My fondness for my career as a freelance copywriter in Devon has been well documented. I love the research (particularly if it takes me outside), I love the learning (writing on new topics is great for that) and I love the writing. Over the last few months however, I have recognised an issue in my approach to business. I have no problems allocating copious amounts of time to activities that are direct money-bringers but feel a measure of guilt if I syphon any of this precious time over to business-building. There is a historical reason for this, when I first needed to make my writing pay, I set myself a ‘jobs priority’ list that put ‘paid work’ at the top and ‘business growth’ nowhere at all.

The matter was, until very recently, even worse than this, not only was I allowing myself very little time to increase my portfolio, when I did find time, I was taking a ‘scattergun’ approach to doing so. SEO, social media, blog posts, writing article pitches, you name it, I was trying them all but with no system or plan whatsoever. Although I am good at all of these things, I might as well have been trying to bring the Berlin wall down with a pea-shooter. I was stuck in this, ‘no time’, ‘no direction’ state of being when a friend suggested that we shared a business coaching day with Karin Jordan.

Karin’s website describes her as ‘a burnisher of talent’, a comment which didn’t make much sense to me until I had finished my coaching session and realised that, although she hadn’t changed either me or my situation, her input had helped me to understand my goals (particularly how business and personal goals should align) and plan a definite and achievable way to move forward. We spent a peaceful and purposeful day in Karin’s cosy garden cabin and it was not only a delight to be given permission to consider the way forward for Fi Darby Freelance, it was also a revelation to me that I did in fact, as Karin stated, have the answers to my business-building problem already inside me.

After three years of successful business start-up, it has been a delight to give myself permission to put aside dedicated time each week and use it to make new contacts, increase my website SEO and grow my following. I have a notebook, I use it to develop ideas, I act on the ideas and I review the results. Simple really but then, lots of the best things in life are.

Thanks Karin!