Am I Ready to Move Beyond Body Neutrality?

I’m searching for my next big problem to solve. #TransparentTuesday

Hi friend,

I think I’m getting ready for a big business rebrand soon! 

For a handful of years now—more or less since my book was published—I’ve been feeling a persistent pull to evolve the direction of my work, my business, and my brand.

It’s not that I necessarily want to move away from body image or body neutrality entirely (although I’m open to that). It’s more like I’ve allowed my work to become very wide and to expand out horizontally over the last handful of years further than I think it serves me.

This broadening of my “niche” felt great for a while, both because it allowed me to demonstrate how body image issues are actually about a million other (deeper) issues, and because it allowed me to think about and explore a million different areas of life that interested me personally, from sex and pleasure to relationships and attachment to spiritual purpose and meaning.

But lately I’ve been feeling called more and more to find a way to narrow and sharpen my focus again, so that I can do what I love best: root deeeeeeply down into a subject. 

The problem is… I haven’t been able to figure out which direction I want to go!

If you’ve been reading these emails for a long time, you’ve probably heard me exploring this question before, because I’ve been more or less casually trying to answer this question for years. 

Recently though, I feel like the call is getting louder and louder, and my ideas and intuition are starting to sort of swirl around each other with increasing momentum the way that always happens right before I get hit with a big download of clarity, or the answer to a big question. 

So while I’m still sorting through everything, I want to let you in on some of the stuff I’ve been thinking about, and invite you to give feedback or share your thoughts!

Before going into some of the potential ideas that have been bouncing around my head, I want to clarify what it is that I’m looking for. 

Essentially I’m just looking to narrow my focus, both because constraints are the foundation of creativity (as they say), and because I feel excited about getting to drill down deep into a specific issue or problem.

But from a business perspective, I’m also looking to narrow my focus in such a way that makes my work easier to market, which means having a super specific and clear idea of both who specifically I help, and what exactly I help them with. 

As of right now, this answer is extremely broad. I suppose I could say “I help anyone struggling with body image issues improve their relationship with their body/appearance.”

This’s accurate, but it’s not particularly helpful for communicating to the world what I have to offer, or why they should work with me. So one thing I’m looking to nail down, with a much higher level of specificity that I have in years, is the answers to these two all-important questions: 

1. Who exactly do I work with? 

2. What is the specific problem that I help them solve?

If I were to stick with body neutrality as the heart of my brand and draw from my current audience, here are some examples for how these answers could potentially look:

• I work with feminist millennial women who have previously cultivated body neutrality, but are now struggling with new insecurities and issues as they age.

• I work with mid-size women in their 30s and 40s who want to stop obsessing over their weight (without using GLP1s). 

• I help women who have been in therapy for years—and already have all the tools, skills, and knowledge—finally go from knowing they’re good enough to actually feeling good enough.

These would all work because they’re accurate and specific but, for me, they just don’t… sparkle. They’re fine, but they don’t inspire me to go down a massive research rabbit hole and learn everything I can about something.

So I think it’s not that I’m just seeking more clarity and specificity in my branding. I’m also seeking to bring something new into my actual work.

I’m craving a new problem to solve. Something big and complex that negatively impacts people’s lives in a meaningful way; something interesting and important, that I can really sink my teeth into for years. 

Ideally it would be something that’s deeply rooted in (or connected to) the work that I already do… but framed in a way that feels fresh and exciting.

To be honest, my list of examples for interesting “problems” or complex topics that could possibly work for this part is pretty long and includes things like:

• GLP1s. 

• Perimenopause.

• Decentering men. 

• Attraction, sex, and dating. 

• Coming out as queer later in life.

• Unlearning compulsory monogamy.

• Co-existing with men (in our current political climate.) 

• Authentic self-expression, social signaling, and style. 

• Gen Z and the burden of constantly being perceived. 

• Our culture’s toxic and distorted relationship to masculinity/feminity.

• “Moral neutrality” and the importance of stripping away false or inflated moral significance, judgement, interpretation, and hierarchies in all areas of life that tend to cause suffering… not just body image. 

See what I mean? There are so many fascinating topics and problems to choose from that directly overlap with the work I’m already doing with clients, because they so often sit right underneath the surface of body image issues. 

But since I genuinely love learning about and talking about every single one of these topics, choosing just one has proven very difficult! So part of the clarity I’m looking for right now is about which of the many possible new directions I could go feels like the right one. 

This decision feels especially important because I believe if I choose the right one, I’ll be able to both tap back into the ferocious curiosity, excitement, and intrinsic motivation I once felt about solving the “problem” of body image issues, and be able to easily market my work in a way that would drive my business back into a growing-and-building phase!

Now I’ve just been giving you examples so far, to help you understand exactly what I’m looking for in terms of a business revamp or rebrand, because I’d love to hear your thoughts and feedback!

But the truth is that I have never in my life enjoyed the outcome of a “logical decision,” and this isn’t really a question of being logical or practical.

In general, the only decisions that I end up loving are the ones that were rooted purely in my intuition, and that deep-down feeling of “YES” in my body and soul. In fact all the very best decisions I’ve ever made were those that directly contradicted logic. The ones that didn’t make any rational sense, and I didn’t even know why I was doing it, but I trusted my gut and followed my heart. 

Those are the decisions that, when I look back on my life, have always had the most powerful, positive, and magical outcomes. So ultimately, I’ll be leaving the decision for which direction to go next with my business up to my body, soul, and gut. 

But in the meantime, I’m really excited to feel a big change coming, and I’ve been really enjoying the creative mental play-space of thinking about, talking about, and writing about the possibilities. 

That said, I’d love to hear from you! 

Specifically, I want to know:

What problem(s) or goal(s) would you be willing to pay a coach to help you with, at this exact point in your life?

Go ahead and hit reply to share your answer, and please be honest! 

I want to know what you’re actually looking for help with right now, and what problems you’re legitimately willing to pay to solve.

If you’re at a place in your life where you’re more likely to spend your money on interventions to “improve your appearance” than on coaching—ie: botox/fillers, GLP1s, workout programs, stylist, personal shopper, etc.—that’s totally fine, I just want to know! 

Or maybe you have a specific problem in your business, career, finances, marriage, parenting, dating life, or something else that you pay a coach (or would pay, if you found the right person) to help you with. If so, please hit reply and tell me about it!

That’s it for today. Thank you so much for reading and following along with my work, my business, and my journey.

I hope to hear from you on this one. Sending you a beautiful day!

Big hug,

Jessi