How to know when it's time to throw out the old playbook

This is one of the hardest decisions you'll ever have to make as a solopreneur.

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I hadn’t heard the word iterate too often until 2023.

And then, I seemed to hear it everywhere.

One of the chief proponents of it was (and is)

Eve Arnold

, a prolific writer on Medium (and now Substack).

Eve’s written literally millions of words on the internet over the last few years, and one of her favourites is iterate.

Like many wise content creators, Eve encourages fellow writers to make steady, incremental adjustments to their process rather than huge, sweeping changes.

If what you’re doing is working, just tweak it and make those minor improvements that compound to produce big results.

But what if it’s not working?

Well, that’s when the time comes for boldness.

If your process as a writer or solopreneur isn’t working, that’s when you need to go back to the drawing board and rethink your approach.

• Have your LinkedIn leads dried up? Try Instagram instead.

• Are you getting crickets in response to your weekly emails? Try making those connections in your DMs for a while.

There’s great value in sticking at something consistently, making minor iterations along the way until you see results.

But if it’s just not working, no matter how long you stay loyal to your process, you may need to make one of those big sweeping changes in order to kickstart your solo business.

Who knows? It could be the catalyst that leads to your best year yet.

Try this next

If you’re not seeing the progress you want, don’t just sit around waiting for something to change.

Run a mini audit of your current process and take one bold action this week to shake things up.

Here’s a simple 3-step challenge to get you started:

1. Identify one thing that’s not working. Be honest with yourself. Where’ve you been stuck for a while now? Slow growth? Low engagement? Tumbleweeds in your inbox?

2. Pick one bold experiment. Not a tiny tweak - a proper pivot. Post somewhere new. Rework your offer. Start a podcast episode instead of a newsletter. Launch a 3-day promo blitz. Whatever feels exciting and uncomfortable.

3. Commit to it for 7 days. Give your experiment a fair shot. Don’t overthink. Don’t half-send it. Just go all in for one week and see what happens.

And if that sparks momentum? Iterate that.

PS. If you’re still on the fence about solopreneurship, take my free email course and find out if it’s right for you.

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