Running a Business When Life Is Hard: Building for the Capacity You Actually Have – The Nourished CEO Episode 78

What if the quieter season you’ve been waiting for isn’t coming anytime soon? I’ve had to ask myself that question lately, because I realized how many business decisions I was putting off until life felt more predictable.

My two kids started preschool this August. I expected a little more breathing room, and in some ways I got it. I also got a different set of things to manage. It has pushed me to look more closely at what my business needs from me, what I can take off my plate, and how to make room for the work I actually want to build.

In this episode, I’m sharing six things I’m doing to keep the business running and move it forward while life is still very full. The point isn’t to copy my schedule. It’s to consider what you would change if you planned around the capacity you have now.

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Running a business when life is hard requires decisions about capacity. That sounds obvious until you look at how many plans depend on a future version of your life having more uninterrupted time, fewer competing needs, and a more cooperative calendar.

I thought preschool might give me that version of life. My four-year-old now goes five mornings a week, and my younger daughter goes two. 

Those two mornings with both kids at school have been useful. I can get into deeper work without immediately having to leave the house. At the same time, the new routine has brought more logistics, and the mental demands of parenting have shifted into other parts of the day.

Then there are the things nobody schedules. Recently, my daughter’s tooth appeared crooked after she had been chewing on her curtains during a nap. (I have stopped asking why about these kind of things.) 

We found an emergency dentist and spent much of the afternoon getting it checked. She was simply getting ready to lose her baby teeth earlier than we expected, but I couldn’t have known that before the appointment. The work I had planned for that afternoon had to wait.

That experience was a small example of a pattern I’ve spent years trying to work around. Something unexpected comes up most weeks. If my business plan only works when every block on my calendar stays intact, I have a business plan that doesn’t fit my life.

 

Waiting for easier can become its own business decision

Earlier this year, I closed the signature program I had run for six years. It had a developed sales system, a clear delivery process, and a strong reputation. It also kept attracting an earlier-stage audience when I wanted to work more deeply with established business owners.

Closing it created room to reconsider my positioning and what I wanted to build next. It was a difficult decision, and I still have mixed feelings about parts of it. But continuing to sell and manage that program would have used much of the attention I needed for the next direction.

I saw a quote recently asking whether you’re more committed to creating the life you want or managing the life you have. What caught my attention was the space required before you can even answer it. 

When your days are full of serving clients, making sales, caring for people, and handling what’s immediately in front of you, thinking clearly about the future takes room you may have to deliberately create.

I still have a business and a family to manage. Those responsibilities didn’t disappear because I had an interesting thought about my future. The change is that I no longer want management to consume all of my attention. Some of that attention has to go toward deciding what belongs in the next version of the business.

 

Protect the capacity the plan depends on

The first two changes I’ve made are personal, though they affect how I work. I’ve returned to lifting three times a week, walking more consistently, and paying closer attention to food and sleep. After pregnancy, breastfeeding, and a long stretch of disrupted rest, taking care of my body is something I want for myself. It also helps me have the energy I need in my business and at home.

I’ve started getting up before six, too. I would prefer to sleep later. I would strongly prefer to sleep later. Right now, those quiet minutes before my kids are up give me a chance to have coffee, walk the dog, pray, and think before the day starts asking things of me.

I’m sharing what I’m doing, rather than prescribing an early alarm or my workout routine to anyone else. The useful question is where you get enough physical and mental space to make good decisions. A plan that assumes you can keep drawing on energy you haven’t had a chance to restore will eventually run into the same problem again.

 

Do the necessary work well

The next change has been harder for me: distinguishing what’s necessary from everything I could do if I had unlimited attention.

My podcast stays. It’s a long-standing way for me to develop ideas, connect with my audience, and bring in clients. Client delivery stays, obviously. I also send emails and continue showing up on Instagram, which remains a meaningful place for me to connect with potential clients. 

We’ve recently restarted ads to bring traffic to a training, giving us another way to maintain visibility during weeks when I publish less.

Other activities are less settled. I spent time on Substack earlier this year, but I’ve put it on hold. I would need to commit real thought and consistency to long-form writing there, and I don’t currently want to add that alongside the podcast. I’d like to do more YouTube, though for now recording video with the podcast when I can is a manageable version of that effort. Threads has led to sales for me, so it may deserve a more regular place in the schedule.

Those choices are specific to my business. The method is to look at what you know serves clients, produces useful content, or contributes to sales, then decide what you can consistently do well. 

There may be worthwhile opportunities you leave for later. I’m accepting that, because a week filled to its limit leaves little room for the unexpected work that will still need to happen. 

And apparently, in my house, “unexpected work” can include investigating curtain-related dental injuries.

 

Rebuild messaging when the buyer changes

Fewer marketing activities make the message carried by those activities more consequential. This is another area where I’ve had to give myself more time than I expected.

I spent years developing messaging for my former signature program. I knew who it served, what they needed to understand, and how to explain its value. 

Moving toward more established business owners meant revisiting that work. Their businesses, experience, and buying questions are different, even when the strategic work I do with them has some familiar elements.

I underestimated how much testing it would take to speak to that audience clearly. Being skilled at messaging for clients hasn’t given me automatic objectivity about my own. Convenient, right? 

I’ve had to look more closely at the urgent problems these buyers want solved and the beliefs affecting whether they see my work as relevant.

If you’ve changed who you want to work with, this may explain why previously effective content feels less precise. Experience with an offer gives you a head start, but you still need to learn how this buyer understands the problem and evaluates the solution. Repeating a clearer set of ideas is also easier to sustain than inventing a new angle every time you sit down to write.

If you’re trying to decide what to simplify or how to explain the value of your work to the right clients, explore my private advisory and intensive options.

 

Give one offer the focus it needs

My offer decisions are connected to that messaging work. I’ve sold private work this quarter while considering whether to bring back a group program later this year or wait until 2027. I haven’t made that timing decision yet.

Closing my old program has helped me see the value of material I already created. A client in my mastermind recently used sales training from that curriculum and told me she signed four high-ticket gut health clients in one week. It reminded me that useful material doesn’t become irrelevant simply because I’ve had it for years.

I can draw from several past programs to create a more focused curriculum for a future group offer. The question is what belongs in it and when I have the capacity to deliver it well. Until I decide, private work is where I’m directing my sales attention.

For an established business owner, this can be a useful distinction. You may have several viable offers and still need to choose which one your marketing is supporting right now. That focus gives the message time to become clearer and gives prospective clients a more coherent path toward working with you.

 

Get perspective on decisions you’re too close to see

I’ve also hired a business mentor again after a few years without ongoing support. My previous mentorship ended painfully, and I needed time to rebuild trust in my own judgment before entering another close advisory relationship. 

Taking that break was useful. Eventually, though, I could see that I had stayed in “I’ll figure it out myself” mode longer than it was helping me.

I know my business well, but I’m invested in its history and in the outcomes of my decisions. That makes some assumptions harder to notice. 

A good advisor can ask why I’m holding onto a particular approach, help me see an option I’ve overlooked, or point out when I’m circling a decision instead of making it. I can do that work for clients all day long. Doing it with my own business is considerably less straightforward.

Getting support now is part of making more deliberate choices. I have a clearer understanding of what I want from that relationship, and it helps me direct my attention toward the business I’m building rather than endlessly managing the one I already have.

 

Build with the week you’re likely to have

None of these changes guarantees a smooth week. My kids will need things. Client work will require attention. A plan will occasionally get interrupted by something as strange as a curtain-related dental appointment.

What I can do is leave enough margin that an interruption doesn’t force every important decision off the calendar. I can choose the marketing activities I’m prepared to maintain, make the current offer clear, care for the capacity I’m relying on, and get help seeing where my own thinking is stuck.

The question I’d leave you with is the one I’m asking myself: What would you do differently in your business if you planned around the capacity you have now, rather than the capacity you hope to have later?

That answer may involve taking something off your plate. It may also show you where to put your attention so you can keep growing during a full season of life.

If your offer still depends on you to deliver, sell, explain, and hold every part together, my free training, How to Build a Signature Offer That Sells, Scales, and Gives You More Freedom, will help you examine what may need to change. Listen to the full episode for the details behind each of these six decisions.

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FAQs

How do I grow my business when I have limited time?
Start with the capacity you can reliably use, then choose the client work, sales activity, and content you can maintain within it. Look at what has already helped your business and give those activities room before adding another channel.

Should I pause marketing during a difficult season?
That depends on what your business needs and what you can realistically support. I’m keeping a smaller set of marketing commitments active, including my podcast and email, while putting work such as Substack on hold.

How do I know what to take off my plate?
Separate the work required to serve current clients and support sales from activities you’re pursuing because they sound worthwhile. A good idea can wait if doing it now would make the work you’ve already committed to harder to sustain.

Do I need to change my messaging if I start working with a more advanced audience?
Usually, yes. Even when your expertise and method remain relevant, a more experienced buyer may have different problems, assumptions, and reasons to trust an offer. Give yourself time to test how you explain its value.

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