162. Taking a Break When There Is Always More to Do
That feeling of always thinking you could have done more, wishing you were farther along, or feeling behind is something many designers experience. In this episode, I’m sharing my own struggle of closing out the year with a clean slate, only to feel like it wasn’t enough. This same issue came up in a coaching session, confirming that the “never enough” pattern is common.
Whether planning your day or setting big goals, the drive to get ahead of an imaginary finish line is draining and unsustainable. In this episode, we’ll focus on how to manage your time and plan effectively while cultivating the feeling of completeness. Constantly pushing yourself leaves no space for the satisfaction of being done.
You’ll learn how to interrupt the emotional patterns that keep you stuck in the "never enough" cycle and why embracing completeness creates momentum. You’ll also discover how to become a boss you can trust, one who honors their word and takes time off when promised. This strengthens your relationship with yourself and makes you more productive in the long run.
If you've been thinking about working with me one-on-one, be sure to get on the private coaching waitlist! Click here to learn more about Design to Thrive and secure your spot to be the first to know when availability opens up.
What You’ll Discover from this Episode:
Why the “I’m behind” story leads to overwhelm and hinders your ability to plan effectively.
How emotional patterns tie urgency to action and how to identify your own.
The difference between settling and allowing your accomplishments to feel complete.
Why opening new loops after finishing early keeps you feeling behind.
How to interrupt the pattern of overthinking to create a false sense of safety.
Ways to distinguish between genuine inspiration and default patterns masquerading as desire.
How allowing enough to be enough strengthens your relationship with yourself.
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Full Episode Transcript:
Hey, designer, you're listening to episode 162. Today we're talking about that all-too-familiar feeling of always feeling like you could have done a little bit more, or wishing you were farther along, or that thought that keeps knocking at the door, I'm behind. I hear this time and time again, whether it's on the micro-level of planning out your day or setting and working towards a big goal for the year.
This episode is really inspired both from a recent coaching session that I had with a client and also how this exact issue was coming up for me again as I closed out the year with a pretty clean slate, but my brain didn't want to let it be that way.
Today's episode is an essential lesson in pacing, capacity, and getting the most important work done without burning out or feeling like you're never truly off the clock. With the approach I'm sharing, you're not going to be dropping the ball. What you will be dropping, though, is the story of never enough, always behind, and the perpetual drive to get ahead of an imaginary finish line. We'll dive into this topic from planning and time management, of course, but also, we're going to talk about the feeling that you need to establish of completeness, and it's how you release the urgency and pressure that's been weighing you down.
Welcome to The Interior Design Business CEO, the only show for designers who are ready to confidently run and grow their businesses without the stress and anxiety. If you're ready to develop a bigger vision for your interior design business, free up your time, and streamline your days for productivity and profit, you're in the right place.
I'm Desi Creswell, an award-winning interior designer and certified life and business coach. I help interior designers just like you stop feeling overwhelmed so they can build profitable businesses they love to run. Are you ready to confidently lead your business, clients, and projects? Let's go.
Hello, designer. Welcome back to the podcast. How have you been? It feels like we haven't talked in ages. I know the episodes just keep coming out for you, but I haven't been recording for, I think, almost a month because of how far ahead I needed to get with holidays and time away. So this is, I think, the second day, yeah, second day I'm back in office, first time I'm recording for you in a long time.
We were in Costa Rica and enjoyed the holidays and did lots and lots of fun family outings, lots of relaxation, lots of swimming in the ocean, the beach. I, of course, did a lot of yoga at my favorite studio there. If you listen to, it was around this time last year, episode 118, it was all about my journey to learn how to do a headstand and how that all came together in the year. And that was episode 118. It's called Enough Chances to Succeed. That could be a fun one to listen to after this one.
But anyway, we had such a great time, and I think part of why it felt so restful and so disconnected is because of what I'm going to talk about today. And I thought this would be really the perfect time to talk about allowing your planning, allowing your doing to be complete, to be enough, and to release the expectation of always needing to do more.
At this point, we're over halfway through January. The new year glitter has settled a little bit, and I want to help you release the weight of that perpetual never enough done, never far enough ahead, state of mind and way of being in your business, and frankly, probably in your life too because those patterns tend to follow us everywhere we go because it's us, and we can't escape ourselves.
And of course, this is not, I think I want to say this caveat here of allowing it to be enough, allowing yourself to feel complete in your accomplishments, whether that is you did enough on a Monday or if it's I did enough this quarter or this year, it is absolutely going to be the thing that creates the momentum that you're so keen to create. Enough, I think, sometimes has the sentiment of settling, and I absolutely disagree with that. And that is why I want to use the word complete, but I might be calling it enough here, using lots of different words for it throughout this episode.
But like I said, this was coming up for me at the end of last year. And what was so interesting is podcast episodes that I plan out, typically I'll get an idea while I'm out walking, and I'll send myself, like I'll voice-to-text some ideas so I can kind of keep track of what it is that I was thinking about. But so I had this idea for what I was noticing in myself of finishing up the work that I needed to do and then going, "Oh, but you could do more, Desi." And I thought, I've got to talk about that.
And then I signed on for one of my private coaching calls with my client and she brought the same topic. And I thought, yeah, okay, I've got to talk about this. And I'm guessing that you can relate to it too. That feeling of never enough. And maybe you use the words never enough. It might sound like I should have done more. I wish I could have gotten more done. I'm behind. I could get ahead. Usually means we're also saying I should get ahead, or that would be the ideal, right?
And with what I'm talking about today, there is a practical planning and capacity and time management component to all of this, and it's very much a practice of allowing yourself to be still and to experience the satisfaction of your own accomplishments and allowing yourself to have the mental space to really step away and rejuvenate and allowing that to feel good and release the guilt and the weight of the possibility that you could be doing more.
There's many ways where this not enough, could have done more, should get ahead type mentality is coming about. And sometimes, like I said, it is very practically a planning issue or a time management issue. But I also think there's some other things going on here as well. And let me talk about, there's about five ways I want to highlight for just bringing some awareness to this conversation for you. And you can use this to start to get a frame of mind for where we're going next.
Sometimes what I see, and often this is true of those of us with perfectionistic tendencies or overachievement type personalities, right? We're putting more on the to-do list for the day or the vision board or the goal list or quarterly plan, whatever it is, right? That can be possibly accomplished in the timeframe we've given ourselves.
And absolutely, I'm a big fan of dreaming big. I want you to have a great vision for your life and business, and lots can happen. And what I see is we have to be based somewhat in reality of there's a certain number of hours in the day, your team is a certain size, or maybe you don't have a team yet, whatever that may be. There's like, you know, realities of living here on earth in this time and space, right?
And what I see is there's just too much to be done than could be humanly possible. This overly optimistic or fantasy-based planning puts you in a place where you're failing at the plan before you've even begun it. Meaning like you're already behind before you've even started. And so of course you have this evidence, then at the end of the day, you are behind because, yes, like you created a plan where that would just naturally occur. And we don't want to do that.
I've got lots of episodes on planning realistically, how to manage your time, all of that. But that's one way that this shows up. And it's a lot harder for you to create that mental space to step away and feel complete when you aren't planning appropriately. It's easier to do what we're talking about today when you have been more realistic with your planning, okay?
Another way this shows up is more of a planning pattern that then includes layering on more. So it's where we create the never-enough cycle, where we finish something, maybe we planned, these are my three priorities for the day, I've gotten those done, and then we have the thought I could do more. I could get ahead. This would be so great, right? And we open up new loops. And then what happens is that those loops, just because you had a little extra time doesn't mean you have a ton of extra time, right? So you don't even get through then the loops you open.
And even though you actually did enough, now what you've done is you aren't completing the bonus work you've added on. So then you're just back at feeling behind. You've moved the goalpost on yourself and created a scenario that isn't very useful and often leaves you feeling really defeated and that can lead to you then procrastinating on other things and not being efficient the next day, right?
The other thing that can happen with planning is you haven't defined your timelines or milestones, so you don't really understand what done is. And we end up racing towards a finish line, but we don't know where the course of the race even is. So then what your brain does is it tries to fill in the gaps, thinking, well, I better get there as fast as possible to make sure it's not too late. So you're racing against a clock that you don't know what the time is, you don't know what day it is, you don't know what course you're running, all those things, okay? That's kind of an issue.
Another thing that happens here is that you're afraid that you will lose steam and not follow through in the future. So this is especially, I think, applicable when it is like the start of the new year or new quarter, even sometimes just a Monday, and you're like, yes, this is it. Everything's going to be different from here. And so then you hit the ground running full steam ahead, but what ends up happening is there is a lack of self-trust that is then creating and fueling this urgency that's going to burn you out, right?
Because the reason you're rushing forward is because you're like, I better get as much done of this as possible because I know I'm going to flake out on myself in the future. So I’ve got to capitalize now, right? But what ends up happening is you end up creating the exact thing you didn't want, which is to like have these stops and starts and not following through because you are fueling your actions from pressure and fear and urgency. And none of that is sustainable.
Okay, so there are four examples, but I want to give you this fifth one, and this is the last one I'm going to give you, and it was really what was coming up for me at the end of the year, and also for the client that I was coaching. And in this case, it's where the planning is pretty dialed in. There are set deadlines, there's milestones, there's a plan, right? You're following the plan, and yet your brain wants to run away with all the things it could be doing and not enjoy what it has accomplished and what it has created, and doesn't want to let you take a break, okay? And that really could be at the end of the day or when you're looking back over the last year.
And the reason I want to talk about this today and because I think it is so important, is when you are consistently asking more of yourself than is humanly possible and when you're consistently moving the goalpost of your to-dos so that you never allow space for the feeling of completeness, that is really exhausting. And it is not a way to run a business.
I want you to think about the contrast now. You can probably bring it up in your body of how pressure, anxiety, urgency, how that all feels. It's like very tight, and you're like grinding away. But when you think about how complete feels, the feeling of completeness, it is like a big sigh in the body. It's very solid, it's grounded, it's steady. Those are the emotions that you want to fuel your business with as you grow. And you can create these moments of completeness on a day-to-day basis over the course of this entire year, and it's like this regenerative source of energy versus the pressure and the anxiety, which is going to be so much of a depleter.
If you don't allow yourself to learn to be in a space of sufficiency, of there is enough, I've done enough, I am enough, not only are you going to wear yourself down and you're going to find yourself thinking about work when you want to be present in your life, the big thing is it starts to erode the trust you have in your relationship with yourself. And in your design business, as the CEO, this is the greatest relationship that you can foster because you are the leader, and the leader needs to be supported. And when you don't allow for that feeling of completeness, of sufficiency, you become a boss that you can't trust. What happens is the harder you work, the more work that mean old boss wants to pile on.
And what ends up happening, too, then is really we start to realize there's no incentive to be proactive or efficient because there's just always more waiting. I can even kind of remember this when I was an employee, I was at a very large architecture and design firm.
And I can think back to, yeah, I was so inefficient some days because I just knew, like, I'm going to be here till 9. And no matter how much I bust this work out today, I'm going to be here till 9. So I think I might go take a walk around the block or go grab a coffee or check my email, right? I was in the day of blogs. I love Design Sponge. I would read Design Sponge while typing. And just giving myself that break because it was like, there's always more. We could never feel complete because it was just that expectation. But you're not in that situation right now. You are your own boss, and you want to be a boss that you can trust.
When I was getting ready to wrap up the year, I almost became that person that I didn't really want to be to myself. And same thing was going to happen with my client, but fortunately, we had the session scheduled to talk through it. This was going into the holidays and taking time away for winter break, but this really does apply to any time that you want to take a break and mentally set aside your business so that you can really, truly rejuvenate and come back to your work rested and ready to go and enjoy what you're building and what you're creating. This can be the vacations, the days you're stepping away for a trade show or a retreat, or even just the weekend. This really is an essential skill, and it is going to change the way that you relate to yourself as the owner and the way you relate to your goals and to your business as a whole.
I want to give you a little bit more insight into what the client I'm referencing was talking about during this session. And what happened is during her previous session, we had worked through her bridge plan, which is something that I talk about in episode 158. It's titled Soft Landing, Smooth Takeoff. And it's the plan that I create, I teach my clients to create for end of year into the beginning of the year.
So it's like you close out the year with what you know you need to do and then make a plan before you take time off for what you're coming back to so that way you don't have that hanging over your head of all the what-ifs and what I described earlier where it's like you don't have the timelines and milestones so your brain starts then jumping into this urgency cycle that isn't really necessary because you've got a mental resting spot for your plans and to-dos. So that is what happened on the session we had prior to the one I'm referencing, okay?
And this client of mine, she has an amazing business. She's got lots of large, high-end, very detailed projects and process. She's got lots of installs happening at the start of the year and lots going on in her personal life too with kids heading off into college and wanting to enjoy some downtime. She had been feeling really overwhelmed and came to the call and was like, I need some help. We slowed it down, we did the mindset work, we created a strategy for what she'd do after we got off that call leading to the end of the year, and then of course in the near future too. So that's that soft landing smooth takeoff I was describing.
So that was two weeks prior and then we had another call, all right? And she came on and she's like, I'm feeling so much more grounded and in a much better place. She's like, meaning her and her team should be in a good spot for the holidays by the end of the week. Okay. So that is great. Amazing. Yes, that's exactly what was supposed to happen, right? Yeah.
And here's what she said. She's like, “I see what I need to do in the new year. I've got the client work, the installs. And it feels really indulgent to not do it.” She goes, "I'm worried my future self will be mad at me for not getting ahead." Okay? So even though she did what she'd set out to do, she made the plan, she was ready to wrap it up, she still had that feeling of urgency and pressure, all right? So she created a circumstance for herself where she was getting what she wants, and her brain was still going to go ahead and tell her, you should get ahead.
Now, I want to normalize this. This is just like, you know, something that happens, right? Over time, we get into these emotional behavioral patterns, and the more that we act from them, the more they're reinforced. And when I say emotional behavioral patterns, what I mean is when you feel a certain way, then you do this thing, right? It's like the feeling and then the action. They're tied together. And the more that you do that pairing, the more that it's reinforced in the brain, the more it becomes more quick and automatic and ingrained, right?
And with anything, there's supportive patterns and there's less helpful patterns, right? You could say when I feel tired, I go to bed. That is a good emotional behavioral pattern, right? But sometimes we have some connections that are less useful for us. And that was certainly the case. And often, what I see with this client or with other designers that I work with, that when they feel urgency, pressure, anxiety, right, those are all very similar emotions, there's something specific that they do, a behavioral pattern, to comfort themselves. And in taking that action, they're using it to soothe or dial down the emotion they're trying to escape. This is really, really important to have awareness of.
For yourself, I want you to just think about what are my emotional behavioral patterns? When I feel this way, what do I do to either try and get more of that emotion or try and escape that emotion? You want to know what this is for you so you can start to spot it and do what we'll talk about later in the episode, which is put a pause and redirect.
So with this particular client, there was the urgency and also some guilt too, which no one likes to feel guilty. That's one that we all try and probably run away from, right? Because she was sharing, you know, she hasn't had this kind of space for five to eight years, maybe. So allowing herself to experience that openness actually felt wrong. So the mind was sending the message, "This is wrong," which created a feeling of guilt, and then the client was believing that the presence of that emotion meant that there was something actually wrong that she needed to solve for, except that's not true, right? It's just an emotion, and we don't have to believe it. There was the evidence of following the plan and seeing that everything would be accounted for.
And I'll tell you, this is something I have had to work on a lot myself because like you know as a business owner, there is always more to do. Always. We always have bigger goals, we always have bigger dreams. I talked about that in episode 159, Floors and Ceilings, those identity shifts and knowing that there's always something greater that we will be reaching for and feeling that contentness and presentness in the current state and gratitude for what we've already created, right? So we know that's going to come up. Not a problem, but we don't want to be believing that story of, well, then since it feels wrong to take a beat and step back, that doesn't mean I actually have to listen to that and get back into motion.
So we always just have to start with the awareness. So that is what I want you to do right now, is look at what are some of these emotional behavioral patterns that are showing up for me and what are some of those internal narratives that are really driving decisions and my actions and the way that I show up in the business? Those narratives like I'm behind, never enough, I need to get ahead, I could be doing more, I should be doing more, okay? What are those for you? Maybe it's one of those exactly, maybe it's got a slightly different flavor, but start to pay attention.
And then I want you to get curious and start to inquire why does it feel challenging to allow enough to be enough? I'm not saying settle, like why can't I just settle and like be happy with what I've got? Nope, that's not what I mean. But like letting the things you do be complete. Maybe it's that you are in one of those emotional behavioral patterns where you are just very used to feeling the pressure of those narratives, and it feels like something has gone wrong when it's no longer there, right? So like you finish the things and you're done and then you feel complete, and then you go, wait a second. I am not supposed to be feeling that way, and you jump back into the cycle.
You can also go back to some of that tactical planning stuff. Are you planning in a realistic way so that you are not actually behind? Are you setting your timelines when you tell clients what the timelines are for the project? Are you setting those timelines from a place of never enough, I need to rush forward, need to do this as fast as possible, right? That could be creating a problem for you and we want to know that.
Now, even if you realize you're looking at, yep, I am overcommitted, and there actually is more that I've committed to than I have time for, I'm going to just also say that it is a very good idea to still drop the "I'm behind" story. Because we could argue, well, yes, I am behind. Like, I have this amount of work to do, and I have a presentation tomorrow or something like that. But when we tell ourselves I'm behind, it's never enough, I need to get ahead, all those words that I've been saying, right?
That always is going to lead to overwhelm. And that is a much less effective way to take action because when your brain is in overwhelm, your prefrontal cortex, the smart part, higher-level thinking, planning, executing part of your brain starts to slowly go offline and be hijacked by the amygdala. And you will not get nearly as much done if you are telling your story of behind as if you will if you are taking a focused mindset of like one step at a time, or getting a solutions-focused mindset.
So that's a little bit of a tangent, but I'll just leave you with that. There's lots more episodes that you can find in the feed, okay? But I just, I really encourage you to get curious, ask why? Why is it so hard for enough to be enough? Why is it hard when I tell myself that I'm done, right? That is enough. That is good for this week, for this day, for this six months, whatever it is. You have to understand the root of this because that is where you will really start to make some shifts.
The other thing you can do here is start to explore areas where you do feel complete or where you do feel satisfied with your progress in something. There are likely areas in your life or in your business where you have experienced or regularly experience that calm and satisfaction, and you can take a look at, all right, so I'm doing it there. What is it about that domain that I can learn from and bring that over into the work realm? Really powerful.
Whether this is more of a mindset challenge for you, a planning issue, or likely it's a combination of both, you really do have the choice to decide what is enough and what is complete. What does that look like for you, where you actually just make a decision, and you manufacture enough for yourself? I did an episode on this a while back, 110. It's Defining Enough. Definitely check that one out as part of this process. And that's what my client and I did for her many deadlines and to-dos.
I did this for myself towards the end of last year. I made adjustments to my quarter four plan. I had more on there than I realized I really had capacity for, and I deleted things that I had originally planned to do. I decided some things were no longer important. I moved some things to the next year that I was like, you know what? That's not going to make that big of a difference if I do that in a few months versus right now. I saw some self-imposed deadlines that were going to create unnecessary rush at the end of the year, and just moved those along. I decided enough was enough. And that takes some courage because we are in a world where we are constantly told that bigger is better, more is better, faster is better. And you have to make that switch for yourself if you want to live and work differently.
I want to share though, even though I did all of this, right? I did the bridge plan. I reviewed it. I deleted, I delegated, I deferred, everything I teach. Even though I did that, and even though the plan was going according to plan, my brain still wanted to tell me, "Hey, what about this? What about more?" And I even briefly got caught up in that possibility.
But then I fast-forwarded to my future self, who, you know, my client was talking about, "Well, my future self might be disappointed." And yes, maybe they'll be disappointed you didn't get ahead, quote unquote, ahead. But also, like when I looked ahead to my future self, I saw my future self would not be happy that I took that action because I was going against what I said I really wanted, which was to completely sign off for the winter break, okay? So that pause was essential. It's uncomfortable to interrupt the pattern. It takes practice to interrupt that pattern, but let me tell you, it is worth it, and you can do it if you give it a try, if you keep at it.
When I interrupted the pattern, I took that pause, I could easily see how I could have opened up a bunch of new loops where before I left for break, I started new things to quote unquote, get ahead and how that would have had my brain activated and would have been trying to solve for problems, work on solutions, which would have taken me out of what was an absolutely lovely experience of winter break with my family.
And I'm so glad that I did that for myself, that I held firm with the boundary I created through my planning. This is not always easy and this is often uncomfortable. It's that idea of saying no to yourself, which I did an episode on way, way long ago, right? But it's one of those things where you have to allow it to feel kind of yucky before you start to feel the benefits and allow it to feel really, really good.
One of the reasons why this can feel yucky is because we use more action, more doing, and more overthinking to create a false sense of safety. So when we allow things to be complete and we take away the doing, our brain starts to associate that with danger, lack of certainty, and lack of safety.
So if this is the equation that your brain has practiced at running, it can feel safe to allow yourself that satisfied feeling of enough. This is where you have to be the leader of yourself, that wise and gentle and strong leader. And remind yourself, hey, I've got a plan and I'm willing to sit with this discomfort because I want to see the other side of this. It does not mean you sit there and suffer and spiral in whatever story your brain is telling you.
But what it does mean is that you notice when that urgency or guilt or whatever it is for you comes up from not doing, and then you let it be there like a backseat passenger. Urgency, pressure, anxiety, all of those emotions, they do not get to drive your business. You are the driver.
So you have to interrupt that default pattern with that awareness, slowing down, pausing, which actually doesn't take long. It's mainly the awareness piece. So you interrupt the default pattern, and then you can feel the feeling, whatever it is, and choose to not act from it. And in doing this, you show yourself that you can handle it and that it is in fact safe to rest and take time away.
This practice, and it really is a practice of cultivating the feeling of completeness, is essential. You have probably rehearsed the opposite of this for decades, and it's okay if it takes a bit to unwind. Just promise yourself you will stay the course. And sometimes it means it can be helpful to plan to do something else, something non-business related if you're used to solving for this discomfort by doing in the business. Maybe just do something else as a way to lean into this and get acclimated before you go further. So you could plan something fun, go get active, make a commitment to be there for someone else, so that way, you know, you can feel like, yep, this person's waiting for me, I'm looking forward to seeing them doing this thing, whatever it is. That can be really helpful.
And maybe you still don't sometimes then go do the thing. But that is just all part of the process of change, right? It's going to take a little bit of time, it's going to unfold exactly as it's meant to, but you will get to the other side of this, I promise, if you keep coming back to the idea of interrupting the pattern and not allowing the emotion to choose the action.
Now, I will say the client that I was coaching, she did have this other question, and I thought this was a really great question, and maybe you're thinking this too, of, all right, well, I'm planning to not do anything, right? Whether it's after 5 p.m. or you're taking the weekend, a longer break, right? And then you have a hit of inspiration, okay? You have the best idea ever, and you want to take action, right?
And this was kind of what the client was asking about. She was talking more about creative work in the business because she sometimes gets an urge to create. She gets an idea or like something clicks on a project, and she didn't want to feel like she had to do the work over break, right? That's why she created that plan. But she also didn't want to feel like she was breaking her own rules.
And what I said to her is it's never right or wrong, but we want to tune into our reasoning and if we like our reasons for doing what we're doing. Often, this is going to come down to examining what are the thoughts and emotions fueling the action or fueling the desired action.
So let's say you're committed to feeling complete and you are like, yep, I'm going all in on this. And then you have a creative spark, or you get excited, right? Make sure, before you do anything, check in with yourself. Why do you want to do this and why do you want to do it now? Maybe it's I get to play. This sounds fun. I've been curious about X, Y, Z, and I want to just go down a rabbit hole just for the sake of going down a rabbit hole. Okay, maybe you like that.
Maybe though, you're just in the habit of doing things for your business because you've constantly filled the space with your business and you just aren't sure what else would be fun. That's also possible. Or something else unhelpful that you could come up with, too is that, "Oh, I have an entire lighting package I need to put together." "Oh, that could be fun. I'd like to go look for those lights," right? Like the brain's kind of trying to work around this for you. And I want you to just tune in, like is this a real desire or is it a default pattern or default emotion masquerading as something else?
Only you are going to know the answer, and you might not even know the truth of it after you test this out and get on the other side of it several times. But I want you to think about that too, because as with anything I share here or anything you decide to do in your business, there are no hard and fast rules. There's lots of gray area in all of this. But what always matters most is checking in with the why behind the what, okay?
So take this to heart, whether this is just allowing yourself to gently close the laptop at the end of the day and feel accomplished and ready to move on for the evening, or it's about making steady progress towards your 2026 goals, knowing you're going to get it all done and it doesn't have to all be done at once. I want you to learn how to cultivate and enjoy the satisfaction of allowing enough to be enough and your to-dos to be complete for now, whether that is in one day or over a longer period of time. That's a real game-changer.
Plus, you are going to get way more done in the long run. You're just going to be more proactive with planning, knowing you are going to have a steady, sustainable pace. And as always, right, we have ebbs and flows in the business. There might be some sprints, there might be some pushes, there might be some slower periods, whatever it is.
But in all of that, we can find completeness, and that always is going to get you farther along, and you won't end up pushing, have those periods where you have to recover, where you have to escape, and that is essential. Your body and brain need the time to rest and refuel.
And lastly, you're going to strengthen your relationship with yourself, which in the end makes you more productive too. If you know that you are going to honor your word to yourself and allow the time off when you said you would, you are absolutely going to show up differently when it is time to work. You're going to be more focused, more discerning, and the emotional fuel for your actions will be clean. It's going to guide you to the finish line with that internal motivation instead of shoving you across only to start a new race. It's a way more enjoyable way to work, and it's more effective.
I want you to try this today, this week. Make that plan. Maybe you write at the top of a piece of paper, these are the top three priorities for the day. Maybe this is the one priority. If I get this one thing done, today is a success, right? Even if there's other things you do, make it something that you decide is enough, and decide what, how, when. And then when you're done, enjoy it. There's always going to be more to do and greater goals to accomplish. So start enjoying that process and freeing your mind from the trap of never ever enough.
As we wrap up, I've got a quick request for you to rate and review the show or share it with a friend. I want you to know that when you rate, review, share, you are supporting the show, you're helping it to continue on, to grow, and to be found by other designers who need to hear these conversations. As you put this topic in action, apply it to your own life and business.
I want to hear from you, too. So send me a message at Desi Creswell on Instagram, or you can always reply to one of my emails. Let me know how it's going. I'll be back on February 4th with a brand new episode. And until then, I'm wishing you a beautiful week.
Thanks for joining me for this week's episode of The Interior Design Business CEO. If you want more tips, tools and strategies visit DesiCreswell.com, where you’ll get immediate access to a variety of free resources to help you take what you learn on the podcast and put it into action. And if you love what you’re hearing, be sure to rate, review, and follow the show wherever you listen to podcasts to ensure you never miss an episode. I’ll talk to you next week.
This episode is really inspired both from a recent coaching session that I had with a client and also how this exact issue was coming up for me again as I closed out the year with a pretty clean slate, but my brain didn't want to let it be that way.
Today's episode is an essential lesson in pacing, capacity, and getting the most important work done without burning out or feeling like you're never truly off the clock. With the approach I'm sharing, you're not going to be dropping the ball. What you will be dropping, though, is the story of never enough, always behind, and the perpetual drive to get ahead of an imaginary finish line. We'll dive into this topic from planning and time management, of course, but also, we're going to talk about the feeling that you need to establish of completeness, and it's how you release the urgency and pressure that's been weighing you down.
Welcome to The Interior Design Business CEO, the only show for designers who are ready to confidently run and grow their businesses without the stress and anxiety. If you're ready to develop a bigger vision for your interior design business, free up your time, and streamline your days for productivity and profit, you're in the right place.
I'm Desi Creswell, an award-winning interior designer and certified life and business coach. I help interior designers just like you stop feeling overwhelmed so they can build profitable businesses they love to run. Are you ready to confidently lead your business, clients, and projects? Let's go.
Hello, designer. Welcome back to the podcast. How have you been? It feels like we haven't talked in ages. I know the episodes just keep coming out for you, but I haven't been recording for, I think, almost a month because of how far ahead I needed to get with holidays and time away. So this is, I think, the second day, yeah, second day I'm back in office, first time I'm recording for you in a long time.
We were in Costa Rica and enjoyed the holidays and did lots and lots of fun family outings, lots of relaxation, lots of swimming in the ocean, the beach. I, of course, did a lot of yoga at my favorite studio there. If you listen to, it was around this time last year, episode 118, it was all about my journey to learn how to do a headstand and how that all came together in the year. And that was episode 118. It's called Enough Chances to Succeed. That could be a fun one to listen to after this one.
But anyway, we had such a great time, and I think part of why it felt so restful and so disconnected is because of what I'm going to talk about today. And I thought this would be really the perfect time to talk about allowing your planning, allowing your doing to be complete, to be enough, and to release the expectation of always needing to do more.
At this point, we're over halfway through January. The new year glitter has settled a little bit, and I want to help you release the weight of that perpetual never enough done, never far enough ahead, state of mind and way of being in your business, and frankly, probably in your life too because those patterns tend to follow us everywhere we go because it's us, and we can't escape ourselves.
And of course, this is not, I think I want to say this caveat here of allowing it to be enough, allowing yourself to feel complete in your accomplishments, whether that is you did enough on a Monday or if it's I did enough this quarter or this year, it is absolutely going to be the thing that creates the momentum that you're so keen to create. Enough, I think, sometimes has the sentiment of settling, and I absolutely disagree with that. And that is why I want to use the word complete, but I might be calling it enough here, using lots of different words for it throughout this episode.
But like I said, this was coming up for me at the end of last year. And what was so interesting is podcast episodes that I plan out, typically I'll get an idea while I'm out walking, and I'll send myself, like I'll voice-to-text some ideas so I can kind of keep track of what it is that I was thinking about. But so I had this idea for what I was noticing in myself of finishing up the work that I needed to do and then going, "Oh, but you could do more, Desi." And I thought, I've got to talk about that.
And then I signed on for one of my private coaching calls with my client and she brought the same topic. And I thought, yeah, okay, I've got to talk about this. And I'm guessing that you can relate to it too. That feeling of never enough. And maybe you use the words never enough. It might sound like I should have done more. I wish I could have gotten more done. I'm behind. I could get ahead. Usually means we're also saying I should get ahead, or that would be the ideal, right?
And with what I'm talking about today, there is a practical planning and capacity and time management component to all of this, and it's very much a practice of allowing yourself to be still and to experience the satisfaction of your own accomplishments and allowing yourself to have the mental space to really step away and rejuvenate and allowing that to feel good and release the guilt and the weight of the possibility that you could be doing more.
There's many ways where this not enough, could have done more, should get ahead type mentality is coming about. And sometimes, like I said, it is very practically a planning issue or a time management issue. But I also think there's some other things going on here as well. And let me talk about, there's about five ways I want to highlight for just bringing some awareness to this conversation for you. And you can use this to start to get a frame of mind for where we're going next.
Sometimes what I see, and often this is true of those of us with perfectionistic tendencies or overachievement type personalities, right? We're putting more on the to-do list for the day or the vision board or the goal list or quarterly plan, whatever it is, right? That can be possibly accomplished in the timeframe we've given ourselves.
And absolutely, I'm a big fan of dreaming big. I want you to have a great vision for your life and business, and lots can happen. And what I see is we have to be based somewhat in reality of there's a certain number of hours in the day, your team is a certain size, or maybe you don't have a team yet, whatever that may be. There's like, you know, realities of living here on earth in this time and space, right?
And what I see is there's just too much to be done than could be humanly possible. This overly optimistic or fantasy-based planning puts you in a place where you're failing at the plan before you've even begun it. Meaning like you're already behind before you've even started. And so of course you have this evidence, then at the end of the day, you are behind because, yes, like you created a plan where that would just naturally occur. And we don't want to do that.
I've got lots of episodes on planning realistically, how to manage your time, all of that. But that's one way that this shows up. And it's a lot harder for you to create that mental space to step away and feel complete when you aren't planning appropriately. It's easier to do what we're talking about today when you have been more realistic with your planning, okay?
Another way this shows up is more of a planning pattern that then includes layering on more. So it's where we create the never-enough cycle, where we finish something, maybe we planned, these are my three priorities for the day, I've gotten those done, and then we have the thought I could do more. I could get ahead. This would be so great, right? And we open up new loops. And then what happens is that those loops, just because you had a little extra time doesn't mean you have a ton of extra time, right? So you don't even get through then the loops you open.
And even though you actually did enough, now what you've done is you aren't completing the bonus work you've added on. So then you're just back at feeling behind. You've moved the goalpost on yourself and created a scenario that isn't very useful and often leaves you feeling really defeated and that can lead to you then procrastinating on other things and not being efficient the next day, right?
The other thing that can happen with planning is you haven't defined your timelines or milestones, so you don't really understand what done is. And we end up racing towards a finish line, but we don't know where the course of the race even is. So then what your brain does is it tries to fill in the gaps, thinking, well, I better get there as fast as possible to make sure it's not too late. So you're racing against a clock that you don't know what the time is, you don't know what day it is, you don't know what course you're running, all those things, okay? That's kind of an issue.
Another thing that happens here is that you're afraid that you will lose steam and not follow through in the future. So this is especially, I think, applicable when it is like the start of the new year or new quarter, even sometimes just a Monday, and you're like, yes, this is it. Everything's going to be different from here. And so then you hit the ground running full steam ahead, but what ends up happening is there is a lack of self-trust that is then creating and fueling this urgency that's going to burn you out, right?
Because the reason you're rushing forward is because you're like, I better get as much done of this as possible because I know I'm going to flake out on myself in the future. So I’ve got to capitalize now, right? But what ends up happening is you end up creating the exact thing you didn't want, which is to like have these stops and starts and not following through because you are fueling your actions from pressure and fear and urgency. And none of that is sustainable.
Okay, so there are four examples, but I want to give you this fifth one, and this is the last one I'm going to give you, and it was really what was coming up for me at the end of the year, and also for the client that I was coaching. And in this case, it's where the planning is pretty dialed in. There are set deadlines, there's milestones, there's a plan, right? You're following the plan, and yet your brain wants to run away with all the things it could be doing and not enjoy what it has accomplished and what it has created, and doesn't want to let you take a break, okay? And that really could be at the end of the day or when you're looking back over the last year.
And the reason I want to talk about this today and because I think it is so important, is when you are consistently asking more of yourself than is humanly possible and when you're consistently moving the goalpost of your to-dos so that you never allow space for the feeling of completeness, that is really exhausting. And it is not a way to run a business.
I want you to think about the contrast now. You can probably bring it up in your body of how pressure, anxiety, urgency, how that all feels. It's like very tight, and you're like grinding away. But when you think about how complete feels, the feeling of completeness, it is like a big sigh in the body. It's very solid, it's grounded, it's steady. Those are the emotions that you want to fuel your business with as you grow. And you can create these moments of completeness on a day-to-day basis over the course of this entire year, and it's like this regenerative source of energy versus the pressure and the anxiety, which is going to be so much of a depleter.
If you don't allow yourself to learn to be in a space of sufficiency, of there is enough, I've done enough, I am enough, not only are you going to wear yourself down and you're going to find yourself thinking about work when you want to be present in your life, the big thing is it starts to erode the trust you have in your relationship with yourself. And in your design business, as the CEO, this is the greatest relationship that you can foster because you are the leader, and the leader needs to be supported. And when you don't allow for that feeling of completeness, of sufficiency, you become a boss that you can't trust. What happens is the harder you work, the more work that mean old boss wants to pile on.
And what ends up happening, too, then is really we start to realize there's no incentive to be proactive or efficient because there's just always more waiting. I can even kind of remember this when I was an employee, I was at a very large architecture and design firm.
And I can think back to, yeah, I was so inefficient some days because I just knew, like, I'm going to be here till 9. And no matter how much I bust this work out today, I'm going to be here till 9. So I think I might go take a walk around the block or go grab a coffee or check my email, right? I was in the day of blogs. I love Design Sponge. I would read Design Sponge while typing. And just giving myself that break because it was like, there's always more. We could never feel complete because it was just that expectation. But you're not in that situation right now. You are your own boss, and you want to be a boss that you can trust.
When I was getting ready to wrap up the year, I almost became that person that I didn't really want to be to myself. And same thing was going to happen with my client, but fortunately, we had the session scheduled to talk through it. This was going into the holidays and taking time away for winter break, but this really does apply to any time that you want to take a break and mentally set aside your business so that you can really, truly rejuvenate and come back to your work rested and ready to go and enjoy what you're building and what you're creating. This can be the vacations, the days you're stepping away for a trade show or a retreat, or even just the weekend. This really is an essential skill, and it is going to change the way that you relate to yourself as the owner and the way you relate to your goals and to your business as a whole.
I want to give you a little bit more insight into what the client I'm referencing was talking about during this session. And what happened is during her previous session, we had worked through her bridge plan, which is something that I talk about in episode 158. It's titled Soft Landing, Smooth Takeoff. And it's the plan that I create, I teach my clients to create for end of year into the beginning of the year.
So it's like you close out the year with what you know you need to do and then make a plan before you take time off for what you're coming back to so that way you don't have that hanging over your head of all the what-ifs and what I described earlier where it's like you don't have the timelines and milestones so your brain starts then jumping into this urgency cycle that isn't really necessary because you've got a mental resting spot for your plans and to-dos. So that is what happened on the session we had prior to the one I'm referencing, okay?
And this client of mine, she has an amazing business. She's got lots of large, high-end, very detailed projects and process. She's got lots of installs happening at the start of the year and lots going on in her personal life too with kids heading off into college and wanting to enjoy some downtime. She had been feeling really overwhelmed and came to the call and was like, I need some help. We slowed it down, we did the mindset work, we created a strategy for what she'd do after we got off that call leading to the end of the year, and then of course in the near future too. So that's that soft landing smooth takeoff I was describing.
So that was two weeks prior and then we had another call, all right? And she came on and she's like, I'm feeling so much more grounded and in a much better place. She's like, meaning her and her team should be in a good spot for the holidays by the end of the week. Okay. So that is great. Amazing. Yes, that's exactly what was supposed to happen, right? Yeah.
And here's what she said. She's like, “I see what I need to do in the new year. I've got the client work, the installs. And it feels really indulgent to not do it.” She goes, "I'm worried my future self will be mad at me for not getting ahead." Okay? So even though she did what she'd set out to do, she made the plan, she was ready to wrap it up, she still had that feeling of urgency and pressure, all right? So she created a circumstance for herself where she was getting what she wants, and her brain was still going to go ahead and tell her, you should get ahead.
Now, I want to normalize this. This is just like, you know, something that happens, right? Over time, we get into these emotional behavioral patterns, and the more that we act from them, the more they're reinforced. And when I say emotional behavioral patterns, what I mean is when you feel a certain way, then you do this thing, right? It's like the feeling and then the action. They're tied together. And the more that you do that pairing, the more that it's reinforced in the brain, the more it becomes more quick and automatic and ingrained, right?
And with anything, there's supportive patterns and there's less helpful patterns, right? You could say when I feel tired, I go to bed. That is a good emotional behavioral pattern, right? But sometimes we have some connections that are less useful for us. And that was certainly the case. And often, what I see with this client or with other designers that I work with, that when they feel urgency, pressure, anxiety, right, those are all very similar emotions, there's something specific that they do, a behavioral pattern, to comfort themselves. And in taking that action, they're using it to soothe or dial down the emotion they're trying to escape. This is really, really important to have awareness of.
For yourself, I want you to just think about what are my emotional behavioral patterns? When I feel this way, what do I do to either try and get more of that emotion or try and escape that emotion? You want to know what this is for you so you can start to spot it and do what we'll talk about later in the episode, which is put a pause and redirect.
So with this particular client, there was the urgency and also some guilt too, which no one likes to feel guilty. That's one that we all try and probably run away from, right? Because she was sharing, you know, she hasn't had this kind of space for five to eight years, maybe. So allowing herself to experience that openness actually felt wrong. So the mind was sending the message, "This is wrong," which created a feeling of guilt, and then the client was believing that the presence of that emotion meant that there was something actually wrong that she needed to solve for, except that's not true, right? It's just an emotion, and we don't have to believe it. There was the evidence of following the plan and seeing that everything would be accounted for.
And I'll tell you, this is something I have had to work on a lot myself because like you know as a business owner, there is always more to do. Always. We always have bigger goals, we always have bigger dreams. I talked about that in episode 159, Floors and Ceilings, those identity shifts and knowing that there's always something greater that we will be reaching for and feeling that contentness and presentness in the current state and gratitude for what we've already created, right? So we know that's going to come up. Not a problem, but we don't want to be believing that story of, well, then since it feels wrong to take a beat and step back, that doesn't mean I actually have to listen to that and get back into motion.
So we always just have to start with the awareness. So that is what I want you to do right now, is look at what are some of these emotional behavioral patterns that are showing up for me and what are some of those internal narratives that are really driving decisions and my actions and the way that I show up in the business? Those narratives like I'm behind, never enough, I need to get ahead, I could be doing more, I should be doing more, okay? What are those for you? Maybe it's one of those exactly, maybe it's got a slightly different flavor, but start to pay attention.
And then I want you to get curious and start to inquire why does it feel challenging to allow enough to be enough? I'm not saying settle, like why can't I just settle and like be happy with what I've got? Nope, that's not what I mean. But like letting the things you do be complete. Maybe it's that you are in one of those emotional behavioral patterns where you are just very used to feeling the pressure of those narratives, and it feels like something has gone wrong when it's no longer there, right? So like you finish the things and you're done and then you feel complete, and then you go, wait a second. I am not supposed to be feeling that way, and you jump back into the cycle.
You can also go back to some of that tactical planning stuff. Are you planning in a realistic way so that you are not actually behind? Are you setting your timelines when you tell clients what the timelines are for the project? Are you setting those timelines from a place of never enough, I need to rush forward, need to do this as fast as possible, right? That could be creating a problem for you and we want to know that.
Now, even if you realize you're looking at, yep, I am overcommitted, and there actually is more that I've committed to than I have time for, I'm going to just also say that it is a very good idea to still drop the "I'm behind" story. Because we could argue, well, yes, I am behind. Like, I have this amount of work to do, and I have a presentation tomorrow or something like that. But when we tell ourselves I'm behind, it's never enough, I need to get ahead, all those words that I've been saying, right?
That always is going to lead to overwhelm. And that is a much less effective way to take action because when your brain is in overwhelm, your prefrontal cortex, the smart part, higher-level thinking, planning, executing part of your brain starts to slowly go offline and be hijacked by the amygdala. And you will not get nearly as much done if you are telling your story of behind as if you will if you are taking a focused mindset of like one step at a time, or getting a solutions-focused mindset.
So that's a little bit of a tangent, but I'll just leave you with that. There's lots more episodes that you can find in the feed, okay? But I just, I really encourage you to get curious, ask why? Why is it so hard for enough to be enough? Why is it hard when I tell myself that I'm done, right? That is enough. That is good for this week, for this day, for this six months, whatever it is. You have to understand the root of this because that is where you will really start to make some shifts.
The other thing you can do here is start to explore areas where you do feel complete or where you do feel satisfied with your progress in something. There are likely areas in your life or in your business where you have experienced or regularly experience that calm and satisfaction, and you can take a look at, all right, so I'm doing it there. What is it about that domain that I can learn from and bring that over into the work realm? Really powerful.
Whether this is more of a mindset challenge for you, a planning issue, or likely it's a combination of both, you really do have the choice to decide what is enough and what is complete. What does that look like for you, where you actually just make a decision, and you manufacture enough for yourself? I did an episode on this a while back, 110. It's Defining Enough. Definitely check that one out as part of this process. And that's what my client and I did for her many deadlines and to-dos.
I did this for myself towards the end of last year. I made adjustments to my quarter four plan. I had more on there than I realized I really had capacity for, and I deleted things that I had originally planned to do. I decided some things were no longer important. I moved some things to the next year that I was like, you know what? That's not going to make that big of a difference if I do that in a few months versus right now. I saw some self-imposed deadlines that were going to create unnecessary rush at the end of the year, and just moved those along. I decided enough was enough. And that takes some courage because we are in a world where we are constantly told that bigger is better, more is better, faster is better. And you have to make that switch for yourself if you want to live and work differently.
I want to share though, even though I did all of this, right? I did the bridge plan. I reviewed it. I deleted, I delegated, I deferred, everything I teach. Even though I did that, and even though the plan was going according to plan, my brain still wanted to tell me, "Hey, what about this? What about more?" And I even briefly got caught up in that possibility.
But then I fast-forwarded to my future self, who, you know, my client was talking about, "Well, my future self might be disappointed." And yes, maybe they'll be disappointed you didn't get ahead, quote unquote, ahead. But also, like when I looked ahead to my future self, I saw my future self would not be happy that I took that action because I was going against what I said I really wanted, which was to completely sign off for the winter break, okay? So that pause was essential. It's uncomfortable to interrupt the pattern. It takes practice to interrupt that pattern, but let me tell you, it is worth it, and you can do it if you give it a try, if you keep at it.
When I interrupted the pattern, I took that pause, I could easily see how I could have opened up a bunch of new loops where before I left for break, I started new things to quote unquote, get ahead and how that would have had my brain activated and would have been trying to solve for problems, work on solutions, which would have taken me out of what was an absolutely lovely experience of winter break with my family.
And I'm so glad that I did that for myself, that I held firm with the boundary I created through my planning. This is not always easy and this is often uncomfortable. It's that idea of saying no to yourself, which I did an episode on way, way long ago, right? But it's one of those things where you have to allow it to feel kind of yucky before you start to feel the benefits and allow it to feel really, really good.
One of the reasons why this can feel yucky is because we use more action, more doing, and more overthinking to create a false sense of safety. So when we allow things to be complete and we take away the doing, our brain starts to associate that with danger, lack of certainty, and lack of safety.
So if this is the equation that your brain has practiced at running, it can feel safe to allow yourself that satisfied feeling of enough. This is where you have to be the leader of yourself, that wise and gentle and strong leader. And remind yourself, hey, I've got a plan and I'm willing to sit with this discomfort because I want to see the other side of this. It does not mean you sit there and suffer and spiral in whatever story your brain is telling you.
But what it does mean is that you notice when that urgency or guilt or whatever it is for you comes up from not doing, and then you let it be there like a backseat passenger. Urgency, pressure, anxiety, all of those emotions, they do not get to drive your business. You are the driver.
So you have to interrupt that default pattern with that awareness, slowing down, pausing, which actually doesn't take long. It's mainly the awareness piece. So you interrupt the default pattern, and then you can feel the feeling, whatever it is, and choose to not act from it. And in doing this, you show yourself that you can handle it and that it is in fact safe to rest and take time away.
This practice, and it really is a practice of cultivating the feeling of completeness, is essential. You have probably rehearsed the opposite of this for decades, and it's okay if it takes a bit to unwind. Just promise yourself you will stay the course. And sometimes it means it can be helpful to plan to do something else, something non-business related if you're used to solving for this discomfort by doing in the business. Maybe just do something else as a way to lean into this and get acclimated before you go further. So you could plan something fun, go get active, make a commitment to be there for someone else, so that way, you know, you can feel like, yep, this person's waiting for me, I'm looking forward to seeing them doing this thing, whatever it is. That can be really helpful.
And maybe you still don't sometimes then go do the thing. But that is just all part of the process of change, right? It's going to take a little bit of time, it's going to unfold exactly as it's meant to, but you will get to the other side of this, I promise, if you keep coming back to the idea of interrupting the pattern and not allowing the emotion to choose the action.
Now, I will say the client that I was coaching, she did have this other question, and I thought this was a really great question, and maybe you're thinking this too, of, all right, well, I'm planning to not do anything, right? Whether it's after 5 p.m. or you're taking the weekend, a longer break, right? And then you have a hit of inspiration, okay? You have the best idea ever, and you want to take action, right?
And this was kind of what the client was asking about. She was talking more about creative work in the business because she sometimes gets an urge to create. She gets an idea or like something clicks on a project, and she didn't want to feel like she had to do the work over break, right? That's why she created that plan. But she also didn't want to feel like she was breaking her own rules.
And what I said to her is it's never right or wrong, but we want to tune into our reasoning and if we like our reasons for doing what we're doing. Often, this is going to come down to examining what are the thoughts and emotions fueling the action or fueling the desired action.
So let's say you're committed to feeling complete and you are like, yep, I'm going all in on this. And then you have a creative spark, or you get excited, right? Make sure, before you do anything, check in with yourself. Why do you want to do this and why do you want to do it now? Maybe it's I get to play. This sounds fun. I've been curious about X, Y, Z, and I want to just go down a rabbit hole just for the sake of going down a rabbit hole. Okay, maybe you like that.
Maybe though, you're just in the habit of doing things for your business because you've constantly filled the space with your business and you just aren't sure what else would be fun. That's also possible. Or something else unhelpful that you could come up with, too is that, "Oh, I have an entire lighting package I need to put together." "Oh, that could be fun. I'd like to go look for those lights," right? Like the brain's kind of trying to work around this for you. And I want you to just tune in, like is this a real desire or is it a default pattern or default emotion masquerading as something else?
Only you are going to know the answer, and you might not even know the truth of it after you test this out and get on the other side of it several times. But I want you to think about that too, because as with anything I share here or anything you decide to do in your business, there are no hard and fast rules. There's lots of gray area in all of this. But what always matters most is checking in with the why behind the what, okay?
So take this to heart, whether this is just allowing yourself to gently close the laptop at the end of the day and feel accomplished and ready to move on for the evening, or it's about making steady progress towards your 2026 goals, knowing you're going to get it all done and it doesn't have to all be done at once. I want you to learn how to cultivate and enjoy the satisfaction of allowing enough to be enough and your to-dos to be complete for now, whether that is in one day or over a longer period of time. That's a real game-changer.
Plus, you are going to get way more done in the long run. You're just going to be more proactive with planning, knowing you are going to have a steady, sustainable pace. And as always, right, we have ebbs and flows in the business. There might be some sprints, there might be some pushes, there might be some slower periods, whatever it is.
But in all of that, we can find completeness, and that always is going to get you farther along, and you won't end up pushing, have those periods where you have to recover, where you have to escape, and that is essential. Your body and brain need the time to rest and refuel.
And lastly, you're going to strengthen your relationship with yourself, which in the end makes you more productive too. If you know that you are going to honor your word to yourself and allow the time off when you said you would, you are absolutely going to show up differently when it is time to work. You're going to be more focused, more discerning, and the emotional fuel for your actions will be clean. It's going to guide you to the finish line with that internal motivation instead of shoving you across only to start a new race. It's a way more enjoyable way to work, and it's more effective.
I want you to try this today, this week. Make that plan. Maybe you write at the top of a piece of paper, these are the top three priorities for the day. Maybe this is the one priority. If I get this one thing done, today is a success, right? Even if there's other things you do, make it something that you decide is enough, and decide what, how, when. And then when you're done, enjoy it. There's always going to be more to do and greater goals to accomplish. So start enjoying that process and freeing your mind from the trap of never ever enough.
As we wrap up, I've got a quick request for you to rate and review the show or share it with a friend. I want you to know that when you rate, review, share, you are supporting the show, you're helping it to continue on, to grow, and to be found by other designers who need to hear these conversations. As you put this topic in action, apply it to your own life and business.
I want to hear from you, too. So send me a message at Desi Creswell on Instagram, or you can always reply to one of my emails. Let me know how it's going. I'll be back on February 4th with a brand new episode. And until then, I'm wishing you a beautiful week.
Thanks for joining me for this week's episode of The Interior Design Business CEO. If you want more tips, tools and strategies visit DesiCreswell.com, where you’ll get immediate access to a variety of free resources to help you take what you learn on the podcast and put it into action. And if you love what you’re hearing, be sure to rate, review, and follow the show wherever you listen to podcasts to ensure you never miss an episode. I’ll talk to you next week.
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