How to Increase Your Capacity as a Creative Entrepreneur: The Ultimate Upgrade
You’re here because you want the freedom that comes with being a creative entrepreneur. But that means being able to increase your capacity to do ALL.THE.THINGS. As you begin to fully integrate this new entrepreneurial part of yourself with your already-in-progress life, you’ll need to be able to stretch in ways that might challenge your energy.
BUT, there’s one thing stopping you from doing that.
Your capacity. Your already very full brain.
I’ve been coaching my clients on their belief that they have the capacity to run a business while having a full time job. Maybe it’s not a forever thing. Maybe they shift into doing it full time. But you need coaching for right now, in the thick of it. Anytime you have a big goal, your brain is going to want to tell you that you don’t have the energy to deal with it. You might be thinking, I have a job. I have kids. I’m busy. I have no time left over.
Or sometimes our brain tells us that we don’t have time to learn this skill set. Maybe it’s sales or marketing. Maybe it feels foreign to tell people about what you’re doing in a way that’s fun or interesting for them.
I did this exact capacity dance earlier this year. I got fully invested in who (that’s you!) I’m serving and decided wholeheartedly that I’m running another business on top of my full time, 40+ hour a week job with a 45 minute commute each way and two kids still in elementary school.
Head visionary,
head budgeter,
and head of operations.
That’s me. And tbh - it’s probably you too.
Now my husband is there for our family through and through. He takes on a lot of the kid drop off/pick up and cooking and I’m so grateful for that. But even then, I’m still part of everything. We strategize together about how to best make this work, but now that they’re getting older and getting into more things, it’s constantly changing.
So me and my routine loving ass, get challenged on that capacity shit weekly.
Increasing Capacity
So you want to be able to do something you aren’t currently doing? Perfect. Let’s experiment with it. 🧫 🧪 🔬
*One thing you’ll learn about me as we work together is that if it’s an experiment, it doesn’t hold that All or Nothing power that we often defer to.
The way we do that is by questioning your brain’s thoughts about your capacity. Capacity, in this sense, is usually a combination of mental and physical energies. Merriam-Webster defines it as the ability to hold or contain. So the ability to hold or contain mental and physical energies.
I’m going to walk you through what it takes for you to increase your capacity as the human you are now and to add in the creative entrepreneur upgrade. That’s right! Our brains are the largest, most green computers on this Earth. We can generate a tremendous amount of computational output for about 12 watts. That’s waking or sleeping. (Thanks Princeton Press)
Mental
By far, the biggest part of adding the Creative Entrepreneur package is upgrading your mental capacity. It might be learning a new skill like marketing. So right now I’m in the thick of figuring out how I want to let people know about my offer in a fun and engaging way. It’s challenging right now because there are SOOOO many ways to talk to people about it! But my brain offers there aren’t. There is only one way, I haven’t found it, I’m not doing it, therefore I’m a failure. Then my brain decides we should learn ALL of the marketing. This is where it gets hairy. My mindset go-to is “doing it right”. Which means there are a million ways to do it wrong, but only one way to do it right. Another reason to tell myself I can’t do it.
Do you see where the overwhelm lies though? My capacity is filled to the brim, but not with the marketing itself. It’s not even in the different ways I could decide to do it.
It’s in the thought that there is a *right* way to do it.
That thought will stop you in your tracks and start burning up the motor.
Now think of something that you’ve been putting off in your business. See if you can find the thought that’s stopping you. Now write it down.
Physical
Your physical energy is intertwined with your mental energy. Let me show you how that’s true with this hypothetical example.
You’ve had a long day. You’re just getting home, you know you need to throw something together for dinner but your brain is toast, so maybe ordering pizza will do. You come in, lay on the couch while the kids drag out the karaoke machine Santa now deeply regrets, but then you get a text message from a friend inviting you to a last minute spa date.
Babe - I’m getting up. I’m getting dressed. I am out the door.
Not into spas? Fine - Last minute tickets to see a band you love. Basically something you’re excited about.
The point is, your energy can switch on a dime. Nothing has outwardly changed. It’s not like you were gifted additional amounts of energy. Your thoughts created a feeling that resulted in that energy.
So when you’re thinking there’s a right way to do this and I’m not even close to figuring it out coupled with the fact that you’re not excited about the outcome because it’s been predetermined to be a failure, your capacity to install the Creative Entrepreneur Upgrade is unavailable.
Here are some possible solutions to solve for capacity.
The Experimental Solutions
1. Increasing your capacity means establishing a routine and letting it run.
Once you have a solid routine in your business, you know longer have to “make” yourself do it. This can go for finishing the project you're working on to marketing it to the masses. The more often you complete a task, the stronger and deeper the neural pathways become. You will no longer have to make a deliberate decision to do the routine because it will become almost automatic.
When you’re working for yourself, you might start by questioning everything you’re doing. You’re not sure if you’re on the right track. There are other people telling you what to do even though they aren’t in your business. The people you look to for advice contradict each other. And then you begin to question yourself.
But once you decide what you’re going to do - which only takes a few seconds btw - and you love your decision, then that’s done. As long as you’re getting the result you’re looking for, you don’t look outward again. That will give you time to establish a routine. Once you have a routine that doesn’t require your direct focus, you begin adding other things.
Sometimes it’s as simple as creating a routine where you sit at your laptop in the morning. Once it’s a non-negotiable and you don’t question, argue, fight with yourself about sitting down or not, then we can add in the work. Eliminating the back and forth frees up bandwidth.
2. Increasing your capacity means questioning your bandwidth.
The mental/physical bandwidth will be full as long as you allow it to be. It’s easy to fall victim to the I have so much to do, I’m so busy lifestyle. Sometimes we even wear it as a badge of honor. I get that! It’s like giving yourself a gold star for playing the life game. And honestly, you deserve it. But if you’re letting it stop you from adding in the things you TRULY want to do with your life, then we’re going to have to decide how to think about it a little differently.
That’s right, I said decide. You’re in charge of that. Your capacity is yours and yours alone.
You decide what comes in.
You decide what gets prioritized.
You decide what to let go of or delegate.
Deciding what comes in has to do with establishing boundaries and your beliefs. (A full on article for another day. I’ll link it here when I get it written.)
Deciding what gets prioritized has to do with your beliefs.
Deciding what to let go of or delegate has to do with releasing the outcome and your beliefs.
Believing your beliefs about your capacity will be the single biggest change in what you’re able to do and accomplish
Everything you believe about yourself and your capacity is based on a thought from the past. Beliefs are nothing more than thoughts you’ve thought over and over until they became beliefs.
Here are some ways to identify your current beliefs about your capacity and question them. Then you can decide if that thought is serving you or not. (Hint: If you feel negative feelings when you think the thought, then that thought probably isn’t serving you).
What do you believe about your capacity?
What do you believe about yourself as a creative entrepreneur?
What are the lessons your parents taught you?
What do you believe about your dreams coming true?
What do you believe about your ability to create what you want with your capacity?
Why do you have your current results in your business?
3. Increasing capacity means taking actual action, not passive action.
When you begin taking action, your capacity increases.
It’s no longer a potential. It’s an action that causes a reaction. That reaction provides you with more data to take another action. Your capacity is not rigid and inflexible. It expands when you do.
Sometimes it’s The Potential gumming up the works!
The Potential feels precious. It’s perfect. You’ve thought about it every which way and she’s a shining star… buuuuuuut… the minute you start taking action toward it, you start seeing the cracks. We’re often inclined to go back and fix the cracks before we go any further, but that’s where we start losing capacity.
The back and forth takes up mental bandwidth. The studying, courses, masterminds, listening, practicing, and reading that feel like taking action are passive actions bolstering the Potential. They will not provide you with a result. It fills your capacity with how busy you are. But it’s just you being busy preparing for action. It’s delaying the action.
The action pushes you forward and boom → a portion of your capacity frees back up.
Riddle me this: What’s an example of one massive action you could take today toward one of your business goals?
Join FINISHIT!
Your capacity is malleable. It expands, bends, and moves with your thoughts and beliefs. If you want to get deeper into learning what works for you in terms of energetic capacity and what you’re truly capable of finishing despite your already full time life, then head on over to book a free call with me to see what’s possible for you!