Thinking in Years, Not Weeks
When life is full, everything starts to feel urgent.
Orders to pack.
Emails to answer.
Inventory to reorder.
Dinner to figure out.
Messages you meant to reply to yesterday.
And underneath it all, a quiet pressure:
You should be further along by now.
There were years at Simply Natural Canada when I measured everything in weeks.
Weekly sales.
Weekly targets.
Weekly shipping numbers.
By Friday afternoon, I knew whether the week had been “good” or “not so good.”
And I carried that with me into the weekend more than I realized.
If something under performed, I adjusted quickly.
If something sold well, I tried to build on it immediately.
Everything was responsive.
Immediate.
Slightly charged.
And for a long time, I told myself that meant I was being responsible. Attentive. A good business owner.
But it also meant something else.
There was no room for a slow week without it feeling like a problem.
I was constantly reacting instead of trusting.
Progress felt fragile.
I remember one afternoon in my home office after a particularly full day.
Boxes stacked near the door. Orders still to pack. It was the kind of day where you move quickly without really looking up.
And I paused for just a moment. Nothing dramatic, I was just standing there with packing tape in my hand.
And I realized something I hadn’t let myself feel before.
We were still moving forward.
Not in a dramatic way.
Not in a “this week exceeded expectations” way.
But in a steady, quiet, undeniable way.
The kind you can only see when you stop measuring it every five days.
I had been measuring progress in such small increments
that I couldn’t feel the steadiness of it.
That was the beginning of a different way of thinking.
Not overnight.
Not perfectly.
But I started asking a different question.
Not,
How did this week go?
But,
If we keep building this way for five years, what will this become?
And something shifted.
Five-year thinking doesn’t make things happen faster.
It changes how they feel while they’re happening.
Urgency softened.
Not because there was less to do.
But because everything didn’t have to be solved this week.
Pressure spread out.
Decisions felt less reactive and more considered.
I could choose consistency over intensity.
Sustainability over short bursts.
Because I started to trust something I hadn’t trusted before.
Steady work compounds.
Even when it doesn’t look like much on a Thursday.
I notice this even more now with Best Life Simplified.
There are still weeks where I feel the pull to do more.
Write more.
Share more.
Grow faster.
And sometimes I do.
But more and more, I pause and ask:
If I build this way for five years… will I still want this life?
Because that’s the part we don’t talk about enough.
It’s not just what you’re building.
It’s what your way of building is quietly doing to you.
The pace you choose is shaping the person you become.
If the pace is rushed, you become rushed.
If the pace is pressured, you carry pressure.
If the pace is unsustainable, eventually… you feel that too.
And no milestone fixes that.
No number resolves it.
No future version of your life suddenly makes the pace feel okay.
If the way you’re building slowly wears you down,
the destination won’t feel the way you think it will.
You don’t need to sprint to prove momentum.
You need to choose a pace you respect.
A pace that still feels steady when the house is quiet at night.
A pace that lets you sit down without feeling like you’re already behind.
A pace you could live inside of… not just push through.
Because when you start thinking in years instead of weeks, something softens.
You stop chasing proof.
You start building trust.
You stop reacting.
You start designing.
You stop asking,
Is this enough for this week?
And begin asking,
Is this a life I want to keep living?
A Quiet Consideration
If you kept living this exact way for five years, what would feel strong?
What would feel worn down?
And what small shift, almost invisible this week, might protect the woman you’re becoming?
This is quieter work.
But it is stronger.
Not urgent.
Enduring.
Build gently,
We’re thinking in years now.
Sherrie
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