Plant the Seeds: A Marketing Analogy

I’m here in Málaga, Spain celebrating Thanksgiving, which isn’t a holiday here. But my daughter and I are celebrating anyway because for us this has always been a day for reflecting on what we’re thankful for. And this year? We’re thankful to be basking in the Spanish sunshine.

Moving here took years of planning and a lot of stops and starts. Not unlike running Club Ed or being a freelancer.

It’s very easy to be intimidated by what needs to be done when you have a big goal in life – starting a business, becoming a freelancer, moving to Spain. It can be downright paralyzing to stare a goal like that in the face.

Small, Persistent Efforts

What I learned years ago from a freelance colleague was a mantra that I ended up adopting as my own: “Plant the seeds, plant the seeds, plant the seeds.”

My colleague was talking about how it’s easier, and less intimidating, to focus on the small steps that you need to take in order to succeed at the larger goal. And it’s a reminder that some of the seeds you plant will never get anywhere. They’ll never germinate because you sowed them on stony ground (not your fault – how were you to know?). Some will flourish – and wither right away (oops – you forgot to water them). But others? They’ll turn into a beautiful garden.

But you have to keep planting the seeds to get the garden. You have to be okay with some of those seeds never germinating.

In the beginning, the seeds to plant are fairly easy to figure out: if you want to be an editor, you first learn the skill. When I decided to move to Spain, I first had to figure out the paperwork to get a visa. (Oh the paperwork.)

But there comes a time after the initial push where the steps aren’t so clear and the reward isn’t so reliable. If you want to become a freelancer and you take a class, well, after you’ve taken a class, you can cross that off your to-do list. (The seed has germinated!)

Once I got my residency/work permit to live in Spain, I thought, “Goal achieved! I’m moving to Spain!” (The plant has sprouted!)

But then the hard part showed up. Did I think collecting and filing all that paperwork was hard? Hahaha. It was nothing compared to what came next.

Try “make a new life in a foreign country where all you know of the language is how to say ‘Soy estadounidense.'”

Freelancer? Try: “get enough clients to pay the bills without working eighty hours a week.”

That’s hard.

Big Rewards from Consistency

But my “plant the seeds” mantra still works even for the hard goals of “make a life” and “run a business.” For me, it boils down to: Every day, I do one thing that helps support my goal. For integrating into Spanish life, that’s taking a class or watching a YouTube lesson or otherwise practicing Spanish. It’s talking with people on the street even though I feel self-conscious about it. It’s one concrete thing I can do to make a life in Spain.

For Club Ed, it might be something like being a podcast guest or writing a blog post.

For my freelance editing career, it might be reaching out to a former client to see if they have any projects or sending an LOI to a new-to-me publisher.

It may not seem like one small thing a day will make a difference. And not every small thing turns into anything. But over time, all of those small things can add up to something spectacular!

Go ahead, steal my mantra: Plant the seeds, plant the seeds, plant the seeds.