🥊 Your Creator Business Should Support Your Dream Life (Not Fight It)

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Hey there! 👋

Here I am, typing this from a cafe in Florence with terrible WiFi, finally over my jet lag, and the strangest realization hit me: my work life is running just as smoothly as it did when I was glued to my desk in the States.

Turns out all those things I thought were "essential" for getting work done - the perfect home office setup, the fancy monitor, the 4 types of soda stocked in my fridge  - were just nice to have.

Three weeks ago, I made the leap to become a digital nomad. Not gonna lie - the first week was a disaster. I was trying to take client calls at 2 AM (because time zones are HARD), my perfectly organized home office setup was reduced to whatever corner of an Airbnb had decent lighting, and I nearly had a breakdown trying to send an urgent Slack from my phone waiting for fireworks to go off (that never happened LOL 🎆).

But here's what I learned: if your creator business can't support your dream life, you're building it backwards.

The Hustle Trap I Finally Escaped

For years, I bought into the "hustle 24/7" mentality. You know the one - where taking a vacation feels like betraying your business, where you check Slack from the beach, where your laptop becomes a permanent extension of your body.

Moving to Europe didn't just change my location; it forced me to examine whether my business was designed to give me freedom or chain me to a desk. Spoiler alert: it was definitely the latter.

The wake-up call came when I realized I'd spent my first three days in Florence - one of the most beautiful cities in the world - stressed about email response times and whether my content calendar was "behind schedule" rather than eating pizza and pasta (it took be 3 whole days to eat pizza ekkk)

That's not the dream life I worked so hard to build a business for! 🤦‍♀️

The 3 Systems That Let You Run Your Business From Anywhere

After some trial and error (okay, a LOT of error), here are the systems that finally clicked:

1. Time Zone-Proof Communication - I switched from "immediate response" mode to "response window" mode. My clients now know they'll hear from me within 24 hours, not 24 minutes. This simple shift eliminated my middle-of-the-night panic sessions.

2. Location-Independent Content Creation - Everything I need to create content now lives in the cloud. My brand assets, content templates, and posting schedules are accessible from any device. No more "I left that file on my other computer" excuses & every Sunday I download a weeks worth of content assets to my computer so I’m ready to batch in case there’s any WiFi issues

3. Batch Block My Day - I now break my day up into three sections

   1. 10 AM - 4 PM - Exploration Time

   2. 4PM - 12 AM - Working Hours

   3. 12 AM - 2 AM - Batching Content

What This Actually Looks Like Day-to-Day

My mornings are completely mine to explore Florence (currently) and get organised for the day - no emails, no content deadlines, just pure exploration time. My afternoons and evenings are when I dive into work, but it's spread out with proper dinner breaks and flexible timing rather than being stuck in a traditional 9-5. One of the best perks of having a creator business? I can work when it makes sense for both me and my clients.

The best part? My business metrics have actually improved since making this shift. Turns out, when you're not burned out and resentful of your work, you create better content and serve clients more effectively. Who knew? 😉

Your Business Should Fund Your Dreams, Not Prevent Them

Here's the reality check: if your creator business requires you to be in one place, at one desk, available 24/7, you haven't built a business - you've built yourself a very demanding job.

The whole point of the creator economy is supposed to be freedom, right? But somewhere along the way, many of us (myself included) got trapped in systems that made us less free than traditional employees.

Moving to Europe taught me that true business success isn't measured by how busy you are or how quickly you respond to emails. It's measured by whether your business supports the life you actually want to live.

If you're feeling trapped by your creator business instead of liberated by it, it might be time to examine your systems. Are they designed to give you freedom or keep you chained to your comfort zone?

Ready to build a business that travels with your dreams? Jot down 1 thing you can change this week to make your business work for you!

💜 Tara

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