How I’m Using Compounding to Reframe Work, Money and Movement

Starting A Business

I’m not earning money here yet. It’s at the forefront of my mind a lot of the time. I’m waiting on some paperwork to be done and nothing happens quickly in Sweden. All very lagom. And I’m not a lagom kind of a person frankly…

So there’s a hint of annoyance but I’m also incredibly grateful that I have plenty of money to keep me. I am by no means rich, but when I sold by business last year I got a good glob of money - most of which will go towards a house when we decide to buy and some of which is financing me now. It won’t last forever, it requires me to be sensible and I’m itching to get going with the business but I am comfortable and secure.

Money Stories

Now, one of my money stories is that I need to work really hard to earn money. And right now I’m not earning money so my brain’s natural inclination is towards… no joy, just work. Get up early, maybe go to the gym, and then just work work work. It makes no odds to my monkey brain that no matter how hard I work right now I won’t be earning money until the paperwork is sorted and that’s out of my hands.

This is how I worked when I had the shop. Not to say that I was always efficient, but I was always anxious, always thinking I should be doing more, always choosing to do something that felt a little less joyful to prove that I was working hard. For me that was one of the worst things about the shop, it stole my ability to enjoy the good times by focussing so much on the bad and hard stuff.

Work-Life Balance

It’s something I’m actively un-choosing in this business. I will have days off, weekends and working hours. I will lean into things that I enjoy and avoid or delegate things that don’t work for me. The money I earned through the shop gives me a fair bit of leeway to do that, so I’m not dismissing the way that I worked before. She was doing the best that she could, I’m just able to do a bit better now.

One of the ways I’m leaning into this energy is by making the business work around my activity. Once I start taking bookings (soon - fingers crossed!) I will have a little less freedom I suppose, but right now, I can choose to take every morning off to walk or go to the gym. And instead of feeling nervous or stressed that that means I’m not earning money, I’m choosing to enjoy these good times whilst they’re here. And when the next kind of good times come - let me enjoy those too.

Woah. I wasn’t expecting to talk about that so, I’ll get quickly to the steps I meant to talk about.

Leaning Into Joy

I’m a gym girly at heart, I like to rock up, lift some stuff and leave. I stay active otherwise by cycling and this summer I have been swimming nearly every day in the outdoor. Once the pool closed for winter, I reverted back to the gym but my overall movement has declined. I cycle much less now I’m not going to college every day, building this business has me sitting a lot and then most evenings are spent frantically embroidering to finish a project before a deadline. Last Wednesday I did just 6,000 steps which is absolutely not me!

So I took myself, in the pursuit of joy and steps, to Gamla Uppsala last Thursday. It means old Uppsala, but it was simply Uppsala before a cathedral was built in a different village and a pope decided that he wanted the cathedral to be in a place whose name everybody already recognised, so that place took the Uppsala name and gamla was added to the actual Uppsala. It has a Viking age burial ground and is the site of some important stuff to do with Christianity coming to Sweden.

There are kings buried in those mounds!

To the right of this photo is a gorgeous church which I was drawn to because I knew there was a runestone from a guy called Sigviðr the English traveller - or maybe he just travelled to England and also maybe it was actually about his Dad - and it’s one of the first (or maybe the first) use of a Christian type cross in a runestone, and I wanted to have a look at it. Frankly, it was a little underwhelming but then I think most runestones are.

As I turned away, I saw a noticeboard about this bloke Sankt Erik. He was a king of Sweden until he got his head chopped off just about there and where it fell a fountain sprang up and so obviously he was made a saint. He was buried in the church at old Uppsala where I was, until at some point they decided to move his body to the new cathedral in Uppsala. A cult grew up around it, and every year for a few hundred years people would carry his remains from the cathedral to old Uppsala as a pilgrimage. It’s about a 6k walk, mostly flat and sign posted, so obviously I made the pilgrimage. No dead bodies though.

Allowing My Brain To Wander

It’s pretty normalised now for people to have headphones in wherever they go. I do. I mostly listen to podcasts, sometimes audiobooks, music only when I want to listen to something specific. I tell myself that I’m passively learning and I sometimes choose the ‘less joyous’ option so I know that it’s really ‘work’ that I’m doing, especially during the day when my monkey brain is telling me I should be working. Recently, I’ve been experimenting with no headphones at all. Just thoughts!

The thoughts I was having were about how wonderful this felt. How I should do more of it. How one of the reasons I was so excited about moving to Stockholm was the outdoor lifestyle. How I should push myself a bit. How I should aim for 10,000 steps a day!

But I am an overthinker (can you tell?), so then I was wondering how I could make that a bit more interesting. How 10,000 might feel like something now because I’m in the habit of 6,000 but very soon it won’t be anything at all so I should increase it. By 100 a day? Nej! By 10% a day! Compounding! I could use this as a lesson on compounding. Then I started doing the maths and very quickly realised that 10% compounded would reach 17,000 ish steps within a week and 159,000 ish steps within 30 days.

The Power of Compounding hey!

So I settled on a 1% a day increase for 30 days. That takes me to the day before a wedding I’m attending and then I have a couple of weeks fannying about on holiday so I’m sure I’ll step a lot but my focus will be on enjoying stuff with friends rather than self-improvement.

I have plans to continue this after the holiday too. And I have some rules that I’ve made up to make this more enjoyable and to keep myself accountable but my goodness have I rambled so, let me leave this here:

As I write this, on Wedesday afternoon, I’ve done 87,107 steps. That’s an average of 12,443 steps a day. So just this little intention has doubled what I was already doing. I’ve been out of the house every day for my own enjoyment not just to get somewhere or do something. I’ve seen lots of animals, I’ve foraged and I’ve started understanding how some of the routes connect up so I’m getting a better grip on my area. And, to get my steps in on Friday I put a bra back on after I’d taken it off for the day!

So all in all, I think this is a great idea but I’ll definitely keep you updated. If you want more gentle, practical money mindset ideas, join my newsletter here.

Love Eleanor. xxx