If you landed on this page because the title intrigued you, I promise this isn’t clickbait. You might have heard about minding your business, but there are a few things people don’t tell you about it.

Sometimes, you want peace of mind, you want to grow your business, you want to sell your book(s) or your other products, you want to go viral on social media, you want to be booked, busy and paid. But you’re not sure what to concentrate on, what to leave alone or what to delegate – especially when your competitors seem to be doing so much better than you.

By the time you get to the end of this post, you’d have found out what minding your business means, why it’s a good idea for you to do so AND how you’d go about it.

Read on – especially if you’re a woman (trying to succeed) in Law OR Media.

What does ‘minding your business’ mean?

Minding your business refers to staying in your lane. That can mean different things to different people.

So, in this context – whether it’s in your business or personal life – I’m referring to focusing on what concerns you AND that you can control.

Sometimes, you make (what you later find out are crazy) decisions based on wrong assumptions about situations or other people’s state of mind that have nothing to do with you. If you were minding your business, that wouldn’t happen.

Minding your business doesn’t guarantee you won’t encounter any discomfort or get into any trouble, so why do it?

Why should you mind your business?

There are a number of reasons minding your business is a good idea, but I’ll focus on just three below, before I suggest how you could go about it.

1) Minding your business frees up your energy, so you can focus on your goals

Have you ever noticed how drained and unproductive you feel, when you’re doing everything but or in addition to what you should be doing?

So, you’re a writer who’s now burnt out cos apart from or instead of writing your book – you are editing, designing the book cover, getting into social media spats and useless conversations (you call them engagement) and even going on podcasts that do nothing for you as you think they will get you attention and lead to sales.

Or you are an aspiring actress who keeps attending events to be seen (in the name of networking) and worrying about what social media trolls think of you – instead of improving your acting, learning about the business and attending auditions.

Perhaps the manifestation of you not minding your business is in obsessing over things you cannot control or foresee.

I get that some people think that being intentional means being in complete control – from thought to outcome – but there are some things you really cannot control. Some of those things are chance encounters, offhand comments and even people that you couldn’t in a million years, have foreseen. So, why worry about them?

How many times have you heard or read about people who met their spouses or publishers or people that launched their successful careers, by chance? There are some things that you cannot control cos you’re really not supposed to. Know this so you can know peace. And mind your business.

2) Minding your business keeps you safer and healthier

Depending on how you were brought up or socialised, this will either sound harsh or confirm something you already suspected – not every cry is yours to answer.

You will not be blessed specially (or at all) by any deity for giving so much of yourself, but you might die an untimely and unnecessarily painful death, if you heed every call. No matter your religious persuasion, it is actually irresponsible of you to endanger yourself by restoring access to people who should be denied. It is not your business to ‘prove your forgiveness’ by letting them back in cos they claim to be sorry! It is also an incredible waste of your resources for you to get involved in every beef, fight or social media trolling session that even your bestie has engineered.

There are people who have been hurt or killed by stray bullets or hands cos they got in the middle of something they were not equipped AND CALLED to deal with. There are even people who have been set up by those they tried to help. In fact, the cry for help was to lure the would-be helper to their death or destruction.

Whether online or in person, you need to hone and exercise discernment cos some assassins take the time and make the effort to look like your assignment – so that they can distract you, drain your resources and destroy you. Which minding your business can prevent.

3) Minding your business stops you being unnecessarily triggered by people and things that shouldn’t have power over you

The world tries to brainwash us right from childhood to put stock in others’ opinions of us, for our identity and validation.

So, we imbibe, regurgitate and parrot their opinions to the point where we don’t even know what came from us or what came from outside us. Sometimes, they’re so ingrained, that we don’t know where our opinions of ourselves stop and where an external voice starts. If they’re negative, we work extra hard to change them. If they’re positive, we jump through hoops to ensure they’re still applauding us – especially if we’re being compared to others.

Which is why when someone calls you ugly OR high maintenance OR arrogant OR nepo baby OR just a beneficiary of pretty/economic privilege OR a dumb blonde OR unmarried OR a divorcee OR broke, your mood changes and your entire day is spoiled.

Whenever words soothe or sting, it’s only because they’re meeting with a story we already carry inside of us. But if you’re minding your business, even hate-filled criticisms can be reduced by your mind to mere statements of fact or observations.

Whether you’re refusing to go where you shouldn’t be found, you’re refusing to take on burdens that are not yours or you’re permanently cutting toxic/drama-prone people out of your life – minding your business is crucial to finding peace.

How do YOU go about minding your business?

When it comes to minding your business, the how can look different for you from how it looks for someone else.

It really depends on where you are right now and where you’re headed. To bridge that gap, you do need some levelling up.

Perhaps the how for you is

• keeping quiet and moving in silence because some dreams/babies/unions can only be preserved by silence even if you’re a celebrity, reality TV star or social media influencer
• starting a podcast to build authority and stand out from the noise in order to reach people who might want to listen to and even pay you!
• publishing or revamping your book, so that your message will be available to the right people when the time is right
• figuring out your next steps and your narrative – whether you’re a burnt out and confused chef, a musician trying to return to the spotlight, a recovering reality TV star or a retired judge
• building your author brand the proper way, so you don’t waste money, time and hope in trying to get attention for your already published book
• getting some free training to take your skills and knowledge to the next level for your creative journey or legal endeavours

Or something else.

I help young women in Law OR Media to develop strong voices, solid careers AND stable personal lives. So, if this sounds like you, you want my help minding your business to achieve these goals, apply for your paid consultation here.

Was this post on minding your business helpful? Did you get some insight on what to do or why something wasn’t working before? Let me know in the comments section below.