Making a wholehearted pivot

If you’re a creative professional/entrepreneur type, you’re making this stuff up as you go along (else, you’d just be a normal business person, which sounds about as interesting as a manila envelope).

I love this lifestyle. I love what the internet offers us today.

If we can locate the meeting place between our gifts and other people’s desires, we can create a life doing what we love.

I barely graduated high school and dropped out of college when I was 19. If I’d relied on conventionality along this path, I’d still be scrubbing golf carts every night until 9 pm.

But I can sit here and write a warm post to you that matters. And I can quietly offer something of value to you for money — if you find it useful. If not, no hard feelings. I’ll try again tomorrow with more heartfelt stuff.

Being able to do this. Is amazing.

Anyhow — back to my original point… Since we’re making this stuff up as we go, sometimes this requires pivoting. Changing direction. Correcting our course.

If something isn’t working, we can’t just keep doing it until our manager tells us to stop. Because we have no manager besides the one in our very own hearts (and our customers, of course).

Pivoting is scary. Especially when it comes to content. Because you’ve done all this work that’s pointing people in this direction. But now, you have to go in another direction (if you want to not scrub proverbial golf carts again). It’s like turning a gigantic ship made up of months — maybe years — of old content.

I’m recently going through a bit of a pivot myself. Not a drastic one, but any pivot feels drastic to the ego. Because the ego is rooted in a certain identity. An identity that it deems safe and certain.

But it’s all bullshit. The ego’s sense of certainty is flawed. And it’s sense of uncertainty is flawed.

So, what to do amidst an impending pivot?…

If it’s a knee-jerk reaction to an egoic fear, think twice. If the direction of this potential pivot makes you feel small and constricted, let it go.

But if it makes you feel expansive and you can see the possibility for both the growth of your business and your soul…

Turn the ship.
It’s fine.

Sure, some people who may have been following your work will gnash their teeth and kick and scream. They may even unsubscribe (gulp).
When you pivot, you must release your ego’s grip on approval and follow your heart in your new direction.

They’ll find another boat to jump on. There’s plenty of boats online. But yours is going somewhere different. If they care to jump on later, it’ll be there.

Pivoting is an intuitive process. It’s one where both the heart and mind must work in unison. And it requires decisive action.

Full steam ahead, captain.



Jonas Ellison is a professional writer and interfaith minister-in-training who provides practical and spiritual support to his fellow creative craftspeople. You can find more of his work at Higher Thoughts, one of the most popular single-author publications on Medium. Subscribe to his daily missives and musings at JonasEllison.com