I confess — my business was suffocating me. And the sad part is, I'm the one who designed it that way.
Over the years, I've launched all kinds of services. Some were for fun. Some were because people asked for them. Some were because I thought they'd help me grow. And I left in the wake a list of ideas that never got the attention they needed to actually flourish.
So I had services that were limping along for years with no real path to living up to their potential. And earlier this year, instead of trying harder, I made the hard decision to let some of them go.
My first instinct was to beat myself up about the state of things. That's where most of us go. But that has never once helped me move forward. So instead, I looked at it honestly and kicked off a few projects to clean up and clear out the noise.
The biggest one was my online community.
I've helped clients build thriving communities — I've seen it work and I know the formula. But I struggled with my own. And when I was finally honest with myself about why, the answer wasn't pretty.
I had built a community around the personality I wanted to be, not the person I actually am.
I'm not a chatty person. I don't naturally do small talk. I like to get to the point and get things done. So building something that required me to sit around and facilitate open-ended conversation endlessly — it felt painful. So I realized that I wasn't the right person to offer that type of experience. Instead, I needed to build something that reflects how I actually function and what I actually do well.
I don't know yet if that will work either. But I have to find that alignment first.
Shutting it down meant all the time, energy, and money I'd poured into that community would vanish. I made the mistake before of thinking — well, I've put so much into this, I should keep pushing. Try to find a way. But it wasn't working. And trying to salvage the past was keeping me from showing up in the present and the future.
So I locked everything in my community, stopped payments, and closed the doors. I cringed when I did it, but there was a freedom in letting go so I could recalibrate. If I hadn't let go, I'd be holding on forever — which means I might never find a way to build a community that actually takes flight.
I'm not sharing this because I want you to quit. I'm sharing this because I want you to realize that for things to work, they need your real attention. And right now, the priorities in my business are the things that are already working. How do I make what's working grow — instead of keeping every idea and project on life support?
If you're feeling stuck in your business, you might need to do less. The goal isn't to lose what you built. It's to stop letting the things that aren't working drain the life out of the things that could.
YOUR ONE THING
This week, take a hard look at every service, product, or project in your business. Here's how to figure out what stays and what goes:
1. List everything you currently offer or maintain. Every service, every membership, every course, every product. Write them all down. Be honest — include the ones that are barely alive.
2. Mark each one: thriving, surviving, or on life support. Thriving means it's bringing in revenue and energy. Surviving means it works but it's not growing. Life support means you're keeping it around because of what you've already invested, not because of what it's doing for you now.
3. Pick one thing on life support and make a decision. Not five things. One. Can it be revived with real, focused attention in the next 90 days? If yes, commit to that — block the time and resources. If no, give yourself permission to pause it, close it, or shelve it until you can come back with a better plan.
4. Redirect that energy to what's working. Whatever time, money, or mental space you just freed up — put it directly into one of your thriving or surviving offers. That's not quitting. That's choosing.
How many services or products are you running right now?
If you're holding onto something in your business that's draining you — an offer, a client type, a way of working — but you're not sure what to cut or what to keep, that's exactly what a strategy session is for. We look at what you've built, what's actually working, and what might need to go.
Letting go doesn't mean you failed. It means you're finally making room for the things that deserve your full attention.
— Stephanie
P.S. If you've been holding onto something that isn't working — a service, a membership, a project you keep trying to revive — reply and tell me about it. Sometimes just saying it out loud is the first step toward making the call.
