If you could be inside my head today, here are a few of the things you’d hear:
I need to recommit to using a task and project management tool. Oy vey, this again.
(AFTER WATCHING INTRO VIDEOS TO 10 SOFTWARE PLATFORMS) I guess I’ll go with Asana since I know it best and they all seem a bit flawed but also mostly fine.
(AFTER SETTING UP PROJECTS AND TASKS IN EACH PROJECT) I honestly don’t know if I have time for all of this, even if it’s just my baseline projects. Ruh-roh.
Didn’t I buy chocolate yesterday? (EATS A SQUARE) That helped a little.
I need to set up the cash flow for my new LLC, including categories for start-up costs and ongoing monthly or annual costs. (EATS ANOTHER SQUARE)
Should I take some money out of my do-not-touch-under-any-circumstances savings account for my seed money? (BEGRUDGINGLY …) OK, I guess I should. (PUTS THE REST OF THE CHOCOLATE ON A HIGH-UP SHELF)
This is very exciting! I am a boss bitch. This is exactly right. I am so proud of myself.
My dogs are so cute!
What was I doing again?
(12 MINUTES LATER) Whoa, what am I actually doing? Setting up a business around what I already do but paying a lot of money to do it? I feel uneasy.
(PUTS ON THE DAILY CALM WHILE APPLYING EYE MAKEUP AND SORT OF MEDITATING) Honestly, this is what I need to be doing. Even though it’s scary to brain dump all of my projects, this is reality. It’s inherently overwhelming, but it’s bound to be. This is an empowering thing to do, ultimately.
OK, get out of my head before something weird happens in there.
After I told you about how I am leaving my full-time job and structuring the rest of my work around my writing, podcasting production, and consulting, I’ve been all systems go. If you know me at all, that won’t surprise you. I even ordered a tote bag with the new Jasmin’s Jargon logo because I let my enthusiasm get a little away from me. Also typical.
But underneath my excitement, I’ve been experiencing this uneasy feeling. And though I still can’t tell you exactly what it is, I’m pretty sure it’s just the unknown—and the concern that I won’t be able to support myself as well as I had been—that is at the root.
And though dumping all of my projects onto Asana this morning was, on one hand, liberating, on the other, it gave me a mild, chocolate-inducing panic attack. The last thing I want to do is overcommit myself, so I need to go about this transition with intention and radical honesty.
And a little bit of faith (not the god-kind, as I say).
Faith, which is one of my core values that we discussed recently, means (to me) open-eyed trust in the unfolding of time. Ultimately, I do trust myself—to make well-informed decisions, to walk away from situations that don’t serve me, and to figure out the answers in time.
This is a nuanced thing, though. Because part of the reason I trust myself to make it all work is that I’m old enough to have lived through times when I didn’t make it work. I’ve let myself down in the past, making unfortunate personal and professional decisions—and learning the hard way. So my takeaway here is not universal; it’s for people who have developed the inner (as well as external) resources to make responsible decisions.
I’ll tell you what: I did ultimately decide to go into my deep savings in order to help with LLC filing fees, one-time accounting set-up services, and some productivity tools. And though there is still indeed a voice inside my head that is scrrrrrd, that’s maybe not a terrible thing. She keeps me in check, you know? Also, that little voice does not dictate how I move forward, even though in the past, there were times she had. She doesn’t define me or my decisions. She’s just there, chilling, occasionally eating chocolate.
Let’s talk a little about lines of credit.
This is a big subject for me as I strongly value paying off my credit card every month (which I recognize is a giant privilege to be able to do, by the way). So when I noticed that my new business’s credit card had an enormous credit line, I was at once worried and intrigued. If I put my start-up costs on my credit card, when and how will I be able to pay it off? The last thing I want to do is rack up debt. Am I biting off more than I can chew?
The idea of borrowing money from the future has been something I’ve aggressively steered clear of, and that’s served me well. And though I’m definitely not going to go buy new office furniture or whatever and put it on my card, I realize now that I trust myself enough to be a bit more trusting of my ability to (holy shit, I’m gonna say it) budget.
So maybe that means carrying a small amount of debt in my first month of having a new business that comes with a load of start-up costs. Or maybe it doesn’t, since I have decided to seed it proactively. But the point is: I don’t need to be so catastrophic and obsessive about a little future loan.
The same is true for time. When thinking about a line of credit, I am reminded of how many tasks and projects I want to complete. I can be monomaniacal about these things, unable to fully relax unless I have at least started a project. It’s why my anxiety is so directly tied to my productivity; they feed on each other.
But I’m ready to move past that way of thinking, or at least start to. In mapping out my projects and realizing how much energy is being put into just starting all of this up, I am realizing, for example, that I can’t realistically meet all my (self-imposed, mainly) deadlines over the next few weeks. So rather than stay super-stressed about it, I’m going to move some things around and recognize that even if it doesn’t get done as quickly as I want, it will get done.
Moore, my cute n’ smart wife, referred to this earlier as “borrowing time and money from the future.” I asked her to clarify what she meant, and she said it’s like a line of credit—the understanding that you can make life a little easier by allowing yourself a bit more wiggle room. Time and money are both energy, and sometimes we need to take care of ours by reserving some for later.
The process of untangling all of this has really shown me just how easily and relentlessly I have historically prioritized other people’s needs above my own. It’s also shown me how quick I have been to abandon my own boundaries, such as when I really wanted to do a project but didn’t have the time (why didn’t I negotiate and advocate for myself?). Instead of figuring out a system that could set me up for success, I reacted mainly out of the fear of possibly losing a gig—rather than the calm and smarts to make the gig happen a different way.
The older I get, the more I want to take care of myself, take actual care of myself. Yes, that means having a healthy flow of funds, but it also means relaxing, emptying my mind, having hobbies, spending time bike-riding, and trusting that I have the vegan chops to make this all work.
Before you go: I wanted to thank you for spending time to take my survey last week (there’s still time to take it, if you haven’t yet!). I learned a lot about what type of content you value the most, and I’m truly moved beyond words by your outpouring of love and support around my Substacks. I honestly wasn’t expecting that, and so it was all that much more special to me.
xo,
jazz
P.S. Be sure to check out the latest issue of VegNews, on newsstands now. I have two articles in there—an advice column and an interview with The Korean Vegan!
thanks for sharing the fruits of your time with us here in the present!