Slow and Small: Sweet Success

Life is big right now. My calendar is filling up with consults and site visits, but as I jot each entry in three different calendars to combat my forgetfulness, I am filled with a large feeling of smallness. I spent this past weekend walking the glorious Buffalo Garden Walk, connecting with future clients, and rubbing elbows with industry professionals who praised my bold move to pursue my dream career in horticulture. It was a euphoric few days, but now as I sit alone at my desk checking and double checking my calendar and email for anything I may have forgotten, I feel suddenly so small for this journey. Don't worry, by the end of this post I pledge to have worked myself out of this funk- but for now, I need to explore it.

I had no clients booked for today, something my aching post-Garden Walk feet reveled in, but I felt anxious that I should be doing something- anything- and that to waste today was the beginning of the end of my business. Logically, that's ridiculous, as I have two design/install jobs to write proposals for this week, two weekly maintenance jobs scheduled, and two site visits, along with some odd jobs for existing clients. I needed today as a home base day. There's still domestic chores, my home gardens, and most importantly myself  to which I must tend. Sitting at my counter eating lunch and writing a blog is not detrimental to the business; on the contrary, it's monumental to my business's success to take care of me.

These beginning times of running my business I am starting to recognize my need to set a pace, and remind myself that my biggest asset is a well-balanced, healthy Bonnie to run the business. Yes, I'm proverbially sitting on my own therapeutic couch and telling myself to breathe- and convincing myself that down time does not spell doom. I have this mental picture of self-employed people, always pressed for time, always on the go- and up until now mistook this whirlwind of busy to be in equal proportion to their success. I know from the outset that if that is the key to my success, I may as well leave the door to entrepreneurship tightly bolted shut. This business is more than a job that I must make money from, it is the gateway to a lifestyle that I am designing to sustain me as my best self from here until the end.

Quality of life is now intertwined with my business- because my business is life! To rush myself into activity is to contradict the very reason for leaving the rat race to walk barefoot among the gardens- to enjoy every moment of life- and to make even the act of "working" the fabric of life that defines me. Otherwise, I may as well go back to the grey cubicle and the dictates of a supervisor for a living.

August is almost exclusively a month of me- I am going on a sea kayaking trip with the Outward Bound Veterans program in the Outer Banks for six days, then at the end of the month I am headed to Texas with my son to see our dear friends for his birthday, and then it's off to Las Vegas to celebrate my half way to 70 birthday (doesn't everybody celebrate this milestone?) by visiting the North Rim of the Grand Canyon and Bryce Canyon. OK, and the Strip- secondary to National Parks in my book.

Point being- as a business woman- my methods only have to work and make sense to one person, and satisfy one person's goals- The Bonnie of Bonnie's Barefoot Gardening Service. The rest is all incidental. My goal is not to work for a living but to live for a living. At times, without the tight confines of traditional punch clocks and dollar goals, I may feel small in this vast opportunity that is now my way of life. Of course I am small in comparison! I have the world of gardens at my bare feet, and a lifetime in which to tend them.