My self-imposed, self-employed sabbatical

In which I fail spectacularly to slow down.

January 2025 and the signs were already there. They were there in the words of my New Year collage: Breathe, Letting go, Room to grow…And they were there in my subsequent Substack post about the building of The Writers Workshop which was starkly subtitled ‘Be careful what you wish for.’ And then, on January 17th, an invitation to an event called ‘How to Say No’ landed in my Inbox. I was in the middle of organising a huge Writers Day, whilst taking part in extra-ordinary strategic planning and research at The Writers Workshop, continuing to run four weekly writing workshops and supervising my neurodiverse teenager who had recently withdrawn from education again, all whilst feeling burnout and chronically unwell. Jen McCanna and Lucy Gower might have written their Eventbrite copy specifically for me.

‘As a leader, do you:

• Want to be there for your team but feel overwhelmed with too many spinning plates?

• Take on more work than you can realistically manage?

• Say yes when you know deep inside that for the wellbeing of you and your team you’d rather be saying no?'

YES! YES! YES!

The idea of leaving the house in an evening to attend any kind of networking event made me feel anticipatory nausea and exhaustion but, ironically, I didn’t say no to the invitation. Instead, I found myself saying no to almost everything else. I emailed my colleagues and proposed that I take a six month sabbatical starting ASAP. By the time the networking event came around, I was free as a bird and loving it.

It’s not easy to say no to work when you’re self-employed: the scarcity mindset is prevalent when you’re responsible for generating your own income and FOMO is strong. If you turn down opportunities, people will look elsewhere. If you’re not visible - at events and on social media - there’s a fear that people will forget you. Profiles and businesses are built by being available and present, by delivering good work consistently, by showing up reliably, by meeting the needs of others. I know, because I’ve done it. As a freelancer, I learned quickly that there was work to be had for conscientious creatives (the two don’t always go together) and I built a pretty successful career as a facilitator and consultant. I enjoyed the freedom that came with being self-employed, from being able to pick and choose my challenges, moving easily from one project to another. My brain feeds on novelty and change and my soul is sucked dry by routine and predictability. I’ve never lasted longer than a year in a proper job and yet I’ve been a self-employed success story. Freedom suits me.

I never intended to become a businesswoman. I just wanted to share my love of words with others. But, gradually, one weekly workshop became several, coaching clients started arriving and multiplying, and inadvertently I’d become some kind of writing entrepreneur. The world seems to be full of them now: writers hustling for clients and selling creative dreams like they’re running some kind of pyramid scheme, but when I started out it was unusual to be a writer making a completely self-generated living. I was stunned when an accountant told me that I was running a business and horrified the first time someone described me as a ‘brand’. But I adapted. I learned to manage websites and to use Canva, to become a marketeer, build a mailing list and to keep accounts, even though I have undiagnosed ADHD and any kind of organisational task is a huge struggle. (Luckily, my clients were patient when I advertised every event on the wrong day for the wrong price!)

But just running a writing business wasn’t enough for me. Trained by an over-extended mother whose motto was ‘if something needs doing, do it yourself,’ and a self-made man who ran his own successful business, I’m endlessly compelled to look for gaps and to fill them. My motto might well be, ‘if something doesn’t exist, create it yourself.’ Reading groups and writing groups, young writers’ provision and extra-curricular clubs for kids, Sheffield’s infamous Novel Slam - I’ve created a lot of writing projects. The Writers Workshop was the culmination of twenty-five years’ work in my home city and it’s the piece de resistance. It’s also a heck of lot of work!

When you run a business, you need to wear a lot of hats, not all of them pretty. There are a lot of plates to spin. You’re a project manager, a marketing consultant, a social media influencer, accountant, admin worker and book-keeper. If you’re running a writing business, you might also be a creative facilitator and a coach. You probably also twilight as a chat show host, interviewing other writers or appearing on podcasts and radio shows and, if you’re the head of a community, you’re a creative friend to hundreds of people with their own dreams and aspirations, people who want to talk to you about their projects at ten o’clock at night or on Sunday morning, by text message, or via Instagram and Facebook. There are no boundaries in this world and, while it is a beautiful thing to be at heart of a creative community, for an introvert, it can be overwhelming to hold so many dreams in your head, heart and hands. So, you add staff to lighten the load and the next thing you know, you’re a manager. You never meant to be a manager! So, you incorporate to spread the responsibility and now you’re a director and people are talking to you about safeguarding policies, fire drills and employment law. You never wanted to be a lawyer! You started out as a freelancer and now you’re tied to your phone twenty-four seven and committed to one project which has taken over your life. You’re apparently living the dream of so many aspiring writers but feeling so far away from where it all began. And, of course, there is no time to write and no creative headspace for dreaming.

But you’re also a woman and a mother. You are a nice person who has been trained in putting other people first and making other people happy. You’re an authentic human being who genuinely cares about all of the people you work with and you can’t bear to let anyone down. Your work isn’t brain surgery and yet people regularly tell you that your work matters to them. People tell you that your workshops have changed them or even saved their lives. Parents tell you that your workshops are the only thing their depressed children enjoy, and people show up in your room week after week, year after year. You’re part of their weekly routine. You can’t just quit! Your own mother managed to look after kids and work and care for sick neighbours and keep a clean house and put dinner on the table every night and, ok, she was stressed and anxious and died young but if she could do it, surely you can…

At the networking event, we’re asked to think about where our compulsion to say ‘yes’ comes from. The room is full of women who work in the arts and the third sector. We’re motivated, not by money, but by our desire to serve and to make the world a better place. Grown-up girls who were taught to be kind and generous, who tried to keep the peace in fractious homes, who shouldered the emotional burdens of the family and who were told to keep quiet about their own needs. For most of us saying no wasn’t an option when we were younger. Saying no now is still hard for us.

But then we talk about the benefits of recognising our limits. I’ve already said a monumental ‘no’ and it is easy for me now to see them. By handing over my workload to other people, I realise that I am allowing new people to gain skills and to earn a living. I’m also giving my clients the benefit of facilitators with fresh perspectives rather than rehashing everything I know over and over again. I’m no longer allowing my own exhaustion to stand in the way of growth of the brilliant organisation that I dreamed up and I’m no longer leading an organisation with a tired heart and the jaded perspective of someone who has started to fall out of love with writing, or at least with the writing industry. In fact, I’m not letting people down at all. I’m doing them a favour! And then emails start coming in from people who tell me they are so proud and inspired to see a woman like me acknowledge that I am not super-human after all and that my health and wellbeing must come first. Now I’m a guru paving the way for other women to put down their mantles of responsibility and free themselves from this endless need to wear ourselves down to the bone. Soon, I will be running some kind of wellbeing business and I’ll be making reels about self-care and I’ll have a podcast and a book about slowing down…

But truly and so quickly, I feel lighter and more joyful. I am fully present for my kids. I feel my creativity returning and new ideas emerging. I have time to read! Most importantly, I have been able to delete social media from my phone and the first thoughts in my head are my own. I no longer look at messages while I’m walking or driving. A month ago, I was trying to fit an art class into my busy day and walking through town crying. It was a pivotal moment when I said to a friend: ‘I just want to be able to walk down a street without being on my phone,’ without having to maximise my use of very single minute, multi-tasking my way to an early grave. Now I have my phone off when I walk. It’s such a small thing but means so much. I’ve also been journalling and collaging. I’ve painted my summerhouse. I’ve written articles and submitted novels to agents and competitons. I’ve read poems at an open mic night. I went to an evening networking event!!! I’ve caught up with friends and taken the kids to London. I’ve done my physio exercises every day. I’ve been swimming and walking. I’ve been able to go outside in the sunshine. I’ve emptied all the remaining boxes from our house move and unpacked my mother’s things nine years after her death. I’ve filled my beautiful new bookcase. I’ve unearthed thirty years’ worth of journals and family photos. Everything now has a place.

As for resting. That’s a skill I still need to acquire. But I have time. Finally, I have time.

My most popular piece of social media content. The signs that I was tiring of this life were starting to show!