There are moments in life when you need to stop and assess. Life has a way of pushing you forward, the ebb and flow of it moving you in an inertia that never stops. If you are not purposeful, you end up living life by default rather than by design.
In order to be purposeful, you need to intentionally build in the habit of stopping and assessing. There are some good moments in the year for doing this that seem almost built in for it. The end of the year and the beginning of a new one in December-January is one good moment for introspection. Though the holiday season can be a very emotional time as well as very busy for people with families, it can be difficult to carve out time to spend on evaluating how your life is going, where it’s going, and what if anything might need to change. Never-the-less, taking a few days to stop and see what the year that is closing results are and planning some goals for the one that is opening is a good habit to get into.
Another moment for introspection is the summer which can be a time to refresh and evaluate, especially for those who work in education or who have kids. A school year ending, and then a few months later, a new one starting can provide a great moment to stop and evaluate things.
For me, the end of this school year brought an awareness of many things that needed to be recalibrated in my life. The fiasco that occurred with the parents that went against Writers In The Schools, and me being caught in the cross hairs, brought into my awareness the reality of my work with WITS. The fact is, I was devouring what amounted to a full time job, in terms of hours on campus due to class schedules, while not actually being paid for all those hours. Because the program pays only for the hours you teach, the down time in between when you can’t go anywhere else or really do much else is unpaid.
Looking at the economic growth Inklings Publishing has made from the set backs of the pandemic these past three years has made me very happy. Yet, as I look at the new marketing options before us, I realize that continuing to take a salary from the company might not be the best option. I can take that money and invest it into growing it with new avenues of advertising and marketing.
So, I made the decision this summer to apply for a full time teaching position. I will basically be spending the same amount of time in a school, only this time I’ll be working the whole time and getting paid a full salary with benefits. This frees up my salary with Inklings to be used to grow the company. Some might argue against reinvesting my pay from the company. But, I have found, that this path worked well for us in the beginning years, when I did not pay myself and lived off of my other work.
Am I going to be exhausted? Yes. But then again that’s not really new. Will I need to redo my handy-dandy time budget so I can stay balanced and get my writing out within the scope of time I have been planning? Absolutely. If you don’t know about my planning process, check out some of my first blog posts I did here. I laid it out for anyone who wants to follow it.
Back to School Time is Here!