My mini-sabbatical: Why I'm taking time off and how I'm reshaping my business

This is a different episode to the usual one—because it's my last episode for a while! That's right, I'm packing my life into storage, getting behind the wheel of a van and I'm taking a mini-sabbatical. So in today's episode, I'm sharing *why* I'm taking some time off and how I'm reshaping my business as I move forward.

- Why taking some time away is the best thing for me right now—even though I buried my head in the sand for months.
- How making some really big decisions about my life has meant some really big changes are on the horizon.
- The reasons behind pausing this podcast (and it is just a pause, not an ending!).
- The one way that you can continue to work with me while I'm on my mini-sabbatical.

SHOW LINKS:
- DM me “EMM” on Instagram (@stephtaylor.co) for my free download “Escape the Messy Middle” or visit https://stephtaylor.co/escape-the-messy-middle

- Get my Daily Biz Booster emails: https://stephtaylor.co/DBB
- 5 Simple Tweaks to Boost Your Launch Profits: https://stephtaylor.co/tweaks
- Want me to spend a day working on your next launch? Book a VIP intensive: https://stephtaylor.co/vip
- Get The A-Z Podcast Launch Plan: https://stephtaylor.co/plp-ig
- Get a 30-day free trial of Kajabi: https://stephtaylor.co/kajabi

Let's be Instagram friends: https://instagram.com/stephtay...

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Doing the hard things hasn't been as hard as being
in that space of knowing that something needed to change
and not doing anything to change it. Like I spent
probably the first four or five months of this year
with my head buried in the sand, trying to pretend
that I didn't need to change everything, while all of
the signs were telling me, Steff, something's not in alignment,

(00:22):
not in alignment, not in alignment. And I just kept
ignoring it until it got louder and louder and louder,
and then suddenly I was like, Okay, great, I probably
should change something. Welcome to imperfect Action. I'm Steph Taylor.
For years, I read all the books, downloaded all the freebies,
and did all the courses, but it wasn't until I

(00:42):
started taking imperfect action that my business had its first
million dollar year. Imperfect action is about doing things before
you're ready, prioritizing consistent action over perfect action, and moving
forward even when you're not sure you're doing it right.
On this show, you can expect mindset advice, actionable marketing

(01:02):
tips and strategies to build a business that brings you
more profit, more freedom, and even more joy. Are you
on the list to get my daily businesses. Every day
i'll send you a bite sized prompt designed to help
you grow your business in a more intentional way. Sign
up at Steph Taylor dot Co, forward slash DBB, or

(01:22):
at the link in the show notes. Hey, welcome back
to My Perfect Action. This is episode eight hundred and
fifty three, and today is difficult, interesting, exciting, different. I
don't even know like all of the different words, because
I have made some massive, massive decisions about my business

(01:46):
and my life over the last couple of months, and
there are some big changes on the horizon, and up
until this point, I haven't really told anybody aside from
my team and some of my students and my friends.
But in short, what I'm doing is, I'm taking a
little mini sabbatical. I'm taking a few months off from

(02:07):
this podcast, from most of the parts of my business.
I'm buying a van and I'm traveling around Australia for
an unspecified amount of time, which feels very weird to say.
I've had a lot of people ask me like, when
are you coming back, where you're going to live when
you come back, all of those kinds of questions, and

(02:28):
a lot of it is I don't know, which is
really scary for somebody who is usually pretty well planned,
and even though I'm not a very organized person, I
generally have a good plan of where I'm going to be,
what I'm going to do. So it's kind of scary
not knowing what's coming up, whether I'm going to last
three months in my van, whether I'm going to last

(02:48):
twelve months, whether I'm going to move back to Brisbane
where I live at the end of it, or whether
I'm going to move up to the Sunshine Coast, which
is where I've been thinking about moving for a very
long time and just haven't really got around to it.
So there's a lot up in the air, and I'm
going to share a little bit more of this episode
about what prompted the decision, what my business is going

(03:11):
to look like while I'm traveling, what I guess, what's
been going through my head, what I think is gonna
how I think this change is going to impact my
business in the long run. So what prompted this decision
to step back and make these changes. In short, I've
been feeling a bit of creative fatigue. It's not burnout.

(03:31):
I have had burnout in my business before, and this
is different because there are still things that I feel
excited about and that I've been working on, Like, for example,
i started studying a Master's of neuroscience at the start
of this year, and I'm able to sit down and
I have the energy and the focus and the drive
to work on that, whereas I don't feel the creative

(03:53):
inspiration that my business requires from me and that I
normally have. You know, I'm normally full of ideas, and
I just haven't had that creative energy like I used to.
And I guess the other thing that prompted it is
right now, everything is changing very quickly in the online
business space, with AI getting much much much better, like

(04:18):
everything's you know, everything's developing at a very rapid pace
in that space, along with the economy. Obviously, it's a
little bit tougher than it was a few years ago,
and I've spoken about that in previous episodes. But both
of those factors together really made me realize I need
to change things up. But the scary thing is that

(04:38):
I don't have the ideas that I normally would have
about how I'm going to change things up. Right, Normally,
I'm like, great, I'm going to create this offer and
this offer and this offer, and I'm going to do that.
I'm going to change that. I don't have that at
the moment, which for me is really rare. This is
the first time that's ever really happened. And I know
it's because I guess my brain is just tapped out

(05:03):
of ideas for a while. I haven't had the space
to just be bored and to have those ideas and
that inspiration come back. So I will still be running
my business while I'm traveling, but I'm going to be
doing much much less. So my main focus while I'm
traveling is on conversion campaigns. I'm wrapping up Week twelve

(05:23):
of Launch Magic in September, and then after that it's
just conversion campaigns. I'm not really wanting to launch any
of my other offers while I'm away, so I'm not
going to run Launch Magic again this year. I'm not
going to run Freedom fast Track again this year. And basically,
conversion campaigns is the only way that my students can
keep learning from me. It's also my way of keeping

(05:45):
in touch with the online business world and with my
community and keeping a bit of a feel on what
they need from me. Even though I'm going to be
spending a lot more time offline. So it's kind of
my way of keeping my finger on the pulse, I guess,
because it is important that I see what's changing, and
it's important that I get the sense of, you know,

(06:06):
what do people need from me? How can I serve
people with my business going forward? Rather than me thinking
of those ideas in a vacuum. And if I think about,
you know, the last couple of years, we've been doing
so much as a business, and our energy has been
spread very thinly. My energy has been spread very thinly
as well. And rather than focusing on one thing or

(06:28):
a couple of things and doing it really well, I've
kind of been in this energy of let's do more,
let's do more, let's add this, let's add that. So
this is now my time to really double down on
the one thing that I really believe in. And I know,
like you know, I know my membership has so much
potential to help online business owners. I just haven't had

(06:50):
the time and the space to double down on it
and grow it like it deserves to be grown. So
what about this podcast right now? I'm hitting on this
show for a few reasons, and that was a huge
decision because, as you know, like this show has been
around since twenty eighteen, three times a week since twenty eighteen.

(07:10):
And there are two main reasons why I'm hitting pause
while I'm traveling. Firstly, the logistics of recording a podcast
while living in a van are an absolute nightmare. So
you probably, I mean, unless you've watched a YouTube video
of any of my past episodes, and even if you have,
you wouldn't see all of the recording gear that is required.
So I have a big mixer, a massive mixer that

(07:32):
is like three times the size of my laptop, and
I have a massive microphone stand, and I have a microphone,
and all of these things require AC power, which my
van will have. It will have solar panels, and it
will have an inverter. But the problem is that this
recording gear draws down quite a lot of power, so
it would run my battery flat pretty quickly. That's the

(07:53):
first problem. Secondly, the acoustics in a small, enclosed space
like a van might not be ideal. I haven't bought
the van yet, so I don't quite know, but chances
it's not It's gonna be quite echoe. It's not going
to be as nice as recording in my office. But
the main reason that I'm hitting pause, the main driver
behind the decision to hit pause, was that right now

(08:14):
I feel like the content cow, and I feel like
this cow has been milked dry a little bit, like
after eight hundred and fifty episodes. I don't really feel
like I have anything new to say, not right now anyway,
And I know that after a few months away, the
ideas will come back. I used to have so many
notes in my notes up on my phone with just

(08:35):
idea after idea after idea of thing that I wanted
to talk about, and that just hasn't been the case
in the last couple of months. So I know that
with that space, the ideas will come back. So don't worry,
I will be back, just not yet. And I think
that this is going to have a really good impact
on my business in the long run. I need that

(08:59):
time to just be bored, because for me, I know
that's when the inspiration strikes and when the ideas flow in.
And you know, I haven't really been fully away from
my computer, away from my desk this year, because even
when I went to France at the start of the
year and I was skiing, I was still working because
I knew, you know, my business needed me, my programs

(09:20):
needed me, my team needed me. There was lots to
be done, so I couldn't actually properly disconnect and I
couldn't really properly be bored. So it's been a while
since I've had that. I'm also quite excited to finish
my master's degree while I'm traveling and see how I
can apply some of the things that I'm learning about
neuroscience to my business and helping my students more. I

(09:42):
know there's a lot there's definitely a connection there between
you know, how the brain is working and how we
are taking action in our business or not taking action
in our businesses. But for me, I need to really
dive a little bit deeper into it to kind of really,
I don't know, build on that understanding so I can
help people with that as well potentially or add that

(10:03):
to my courses. I don't know where that's going to
fit in, but there's definitely an opportunity there that I'm feeling,
and you know, I believe so much in conversion campaigns.
I think it's something that every online business owner needs.
So having this space away from all of the other
things that I've been doing. This gives me time and

(10:23):
yes space, time and energy to really get creative with
how I grow with membership. It's something that I only
started this year, and I haven't had a lot of
time and space to focus on growing it yet. So
I know that once I have that emptiness, that empty
space the bottom, then the ideas of oh, I'm going
to try this, I'm going to try that, that will
come back, and I will at some stage share a

(10:45):
little bit more about the whole process of scaling things back,
making these decisions, taking the time off. I'll share. I'll
share more about that once I'm on the other side
of it. Right now, I'm in the middle of it,
and I think it was Amy Porterfield who said this,
share your scars, not your scabs, which I really do
believe in as well, because you know, I could brain

(11:07):
dumb onto you everything that's going through my head, all
of the stuff that's been happening, but that's not going
to be very helpful to you, and it's going to
be very clouded by my current emotions being in the
middle of this mess, like literal physical mess, because I'm
packing up my house right now, but also the kind
of mental mess, the emotional mess, all of the mess.
So I will share more about it when I'm on

(11:28):
the other side of it, but I guess what the
short version is. It has been a whole series of
really really scary decisions, like the hardest decisions I've ever
had to make, And there has been a lot of
trusting the process, a lot of letting go of control.
You know, I chose to sell my house, and that

(11:49):
whole process meant releasing control of the timing because I
didn't know when anything was going to happen, so I
just kind of had to trust that the timing would
all line up and things would happen in the order
they were meant to happen. And you know, as I'm
recording this, I'm surrounded by boxes. I'm packing my entire
house into storage, which is hard. It's a hard job,

(12:09):
but you know, it's temporary, like most hard things are.
It's temporary. And you know, in a couple of days
time after recording this episode, by the time you hear it,
I'll be at my house. But in a couple of
days time that will have passed. I will have done
the hard thing. And that was one of the things.
Packing up my house was one of the hard things
that made me put off the decision because I wasn't

(12:33):
I didn't want to do it. I was resisting it.
But doing the hard things hasn't been as hard as
being in that space of knowing that something needed to
change and not doing anything to change it. Like I
spent probably the first four or five months of this
year with my head buried in the sand, trying to
pretend that I didn't need to change everything, while all

(12:55):
of the signs were telling me step something's not in alignment,
not in alignment, not an alignment, And I just kept
ignoring it until it got louder and louder and louder,
and then suddenly I was like, Okay, great, I probably
should change something. And I will share more about that
process when I process it myself. But I guess at
the moment, if there's one message that you take from this,

(13:17):
I want you to know that it is okay to
make the scary choices and do the scary things, and
if something doesn't feel in alignment, then it is okay
to change it, even if it all feels impossible, even
if you don't have all the steps figured out, you know,
right now, I still don't feel like I have all
the steps figured out. I don't even have a van yet,
and I'm going I'm about to move out my house,
right So it's all definitely something you know, it's doable.

(13:40):
You just kind of have to trust that things will
sort themselves out and figure themselves out. And you know,
if it doesn't feel in alignment, then it's something that
you can change, and it's probably not going to change
itself unless you do something to change it. So now,
when can you expect to hear from me again? And
how can you stay connected during my time off? Firstly,

(14:01):
I don't know how long I will be gone for.
I might get to three months and be like, wow,
I am so bored, I am so sick of living
in a tiny space, move me back into a house.
Or I might love it and might still be going
in twelve months. Who knows, so I can't give you
an exact date. I probably won't be on Instagram while
I'm traveling unless I really start to feel like I

(14:23):
want to share behind the scenes, but I probably won't
just because I want to disconnect as much as possible
while I can. The one form of content that I
will continue to share is emails to my list. I
really miss writing longer form content. I haven't written longer
form content really since I started this podcast, and my

(14:45):
team have been writing emails up until this point. So
I will be writing emails to my list and I'll
be writing longer form ones. So you can expect to
hear a little bit behind the scenes, a bit about
my travels on there, and I'll share a little bit
about I guess the process of doing less in my
business as well when I feel ready to share that
on there. If you're not on my email list, you

(15:08):
can get on there by downloading any of my freebies
like my free Escape the Messy Middle workbook. You can
grab that at Steph Taylor dot co slash EMM, and
then you'll get my emails once I start sending them.
Once I start traveling, which will be probably around mid September,
I will head off for real, and if you do
want to work with me while I'm away, the only

(15:29):
way to do so is inside the membership inside Conversion Campaigns,
where I will be in the Facebook group which is
our awesome community, and I will also be doing the
monthly Q and A calls as usual, so nothing's changing
with that membership, and if you do want to work
with me, that is the one way you can do.
So you can jump on the waitlist for conversion campaigns
at Stephtaylor dot co slash CC and you'll get an

(15:52):
email reminder when I next open doors, as I only
open doors like once every month or two. So yeah,
that is if for now for this episode. For probably
the next couple of months, I don't know, but you
will have an update from me, and you can expect
to hear from me via email, and you know I will.
I might record some podcast episodes from time to time.

(16:14):
They probably won't be as great audio quality as this
because I'll just be recording using my laptop microphone instead
of my actual recording gear because we'll all be in storage.
But yeah, I do want to say a huge thank
you to all of my listeners. You've been amazing over
these last however many years, seven years, six years, six

(16:34):
years of this show six and a half years, and
I will be back, I promise. So until then, keep
in touch and you know, follow me on Instagram. I
might post on there. I can't promise I'm there. At
steph Tailor dot co and yeah, I will. I'll see
you when I see you. So that is it. Catch

(16:56):
you next time, I guess.