For Christmas, my assistant Caitlyn sent me a book: Present Over Perfect (go order here it right now, you’ll thank me later) and it was the first hardcover book this girl read in a awhile (not going to lie, I’m a Kindle sort of girl!) I was a little hesitant to read it, it was a message I preach often and yet I had an uneasy feeling that the book would pull out some of the ugly side of me: my workaholic, struggles to rest, always wanting to serve side. Welp, I was right about that BUT that book was transformative in so many ways. It pulled some truths to light that I’ve been keeping in the dark for too long.

“But you can’t have yes without no. Another way to say it: if you’re not careful with your yeses, you start to say no to some very important things without even realizing it. In my rampant yes-yes-yes-ing, I said no, without intending to, to rest, to peace, to groundedness, to listening, to deep and slow connection, built over years instead of moments.” 

– Shauna Niequist – Present Over Perfect

Before reading it, I can honestly look you in the eye and tell you that I failed to rest. I suck at it. On days where I actually had time and space to rest, I would search for something to fill my time with, avoiding the slow down, the silence. As we prepared for our time in Hawaii, I found myself welcoming the rest filled moments (however few and far in between they were.) I started to really look at life and business as a place that needed margins in order to appreciate the meat of it. Without that space, without the rest, I couldn’t appreciate the busy, the good. I’ve never worked out of a place of “have to,” I genuinely wake up excited to do what I’m about to do, but that doesn’t mean you HAVE to do it all the time, 24/7.

I recently hopped on a coaching call with my sweet friend, Ashlyn Carter, I looked at her budget, her financial goals, her plans, her launches. I spent an hour going over every figure, spreadsheet, and something caught my eye. I would tell you the story but as a copy writer, this girl’s words speak better than I ever could. Here’s what she says:

“Before hopping on a call with Jenna, I was business stuck (again). I’m the type that can’t stop, won’t stop … so, as immaculately organized as my business plans from my fantastic group coaching program were, I still wasn’t finding time to breathe, and space to create. I had solid dreams and ideas to scale my business but to me, scaling was still 12 months down the road. I was so busy building businesses for other creatives, that I hadn’t slowed down to build my own, and she called me on it.

Protect your yeses my friends, schedule rest, create margins.

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