The Off Season
I cleaned out the shanty last week. It’s now been about a month since our final deep sea fishing charter of 2024 so it’s time that I really wrap things up. Dad is eager to have his shanty back so he can stack traps and get things organized for the spring and I know that I’ll be more at ease once I can officially put an end to the 2024 season.
It’s easy to just walk away on the last day of operations and pretend it’s all done. But the reality is that even in the off season, there is still a lot to do.
I needed a few weeks away to do whatever I needed to rest, reset and refuel. A little time to take off my Joey’s Fishing hat and focus on some other things. But then I need to remember what’s waiting for me once I’m ready.
It was nice to get back to the shanty and pack things up. We had the rest of our merchandise and supplies to gather. I took it all home to organize it and pack it away until the next season. And now dad can stack traps in the shanty and get everything tucked away before winter hits.
I’ve also been diving into our finances. I do the bookkeeping for the business and I while I keep a close eye on it during the peak season, I don’t actually put it into our accounting system until the fall. My goal is to have everything up to September 30 entered and ready for our accountant’s review by end of October. It gives us a chance to see if we need to make any tweaks before year end and ensure we aren’t missing anything.
I take the same opportunity to send in my personal finances and my consulting numbers so that we have a complete view for my personal taxes and can ensure I won’t have any surprises in the spring. I find it helpful to create deadlines for myself to get to things like this because it’s very easy to let it slide and get busy doing other things.
I know this because I’ve been doing a great job of filling my days with fun activities that don’t involve finances and packing up the shanty…
Bike rides, hikes & strength workouts
Visits with family & friends
Working at Simply for Life, doing some speaking and contract work
Reading & journalling
Travelling & planning more travelling
Mostly I feel so blessed and grateful that I have the time to do all of these things. But I also do get feelings of guilt that pop up sometimes.
Logically, I know that I work very hard in the spring and summer and I need time to go at a slower pace to recover from that. But we live in a world that still largely idolizes hustle culture and I can start to feel bad about having the freedom and flexibility that I do. Not to mention that many of the people in my life work regular year round Monday-Friday jobs so it feels weird for me to have all this time when I see them struggling to do all the things they want to.
This often leads me to filling my calendar with more than I need to. It’s like something in me says I need to be “on” all the time. And this ends up working against the freedom and flexibility I’ve been craving and needing.
I’m sure there are multiple factors that have me putting too much on my schedule. By nature, I’m a multi-passionate person and when my work schedule lightens up I get excited that I have the time to do other things. I’ve been known to have over-achiever tendencies and I think that leads to me feeling like I should say yes to things when I probably shouldn’t.
I am trying to be more careful about what I’m taking on so that I can build a life that aligns with my values. What I’ve learned the hard way is that protecting my energy and my health are key things to being able to live a life that I love.
When I think back to my first few years of being self employed I wonder how I did it all. (Spoiler alert: not well because I ended up very burnt out and unfulfilled) But honestly I am so glad I was able to recognize what wasn’t working and find ways to drop the hustle of trying to do too much. My off season is meant to be a time to do things that light me up and bring me back to life. But for a few years I was working way too hard to build a coaching business that I started to resent and get frustrated with.
Once I realized it wasn’t working and was able to let it go, things seemed to start to come back into place for me. It was a very hard lesson to learn and it took me some time to recover from the damage I did to my health but it was exactly what I needed to do.
We’re still in October so there is a lot of the 2024/25 off season ahead of me. And while I want to use this time wisely, I am still figuring out what that really means. But what I have learned is that leaning into the things that energize and excite me is what I should be focused on. I am also learning that I can try and fail at things in order to figure out what the right fit is.
Spending time writing this blog is one of those things I’m working on figuring out. I may also find my way back to podcasting (did you know I had a podcast a few years ago?).
What I know for sure is that I will be doing as much travelling as possible!
As for the rest, you’ll have to keep following along to see what I get up to. Honestly, your guess is as good as mine! But for now, I will keep embracing my off season and see where it takes me!
