The Pause (spark, life + work, and creating something better) | 322

After over two months away, I'm back — but not in the way you might expect. In this episode, I've got a big update on my business, my membership, and the future of this podcast. If you've ever felt the spark go out and wondered how to find it again, this one's for you.

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Transcript

0:10

Welcome back to Making Good, the podcast here to help you do better marketing so you can make a bigger impact. I'm your host, Lauren Tilden, and this is episode 322. Well, hello Stranger. Really, I'm the stranger. I know that this episode comes out Tuesday, March 17th, 2026, and my last episode was over two months ago. If you are a longtime listener of the podcast you may have noticed a bit of an evolution here. For the first five-ish years of this podcast, I was relentlessly consistent showing up every Tuesday with a new episode for you, just like clockwork. But in the last six to nine months, I've slowed down. There have been weeks that I've missed. I took a break in the summer and I just missed the last two months as well. The longest stretch ever. So I've been doing some soul searching and realized that what I need is to intentionally take some time off to create space for what's next to find me. And honestly, I'm kind of giddy about what's possible. So that's what I'm an announcing today. A pause. In fact, I'm taking a break from just about everything in my business, not just the podcast for three more months. And I will officially be resuming on June 15th. I have paused my membership, making good happen. I have paused launches, marketing, social media, everything. And here's why I need to find balance again. Let me give you an example of how much I let work take over my life. So I love music, love. As a kid, teenager, my parents couldn't get me to come downstairs to dinner over the loud music that I was constantly blasting. I was a DJ at my college radio station, and I've just spent most of my life since my teens or even earlier, obsessed with discovering and listening to music all day long as a constant soundtrack to my days. But in the last few years, I find that I don't really even listen to music at all, because instead, I put podcasts on business, podcasts, marketing, podcasts, or even audio books. Productive things. Or when I'm with my kids, it's the Moana soundtrack and Encanto and Frozen and Toy Story, which is great. Truly. I like all of those things, but they're not exactly my first choice. I have missed listening to music, music that really moves me. And in the last week since this pause officially started, I have rediscovered so many of my old favorite bands and songs and found myself dancing around my kitchen for the first time in way too long. That is just a small example of the way that I've let my priorities and life's balance get all out of whack, and I want things like that back. So that's what this pause is all about. The last episode I released was called How I'm Planning My Best Year yet 2026 Planning Guide. In it, I shared some of the best planning tips and guidance that I use and have used for years to dream up the ideal year set goals and break it down into doable, achievable action plans. This episode is a really good one all year long. Really, if you're just ready to recenter yourself in your work and get moving toward those goals, it is really not exclusive to the start of the year, and I still highly recommend it. Okay, so how did I go from thinking about planning my best year yet to taking this unprecedented for me break from the podcast and from my business overall? Well, it started with friction. I would sit down to start to plan out my year and what I wanted to do in my business, and I found myself lacking the level of excitement and enthusiasm that I normally have. I wasn't finding myself lit up by the plans I was making, and I've just had this kind of bone deep sense of exhaustion that's been hard for me to emerge from. I've told you a lot about this past year and the burnout and how difficult it's been in previous episodes, and I've done a lot of work over the last year to move through it. I've scaled back, I've gone to therapy, I've worked on sleep and health. I've rested and I've made a ton of progress. If you wanna hear all about my era of burnout last year and how I broke through it, scroll back in the last 15 or 20 episodes and you'll find several episodes about that. And it's true. I really did come a long way back from the most difficult parts of my burnout, but unfortunately, even though the burnout has passed, for the most part, that doesn't mean that my zest for business and life was magically repaired. And that spark is my favorite thing about working for myself. That spark of waking up and being excited about what I do and what's ahead of me, it is everything to me. So this pause that I'm taking right now intentionally, it's for a lot of reasons, it's to get in a better routine with taking care of myself, exercising, eating well, keeping my house the way I like it, and being my best self. Most importantly, for my two little kids and my partner. It's also because we have some fun travel that I wanna be fully present for this spring. We have a couple of trips to Palm Springs and a trip to Portugal with college friends, and then a week long conference and mastermind for me in Boise. But most of all, it's to give myself the intentional breathing room and space to slow down, reflect and find that spark again. There's a chance that it will look different when I'm back. Will I still be laser focused on teaching marketing to small business owners? Will I go back to my roots and spend more time doing watercolor and running my stationary business? Will I lean into my lifelong love of writing something else entirely? I honestly don't fully know, and that is daunting, but it's also exciting. This is the first time since I started my business in 2017 that I've given myself a fresh start and the option to just totally design my life and my business and what I want from scratch. Here's how I know I'm doing exactly what I need to be doing right now. So I'm a week into this official pause, and a couple of people have asked me how it feels, how does it feel to not be working very much, and my response is immediate. I feel relieved. I know the way that I had structured and organized my business and my life was not working for the phase of life I'm in right now. As the parent of two little kids with increasingly busy schedules of their own, and as the parent with a more flexible schedule in our household, it takes a lot of my bandwidth just to manage that. The design I had for my work before I had kids and before my life went to. Where it is now is just no longer working. Last week I shared this update, this pause with members of my community making good happen. They have been so unbelievably supportive and while I have paused payments and most of the things and making good happen, we are still having our weekly co-working to get stuff done together on Mondays because I love hanging out with his crew so much and we do get so much done. In fact, I prepped this episode during Monday Coworking, but I thought I would share an excerpt of the letter that I sent to members of making it Happen. To help give you a sense of where I'm coming from. So here's the excerpt. I started making good happen in January, 2022. It was the first time I'd ever tried to turn my podcast making good into a business of any kind. The last four years have been full of friendships, built big wins, celebrated lows that we've walked through together, and just generally doing this small business journey together. Not every membership survives four years, and I'm so proud that making good happen has. Many of you are still here from that first launch, and you are a huge reason why this membership has stuck around for so long. And my intention is that it continues to live on into the future as well. But cut to today, I'm in a different stage of life now than I was when I started the membership and January, 2022. I had one kid who was eight months old. Had a full-time nanny. Fortunately for me and a team of people who supported my multiple businesses, a stationary, a retail shop, and making good. Today, I have two busy, wild toddlers. I don't have the store anymore, which frees up time, but I also don't have the team anymore, which sucks up my time. My kids' childcare has been extremely inconsistent over the last couple years. Through no fault of anyone else's. And the world is rough, unlike many of you. I'm really struggling with the state of the world and the US in particular right now. I know I'm not helpless. I know there are things I could probably do to help in some way, but I haven't had the time, mental bandwidth, or honestly the energy to do much about it outside of the donation here and there, and just trying not to look away no matter how rough things get. I've also shared there have been a few personal life slash family things that have happened in the last year that have really been tough to deal with and that has added on to. The result of all of this is that I haven't had the energy or enthusiasm for work that I normally have. And as an A DHD business owner, I find for me that energy and enthusiasm are required in order for me to do anything for the long term. This is the truth. I love marketing. I love small business, and most of all, I love this group of people that I get to see and hang out with weekly, but I need some time to get my head back on straight, to get back in touch with a sense of purpose and reformat, making good happen to be of maximum value and service to you, even in a new scaled back format. There's more, but I did wanna share that bit as I hope it gives some insight into exactly where my head is at as I make this decision. I realize what an enormous privilege it is for me to be able to carve out a few months to step away from work. And I'm so, so, so grateful that I can. So what am I going to be doing for the next few months? I am going to try to go from being out of whack to finding balance priorities and that spark that I've been missing. I'm gonna try to take care of myself and my family. I'm gonna try to be my best self for the people I love the most. Try to do the things I love and that bring me joy and I'm recommitting to do my tiny part in making the world a better place. Practically speaking, this means I'm gonna get enough sleep. I'm gonna go be present during preschool, drop off and pick up, not racing to get home for a meeting or a deadline. I'm going to the gym to sweat it out in a way that I enjoy without rushing through it, or just skipping it all together. I'm gonna visit my parents in Palm Springs, go on walks and have dinner together, and not open my laptop while I'm there. I'm gonna go see college friends, including one who was my very first friend from college who I met nearly 20 years ago before I even left Seattle for Boston for school. And we're gonna celebrate life together in a beautiful part of Portugal. I'm gonna read books about finding your direction and your spark. I'm gonna read books about nothing related to that fiction. I'm going to journal, I'm gonna find my way to get back, and I'm going to take the pressure off and see what comes next. What does all this mean for the podcast? Well, most importantly, I wanna say that this podcast is one of the things I am most proud of that I have created in my business and even my life overall. There are over 300 episodes of this show, and I stand by all of them. There is so much good information in here to help you with your marketing and your business from my solo episodes that are really more like trainings. To all of the incredible guests that I've had over the years. This would be a very good time to scroll back in the archives, all 321 previous episodes and dig up some of the gold that's waiting for you there. Whether you've listened to it before or not, I promise you there's a lot there waiting, and the thing that I don't think will change is that I love this podcast. I love hanging out with you every week. I love hearing from you. I love sharing the things that matter to me and that I think can be helpful to you. And I have every intention of continuing. So yes, this podcast will be coming back. I feel very comfortable saying that. It may look slightly different. Who knows? I'm open to how things unfold, but again, I have every intention of kicking this podcast back up when I'm back from my pause in June. I know I'm gonna have so much to share with you. I can't wait. So be sure to stay subscribed to the podcast so that you are the first to see it when I have news for you, likely in June, but who knows, possibly sooner. I also love sharing things on my email list where I can share links and photos. I will be sending them an email about this change in the next couple of days and possibly some other periodic updates if I feel like it throughout. So make sure you're on that list too. Go to making good podcast.com/ 1 0 1. That will get you a cool marketing training, but more importantly, it'll get you on the email list so you don't miss anything. I just wanna thank you so, so much for being a listener of the podcast and part of my world in this way. This podcast is older than both of my kids, and my older kid is almost five. It has been a huge part of my life and will continue to be. I'm confident of that, so thank you for being here, and I really hope that you will stick around for the next chapter, kicking off in June. Thank you also for listening to this episode. I know this is a little bit different and I'm so grateful for you, truly. I would love to hear from you if you have any thoughts, ideas, questions, or advice on how to figure out your next step. I am all ears. DM me on Instagram at Lauren Tilden, or you can send me an email at Lauren. At making good podcast.com, you can find the show notes from this episode@makinggoodpodcast.com slash 3 2 2. Please know that I'm cheering you on. I have a feeling that I'm not the only one who's going through what I've been going through. So if you're there with me, I'm sending such a big hug and the encouragement to let yourself explore, reflect, and even make some big changes when you need them. I know I'm gonna have so much to share with you on the other side. I will talk to you in June.