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What you’ll learn in this episode:
The start of a new year often comes with an unspoken pressure to move faster, do more, and “catch up.” And if you took time off over the holidays (even time you needed), you might be feeling a little behind right now.
In this episode, we talk about how you can reframe this feeling. Instead of pushing harder or forcing momentum, I talk about why slowing down, protecting your energy, and focusing with intention is often the fastest way to create real, sustainable growth. This conversation is especially for business owners who want to grow with more ease, clarity, and joy without sacrificing results.
If you’re easing back into work, questioning your pace, or craving a more aligned way to grow this year, this episode will meet you exactly where you are and help you move forward without pressure.
In this episode, you will learn:
- Why feeling “behind” is a nervous system response and not a business problem
- The myth that more time and more effort automatically lead to better results
- How slowing down can actually sharpen clarity, decision-making, and momentum
- What intentional momentum really looks like in business (and how it’s different from hustle)
- One powerful question to help you regroup, refocus, and move forward feeling grounded and confident
Mentioned in this episode:
Work/Connect with me:
Jessica Miller (00:01.39)
Hello everyone and welcome back to the It’s Your Offer podcast. I’m so happy to be here with all of you. I hope that you are feeling good. It’s a new year. I hope you’re feeling ease and joy coupled with momentum and hope as you move into this new year. We’re now into the second week and sometimes we have all these feelings that bubble up, especially around new years. When I’m talking to colleagues and friends and even clients, something that’s come up quite a bit
lately is this feeling of being behind. And this is not uncommon. If you’ve taken any time off over the holidays, even if you really needed it, you might be coming back into this year feeling a little bit off. Like maybe you’re a little bit slower than you expected. Maybe you don’t feel as motivated. You know, there’s just that feeling, that little feeling of being behind. And I want to say this right out of the gate for all of you. Nothing has gone wrong. Nothing has gone wrong.
There’s a lot of preconditioning into what we’re supposed to be quote unquote feeling in the beginning of this year. And I want to really dig into that and talk about it because this episode isn’t going to be about getting you to do more and pushing harder or hustling your way into momentum. That’s actually not what I want to talk about here. It’s actually about you seeing clearly and regrouping where you are and moving forward in a way that actually creates results.
honors where you are, it honors what your feeling is, and it allows you to move forward intentionally without burning yourself out. This time of year, whether people want to name it and claim it really, comes with a lot of invisible pressure, especially for business owners. There is this unspoken idea that January should feel productive and energized, like we’re flying out of the gate. We should back at it in full speed.
And when that’s not how it feels for us in that moment, the story we tell ourselves is, I’m behind. I’m not where I’m supposed to be. Something is wrong. But that behind assumes that there is this universal cadence that everyone is supposed to be coming into this year and moving at this sort of universal pace. But the truth is there really isn’t a universal pace. There isn’t that.
Jessica Miller (02:28.322)
this pressure around how we’re supposed to be. And That pressure that we feel, that perceived pressure is not strategic, it’s not a byproduct of our business, it’s not momentum, it’s cultural. It’s what we have sort of bought into or seen around us for years. And we are just sort of buying into that feeling and that comparison against others. And for a lot of business owners in our bodies,
and in our experience at this time of the year, it shows up as urgency, it shows up as anxiety. It’s sort of this like cagey, anxious feeling of jumping into action for this sense of feeling like you’re doing something. That action and that friction in your body is really a response to intercept the feelings that are getting created inside of your physical self.
by the messages that your brain is telling you. And so we have these compulsions to do things, to do something, to sort of get over that. I wanna tell you that I am not immune from this. I love to be in motion. And I that might not be a surprising thing for many of you, but I do, I love it. I love forward momentum and I love that feeling. The problem is that sometimes that feeling of urgency and push
is not actually the same as the urgency of flow. And I used to go into my, especially my year end or these thresholds into the new year with this idea that I was going to be easing in and I was gonna be flowing into the new year, but I would be crash landing into my January. And I would be doing it from a place of exhaustion because although I had this idea that I was going to slow down and take time off,
I often wouldn’t do that. My mind would be racing. I would be in the hustle. I would have all these expectations on myself and I would come in feeling really disoriented and frankly just scared that I had lost momentum. But I have said this on this podcast many times and I’m going to reiterate it here because I think it is essential when we talk about this feeling in the new year about behindness is that white space, clarity, being able to feel your way forward.
Jessica Miller (04:49.492)
all of that intuitive part of you that is absolutely a tool in your business is overridden by the noise of hustle and doing when we don’t provide the white space, the intentional containers that we create as part of our business in order to let that signal and that sound come through, in order to hear the intuition, in order to gain the clarity. We don’t let that come through.
And when I figured out that it was in the white space that was creating all of the discernment, all of that ability for me to put those disparate pieces together and create the things that actually were the tools and the building blocks that moved my business forward, it was where my million dollar ideas really were birthed. When I figured that out, the white space and the giving myself permission to lean into those tools and to lean into
that space very intentionally so that I came back with this sense of being refreshed and clear and having that wind at my back in a way that wasn’t push energy, it was more pull energy. was this magnetism that was bringing me forward. And really, I came back clearer and stronger. And that energetic alignment was also really strong. When I figured that out, and I figured out that the white space and the
pause was actually part of the business plan. was part of creating the results. It became an integral part of the foundation of my business. And everything that I teach my clients, everything I talk about on this podcast is built around these intentional pieces, many of which are space. They are white space for you to be able to pause. And really what I mean pause, it’s like giving your
brain and your body, the space. But if you think about this holistically from the perspective of momentum and results, you’re really not pausing. You’re just using different tools and different mediums to be able to grow your business better. And that is really what this is about. Because one of the biggest myths that we have been sold as entrepreneurs, as business owners, as leaders, is that time equals more results.
Jessica Miller (07:14.774)
More hours, more effort, more doing, more pushing, more fill in the blank. You know all the things. But that’s actually not really how growth works. That’s not real growth. Exhausted execution does not create outcomes. It creates messy results. We are not doing our ideal work and creating ideal outcomes when we’re just adding things for the sake of more.
We are doing it in the name of growth, but we are not doing intentional things that we have chosen and provided space. We’re just kind of like on the hamster wheel and it doesn’t create great outcomes. It creates really messy ones, rush decisions, scattered focus, work that feels heavy instead of effective and inflow. And we’ve all been there. I have been there. We’ve all been there, but we don’t, the good results, they don’t come from just
time spent, quote unquote time spent. They come from being intentional, aligned, having leverage, having precision. I say it a lot, but true growth and powerful growth and return on investment come from a scalpel approach. It’s like lasering in on the best things. So here’s what I want to offer as a reframe to all of you who might be sitting here listening to this thinking, yeah, we started a new year. I’m in it. I’m doing the things.
but there’s this little nagging voice that is afraid. It’s telling me I’m behind. Maybe you’re sitting at your desk and you’re drinking a cup of coffee and you’re getting ready for your day and you’re hopping into a group or looking on social media and there’s that comparison, right? There’s that little thing in the back of your brain that just feels like drag. You know, it’s like that anchor you’re pulling in your boat. I wanna offer this reframe. Momentum doesn’t require
Constant motion it does not require constant motion it requires clarity It requires clarity When you slow down just enough to see what matters to you what is working in your business? What’s not what is lighting you up? What is your hell? Yes? What are the things that you’re seeing those sort again those disparate pieces come together? Where is my energy? What am I being called to? What are the things in my business that are on fire?
Jessica Miller (09:43.362)
you create momentum that lasts, it lasts. And it doesn’t require that constant push. It requires you being able to see it and feel it. And it actually propels you forward. That’s where the action comes from. It comes from this deep alignment and knowing in your body and in your brain. Like it’s like a lightning rod, it comes together. And then what happens is you have this compulsion to push forward.
to go forward and not again in a way that’s pushing, it’s actually that something is pulling you, right? You’re being magnetized forward. And it’s that energy that creates flow, which is why it feels effortless. Because when you’re being like pulled, right? Something else, there’s another energy there that’s bringing you forward to the next thing. It’s not all of your energy pushing it. And that’s the kind of energy that feels so good, right? It’s really like the wind at your back.
And this is the foundation of the work that I do with my clients. These are the things that I am talking about all of the time. It is in these places when we’ve constructed our business and our life around something like this, where we catch that wave. And what that means for all of you is that you create things and you move into a space of fewer offers, cleaner systems, better client experience, more leverage, all of these things that feel like
they were made for you and they’re being made for whatever the ecosystem is that you’re creating, not because you’re doing less to coast, like you’re just kicking back, although there is ease in it, but because you’re doing less so that the right things are chosen and they actually work in your business. I have a client who was doing a lot of things in her business. She actually owned a retail shop and it’s an amazing, amazing store.
It has so many incredible things in it. It’s fair trade, it’s amazing artists. I mean, you go in there and it is fabulous. And she has such a high eye for quality. So she’s really like handpicking all of these things. And she also has a lot of energy. She’s excited about all this stuff, but there’s just a lot of things. When we actually looked at her business and we allowed her to take some time to reflect on it. And it was actually at a time where she was
Jessica Miller (12:08.578)
think she was actually going on vacation, but she was, there was a pause for her. I don’t know if it was at the end of a year, but regardless of when it was, there was white space. And as soon as we could see what was actually happening in her business, and she had some time to marinate on it, she came back in and the things that we identified that were the powerful levers in her business, so for her, it was workshops,
it was events and she was able to just focus in on that after she was rested, after she was clear, after she was sure, her business just took off. She became so focused in on that one work stream. And what it also did was it unlocked so much creativity for her because as entrepreneurs, we wanna be innovative, we wanna be creative. But when she was able to
put that white space in front of her, take the clarity that she was getting from the signal she was seeing in her business, and then lean into doing that thing really well, guess what happened? She had the best time. And it felt so effortless. was like people were just being pulled to her, like this crazy attraction. She met the partners that she needed to partner with to help fill these workshops. She met collaborations where people wanted to host different workshops in her space.
She came up with awesome themes and ideas about what to call these workshops and how to position them and who to talk to in her email. I mean, it was so powerful. And it came from this ability to rest, to see it, to call in that energy, to also decide that this is where she was gonna spend her time. Like this was the thing she was seeing, this was how she was feeling, and then she was able to sort of go all in on that. And not from a place of strain.
from a place of choice, because she could see the return on investment of that time, and she was being called to it. And that is a whole different energy. So here’s the part that I really want you to hear. Time off didn’t put you behind. It did not put you behind. It put you behind. It actually protected your capacity. It put a bow around your ease. It gave you permission to actually choose.
Jessica Miller (14:35.682)
because rest restores our choice, our ability to discern one thing from another. And it’s that discernment that creates better decisions. It allows you to prioritize correctly. It allows you to see the things that you’re missing when you’re moving or when you’re stressed out. And it allows you to take the next step in confidence. Like I said, it feels like an attraction. It feels like you are being called forward. There was a compulsion to move in that direction.
it’s not a push anymore, it’s not a grind. So you didn’t fall behind. You actually restored a part of you that creates the results. And I want to really like emphasize this point. And many of you have probably heard this, so I’m just gonna say it out loud. I have people come to me all the time and say things like, you know, it was so random. I went on vacation, I put my program out there, and then I went on vacation,
And I don’t know, I shared like two LinkedIn posts and like four people signed up for my program. And I don’t know, I was doing nothing. I was just like on vacation. It’s so weird. This is so sporadic and random. And I’m here to tell you all, if this is you, number one, you’re totally normal. Everybody has these thoughts. But number two is that it is not sporadic and random. Like you are in a certain energy. There is space there. You are creating that
for these things to kind of coalesce. And I promise you that what you put out into the universe to your clients in an email, on a LinkedIn post, in the conversation or the quick DM you send is absolutely different because of your state of being. And so those rando LinkedIn posts that, you know, my client actually shared, this is a true story.
They were powerful, they were on point, they were created from this spacious place and therefore they actually converted in a different way. It is not a rando thing. It’s actually a very specific thing. But the problem is we don’t often see it. We don’t give ourselves the time, the rest, the space to see it. So I want to tell you that instead of asking yourself right now, if you happen to be listening to this and
Jessica Miller (17:00.064)
any of these things resonate with you, instead of asking yourself like, how do I catch up or, you what do I do next? Or, you know, how do I make up for lost ground or this like that tension in your body that comes from this behindness? I want to offer you a different question. And here it is. What is the smallest, most powerful aligned action that moves your business forward right now that you can take?
I’m gonna say this again, what is the smallest, most aligned, powerful action that moves your business forward right now? And I want you to think about it from the heart. Like use your body as a compass. Don’t overthink it. You know where you’re at. Let it drop in to your head. And yes, if you need to and or want to,
go to your calendar, look at some stuff that happened if you need to refresh your memory, or if you did sort of like a year end review, you can go to that to jog your memory. But I want you to think and uncover one of the smallest, most powerful aligned things that moves your business forward right now. Not 10 things, not everything, one thing, just one thing. And I want to offer that often this one thing, this action is not a task.
It’s not necessarily a task. In fact, most often it’s not. It’s actually a decision, a conversation, a refinement of something, a quick follow-up. Maybe it’s letting something go. It’s finally getting rid of that thing that you know you aren’t meant for anymore. Let your intuition speak. It knows the answer. And trust what it tells you. Everybody has a word for their year.
Trust is one of my words. This internal guidance we’re talking about right now, which like I said, just like those LinkedIn posts of my client I just mentioned, these things are measurable in our results. And trust is one of those things where we have that intuitive piece and it’s trying to tell us something and we have to give it the airspace. But if we start to use that tool that we sometimes forget about,
Jessica Miller (19:19.288)
because it’s not necessarily like on a spreadsheet. We are not usually tracking this kind of thing. We can start to connect it to our results. So trust is one of those things that I am absolutely leaning into this year and I wanna invite you to do it too. Trust that your intuition knows the answer. Okay, and let it drop into you. Let it appear on that page. Don’t judge it, let it come up and out and have that feeling in your body when you know it aligns.
You know, we’ve all listened to something and we’ve gotten the chills or something has struck a chord and we feel it. So we want to like take what we know about the specifics of our business and people that are listening to this podcast. mean, if you’re not, if you don’t like data or you don’t like hearing about simplicity and really going in and knowing what’s going on, like you’re probably not here. But I want to offer that this other step is a data point too. And getting your self, your head on board with that.
And bringing that intuition into the equation is huge. Telling yourself you’re behind allows you to take actions and create from a different space than I am right where I’m supposed to be. I took this time and it actually created momentum in my business and opened up clarity for me to do my best work. That is a whole different energy to create from. So trust your intuition, let it drop onto the page.
And I want you to use that as your guiding light for the next several weeks. See the magic that transpires in your world. Watch what you create. Observe how you feel in all of the ways that you create results. With a tool like that, combine with an amazing plan. Combine with your best next opportunity. Combine with all of that clarity that also includes
the space to actually receive the message. So I wanna wrap this up by saying this, you do not need to rush this year. You don’t need to rush into this year. You don’t need to prove anything by being busy. You are not behind. You’re right where you need to be to move forward with intention, intention and ease and feeling good. And if this year is about anything, let it be this, doing the right things at the right time,
Jessica Miller (21:44.162)
with the right energy is how real growth happens. This is where your hell yes meets your results. You are not behind my friends. You are exactly where you need to be. And I am cheering you on. Trust yourself, trust your intuition and trust that you have everything you need to be successful in this year and then some. Until next week everyone, have a beautiful week.
