Episode 14 - Katy's 2024 Update
Hello, hello! I'm hopping back on to my podcasting world. It's actually New Year's Day today. I kept it mellow last night and was super excited to have a whole day today to just sort of do some creating, get back on a podcast and share a little bit of updates about this last year. I took a major step back this year in content creation, know, emailing, social media, podcasting for my business. So I wanted to do a little bit of an update.
with you all. And it's actually, I was thinking about time, it's been like two years since I quit my nine to five job and transitioned into self-employment. And so it's kind of a neat little marker to do some reflecting on where I'm at, what my journey has been. So I hope you have a good new year. I hope your 2024 was… not perfect, but at least it gave you some of the things that you wanted, that you learned, that you grew. I know it was a really like amazing year for me, especially the first half fall, there's been some bumps, but that's life. So I wanted to share a little bit about kind of where I've been, what I've been doing as I've taken a step back from my online presence this year. So, you know, when I first started this business in 2020, my goal was to get out of my nine to five and be fully self-employed primarily through online marketing and selling my coaching and courses online. And so, you know, I've taken a lot of different classes on marketing online and social media and all of that stuff. And as I got towards the beginning of 2024, I finished
another launch of my mindful soul school, like the online course that I sell. And at the same time, my online therapy practice, so I do two different things, a coaching and the therapy, but my online therapy practice really took off and it's been really busy in 2024, which is a great thing. Really enjoyed it. Surpassed my nine to five income, which was like totally mind blowing, shocking to me. I didn't expect that to happen within two years.
But the other thing I kind of realized early in 2024 is that I just didn't want to be glued online all the time. And when you look at online marketing and online businesses and social media in general, the way that those systems are built, much like much of our hyper capitalist society is built, like they want you on 24 seven.
They want you producing content 24 seven every day, be sharing stories all day every day. The goals are to keep you on those apps as much as possible and be kind of ever present there. And in my initial push in my business, I had a lot of fun with that and I really genuinely enjoyed it. And I was also kind of working towards this goal of self-employment through doing that. So I felt really motivated with that and
In 2024, really, I felt like my life really blossomed. And, you know, I had the opportunity to finally really slow down and decompress a lot. My first year of self-employment was pretty stressful with health issues. I've shared about that in the past on my podcast. So 2024 was kind of like...
The stars finally aligned for me and I was able to just sort of like take a step back, take some deep breaths and just really enjoy life in a new way. I think building my online business and being self-employed, one of my main values is being self-determined, creating a life.
that works for me doing what I want in my life and not following societal, cultural, capitalist, whatever expectations that say you should do this or you should do that. And so I really felt in 2024 I needed to like take a big step back from how I was showing up in my business and really try to decondition some of that constant marketing push to figure out what was really going to feel good to me. So,
One thing that I really learned in business is that you have to do so much trial and error and testing on things. And so, you know, the first couple of years of this, I was kind of like, let me try blogging and see what that's like. Let me try weekly emails and newsletters. Let me see what that's like. Podcasting, let me see what that's like. And kind of figuring out what you like, what works for you.
And so that's sort of what I've been filtering through a little bit as well. And I've really kind of learned that some of the short form content online with Instagram, like, you know, quick bits of things, it's so challenging to teach and communicate the concepts and the tools and the ideas that I want to share in really quick sound bites.
And so, you know, think using my podcast a little bit more, I want to be doing a lot more writing. have a book this year. I'm writing my book proposal right now. I'm writing my book proposal right now. And so focusing a little more on long form content and just slowing the pace down, slowing it way down.
One of the things this year has really been for me is kind of like a return to some inner child work. So I'm a big fan of parts work, inner child work, inner teenager. We can't forget about that one. I've also been doing a lot of work on like working with my inner crone, like my old lady self. What does my old lady self want from me at any point in time?
And in this year, I really wanted to return to a lot of the things that brought me joy in childhood. And if you think about the freedom of childhood, you're playing, you're imagining. I loved reading science fiction fantasy and writing science fiction fantasy, drawing, painting, all of these really fun creative activities that in adulthood we kind of stop doing.
We're told it's frivolous, that it's only for children to play and do those sorts of things. And I think that's why so many people lose their joy in adulthood, because you forget you still have an inner child and you can still channel those things that your soul still needs to come alive. And so this year I took a total break. read absolutely no intellectual material, no self-help books. Don't get me wrong, I love that stuff and I you know continue to cipher through it. I've I mean spent my whole career on mental health and emotional wellness and all of that right and so this year I was like I'm gonna read smutty fantasy novels and it was great. Doing some of my own fantasy writing, I've always loved doing that.
And just like letting myself have downtime with no pressure to do anything and I'm really proud that I've created the life in the space where I'm able to do that at this point in my life. It's funny because our society shames that so much and I'm not gonna lie throughout this year as I slowed down my content creation, I stopped my newsletters.
I didn't do my podcast. Through much of that time, I was feeling this sense of internal pressure, like, okay, Katie, your rest needs to be over now. You need to get back on it. You you're wasting time or if you want to keep up with this, you got to keep going. And all of these just conditioned narratives around productivity. And, you know, in our capitalist consumer driven society, this idea that there needs to be constant growth, right? And even if you look at your, you know, economic in a year, if you have a business like, ooh, it always has to be growing, you always have to be increasing your profit. And it's this like growth for the sake of growth that kind of is like a virus, right? Like you can't slow down, you can't have less than the year before. And it's so not natural to the way life actually works. Like nature is not in a constant state of growth. It has winter, it has times where it's just chilling, right? Hibernating, there's spring, summer, fall. And I'm really, really leaning into allowing myself to ebb and flow with these paces, but that doesn't get rid of that conditioned pressure we're seeping in through our entire lives, right?
So every time I had an urge to create something online, I kind of stopped and I paused myself. And I was like, I can't start creating again until it's not coming from the pressure to keep up with the algorithm, with, you know, selling something, marketing, with, you know, staying on top of mind with people like.
I'm not gonna create if that's where the pressure is coming from. And so I wanted to take as long as I needed to decondition that. And I don't think that's, there's a never ending journey there, right? Like I'm not done with that, but I'm just gonna really be slowing things down. And so it's felt really good. And did a lot of traveling this year with my friends and in...
the summer I turned 40. I took an amazing trip with my best friends and my life partner Mark. We went to Europe and I turned 40 and it's interesting, know, turning 40 for a woman has all of these mixed feelings. I think it's considered middle age, halfway to 80, whatever.
And you know, building up to it, I had a little bit of reluctance, like, my God, where has time gone? I'm turning 40, what does this mean for me? Women in our society are put out to pasture as soon as they are no longer, you know, seen as like young and sexually viable and all of that shit, like we know what that is, right? And so the older we get as women, the more and more we're kind of disregarded by society.
men get to be distinguished and mature and you know they kind of get elevated as they get older. And it's interesting as I've turned 40 and I'm only six months in right I'm really thinking about like how I want to be in my 40s and as I'm embracing different phases of who I am. I'm starting to understand why the patriarchy does not like women who start to get older and mature and wiser because I've always been a little bit of a kind of F you to society person but I'm like really not giving a fuck. Now that I'm 40 it's like something shifted like I don't know I'm gonna say whatever's on my mind I don't care if it pisses people off.
I don't care if it gets me labeled as this or that. The number of fucks that I give is dwindling way, way, way, way down. And I'm feeling that as a really, really good thing. I share my content a lot about people pleasing and I think for women a lot this comes in, For a woman you're supposed to be kind and caring and sensitive and prioritize the others. Like all of these puritanistic - women as givers and caretakers programming, which not to say those aren't positive things and we can't be that. But the flip side of that, which is having boundaries, having uncomfortable conversations, saying no to things, speaking up about things that are uncomfortable, like that is all very, very shamed. And so I...feel it and I've talked to other women in their 40s and my sister and other people and it's like yeah it actually feels really good to give fewer fucks the older you get and no wonder society doesn't like that in women and are constantly pressuring you to be this like young little naive thing. Youth is wonderful by the way again we're not judging anything is good or bad or better or worse there's just differences I think that come.
So yeah, it's been a really great year and I feel myself morphing into something new as always, right? Change is constant. The very first tattoo I ever got on my wrist, it says reincarnation. And I got it after I went through my divorce in my 20s as this reminder that we can constantly be in a state of renewal.
Mindfulness teaches every moment is brand new, we can recreate ourselves and our lives at any point in time, and we don't have to stay stagnant, right? And so this is a never ending process. And this year, I've just been really taking my time to kind of shed some of the layers that
I wasn't really able to shed when I was still stuck in grind mode at my 9 to 5 in the past and my like pressure to you know make an online business be highly successful and big or whatever right? So I was kind of like dropping that coming back to my own wisdom of okay wait a second let's kind of shed all the advice and the how-tos and what are you supposed to do what actually feels good to me.
How do I want to move forward in a way that honors my needs and my rhythms? And so it's been a good thing. I've been reignited this fall If you couldn't tell the US election results, I kind of pop back in with a new podcast episode My vigor has been renewed for this book that I'm gonna write
and I'm excited to keep sharing even though it's going to be in a different pace and my focus on you know kind of one-on-one work might shift a little bit more but I don't know we're going to see where we go I don't really know but we'll find out. I'm probably going to try to do you know maybe a monthly newsletter maybe every other month.
I'm going to try to do a few podcasts trickling out this year. I'm not going to put it on any rigid schedule. I do have some very specific episodes I know I want to record and release here in the coming months so I can't wait to share with you. And really appreciate your time. I know that
Someone's attention is a precious resource. So if you took the time to tune in and if you're someone who's taken the time to kind of follow my journey with me, I honor that, I'm grateful for that. And I definitely value the sense of community and connection that can be built with online presence. So anyways, be well, happy new year, and we'll talk again soon.
