January: month-in-review
what's working, what's hard, a list of my favourite things and money talk
Accidentally, On Purpose is a newsletter filled with honest stories about crafting a well-lived life. Thank you so much for being here.
Pre-S: Doors to the Biz Buddies Club are closing on Wednesday. If you’ve been thinking about joining us, now’s the time.
For a while I have been wanting to get back into writing a proper month-in-review post. I don’t know about you, but - for some reason I can’t quite explain - they are one of my absolute favourite posts to read when other people share them. Perhaps it’s the unfiltered inside look through the window of someone else’s life that delights my curiosity. Or maybe it’s that they offer me a starting point to consider some of my own reflections on the month past. Either way, there’s something about this way of sharing and viewing content that I really enjoy.
I used to write a business-oriented version of this on my blog way back in the day, and when I moved to Substack I switched to offering round-ups of elements of my life that were feeling soothing and supportive. But I’d like to weave these all together into one post where I share the highs and lows of the month that has passed, what’s working and what emphatically isn’t working, and a curated list of other things I’ve been reading, watching, or listening to that have been supporting me. I’ll also include a little business corner for those of you who are interested in that side of things, and a few journal prompts for you to carry out your own reflections if you so choose.
I share all this not because I think I’m oh so important and interesting. But because I know that observing other people reflect on their own lives serves to hold up a mirror for us to do the same.
Alright, enough rambly pre-amble. Let’s dive in…
What’s working:
Every year I pick a word of the year. This year, my word is vitality. Perhaps it’s a funny choice given that this year I will also become a mother, and my own vitality may take a back seat. But that’s exactly why I chose vitality as my word of the year - as an anchor point I can return to, to be reminded of my priorities even when I’ve been up all night with a crying babe.
This month I’ve been centering my focus, wherever I can, around this word and getting clear on what vitality means to me. In short, vitality asks me to move my body in ways that feel good, eat nourishing food, take breaks and rest when I need to, engage in creativity and connection in ways that enliven me, and spend time in nature more often. While none of this is rocket science, re-prioritizing these elements of my life this month has felt deeply supportive.
I’ve also been seeing a chiropractor (something I’d never tried before) to support me with ongoing tension headaches and neck pain - and it’s been working! I’ve been doing a prenatal fitness program online that has been helping guide my movement practice and supporting me to feel more physically prepared for birthing a baby.
What else has been working: Honest conversations with my partner about finances. Deleting Instagram from my phone and drastically limiting my time on social media. Taking Wednesdays off from client work so I have a break from holding space in the middle of the week. Getting outside in the garden to do some pruning before the early spring buds begin to form. Going for hikes more often again, even when my pregnant body feels oh-so-tired. And lots and lots of cuddles with my pup.
What’s feeling hard:
The ongoing dance with fatigue, and finding the balance between showing up for things in my life and showing up for the needs of my body (and the baby it’s currently growing). Being far away geographically from the friends I feel closest to right now. Ongoing bouts of morning sickness. Financial tightness.
What I want to shift for the month ahead:
Opening a paid tier on my Substack (Whaaaaat!? Yep we’re doing it - more on that next week).
Lowering the bar I’ve set for myself financially and shifting toward a more realistic level of earning in this season of my life, which also will require me to budget a little more fervently. A part of this for me will be practicing shifting my mentality around scarcity and money, and holding a lot of discomfort that’s coming up around this. I’ve got a post about this in the works as well.
Journal prompts for the month ahead:
Every month, I’ll offer a few journal prompts that you can use to reflect on your own month and carry forward into the month ahead. These are the prompts I’ve been using and reflecting on in my own life, and finding deeply supportive to consider. I hope they’ll feel nourishing for you to explore as well:
What made you feel most alive this past month? What drained your energy and vitality?
What would it look like to be loving to yourself in the month ahead? How can you treat yourself as a beloved?
What is one thing you could do to better support your body next month? What about your heart? Your mind? Your spirit?
Reading, watching, listening, making, loving:
I have been absolutely appreciating everything
has been posting over on her new Substack, especially this article on spiritual bypassing. I’ve also joined her paid tier in order to access her online community The Web - a home for exploring the place where spirituality and activism intersect - and I look forward to seeing how that space develops.As always, I adored listening to Lindsay Mack’s Monthly Medicine episode on her podcast at the beginning of the month, and am already looking forward to February’s episode.
I’ve been re-visiting
’s recent post about the ways in which we can slow down the sense of urgency so many of us feeling. The affirmation she offers in that post has been on repeat in my head. Actually, life is beautiful, and I have time. Actually, life is beautiful, and I have time.I loved reading both Holly by Stephen King and All the Living and the Dead by Hayley Campbell this month.
I’ve been taking Bridget Teyler’s online birth prep course and it has been helping me feel really confident in my pregnancy journey and preparing for my own birth. I highly recommend it to any new mamas-to-be.
I don’t think I’ll be able to participate myself this time around, but am loving the looks of Toi Smith’s upcoming program Uprooting Capitalism.
I was highly skeptical about this recipe at first, but ended up adoring this soup.
This article on the spiralic nature of life and how we keep coming back to learn the same lessons again and again by
was a balm to my soul.I’m so thrilled the Belonging podcast by my dear friend Becca Piastrelli has returned for another season! It was a delight to listen to the first episode she shared after a many-month hiatus.
I’m barely on Instagram anymore, but stumbled across this post by Nisha Moodley this morning and it touched me so deeply.
Biz corner:
For those of you who have a small business of your own, or are simply interested in the behind-the-scenes aspect of other peoples’ lives (raises hand!), I grant you access to the Biz Corner. This is a wee little round-up of all things money and business, which I share to help normalize the realities of what this work actually looks like and how this plays out in my own life. If you’d be interested in more content of this nature, please do let me know!
We have such a tendency to jump to conclusions about the lives of others we see online, and often tend to make assumptions that are untrue about their lives or their income or their level of “success”. The more we can be honest about our own realities, the more we can dispel some of the separation we often feel from others. And so, here’s an honest look inside the back-end of my money and work.
This month was all about prioritizing filling my therapy practice up to my version of a full client load (which is roughly 8-10 clients per week). Some therapists see far more clients than this in a given week, but I know for me that’s the sweet spot. It’s the number of people I can really generously show up for reach week without feeling burnt out or resentful of the work and the way it drains my energy. And it leaves me space to dabble in other things in my work life.
This month I also opened the doors to the Biz Buddies Club (which closes in just a couple of days). My approach was to treat this as a grand experiment in easeful launching. I haven’t poured much energy into this launch and wanted to see if that was a viable approach given the current landscape of my business. I’ll let you know next month how it ended up going.
Finally, I re-prioritized showing up on Substack reliably and consistently again this month - something I’m truly enjoying and am really committed to in an ongoing way. It’s certainly the place I most enjoy creating content and connecting with my audience, especially as I find myself pulling away more and more from social media, and Instagram in particular.
I also started using a version of the Profit First model in my business and creating more intentional cashflow systems, as well as paying myself a set salary every month. All of this is really helping soothe my nervous system when it comes to the financial scarcity that often flares up in this work.
The money breakdown:
Monthly revenue (numbers are somewhat approximate as I’m sending this out a couple days before the end of the month):
Therapy clients: $4200
Business coaching clients: $200
Back-end business support for another small business friend I’m working with: $280
Total revenue: $4680
(I also made a couple hundred dollars working at a local boutique shop I still occasionally take shifts at, but this obviously isn’t part of my business revenue and adds a little extra buffer to my personal spending).
Here’s how I distribute that revenue:
22% goes into an account for taxes: $1030 (This is a slightly lower amount than I normally set aside for taxes and is based on the fact that my income will be drastically reduced when I go on mat leave and therefore my taxes for this year will be significantly lower than normal).
5% goes into a business expense account to cover things like insurance, my therapist accreditation, website hosting, etc: $235
3% goes into a profit account that I pay myself out as a fun little bonus at the end of every quarter: $140
The remaining 70% goes into my owner’s compensation account: $3275
How I pay myself:
Because my income is lower than usual this year, I’m currently paying myself a monthly salary of $3000. This is very much the number I need to survive, not the number I need to thrive. This number pays my half of our mortgage and shared expenses (groceries, water, hydro, vet bills, house insurance, etc) and leaves me with only about $500 a month for personal spending (phone bill, personal needs like haircuts or massage, fun money, meals out, etc). I’m not going to lie, paying myself this number feels very tight. And it’s the reality in this current season of my life.
Any leftover money in the owner’s compensation account (in this case about $275) I save there. At the end of the quarter, I distribute half of that money across personal savings, and I leave the other half in the owner’s comp account to build a buffer for lower income months so I can continue to pay myself a set salary.
If you have any questions about this side of things, I truly love to talk about all things money, so don’t hesitate to drop any queries in the comments below.
Alright folks, that’s a wrap! If you made it this far, I’d love to know what you think. Helpful? Fun? Interesting? Give me your hot take so I know whether to keep this particular column going.
Sooo inspired by this and might end up doing a round up of the month myself! Thanks for being so transparent and open with us :)
Yep, I am with you on loving these types of round-up posts. I find it kinda makes us feel less alone in our own lives, reading and supporting others as they go about living their lives. Plus, they are great for cross-pollination of content out there as there is just too much to cover on your own. So thank you!