the "good business" recipe well enough, it was because I was following a recipe for the wrong dish.
No,
thank you
Businesses that could help us to step into our role as change agents.
Businesses that fuel us, emotionally, financially, ethically, rather than drain us.
It was time to create businesses
with our true end goals in mind:
These are the types of recipes we create here.
- That keep activism for climate and social solutions at the forefront, rather than an afterthought.
- That build your business around what gives you energy and fills you up: the type of work, the type of people you're surrounded with.
- That pave a path for you back to meaning and excitement in your work.
- That helps you stop dreaming about what could be and start building what you can.
Work that influences this work
On the Bookshelf
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