Then I Turned It Into a Full-Time Job. [Summer Read-Aloud]

  Sam Vander Wielen: Hey there, and welcome back to On Your Terms®. So for the next couple of weeks, I’m gonna be doing something a little bit differently as part of a little summer series of sorts. For the next few weeks, I’ll be reading you a few of my essays that I’ve written on my Substack. My Substack is just called Sam Vander Wielen, because as you can probably tell by now, I’m really, really good with coming up with creative names for things.

But I have a Substack called Sam Vander Wielen, where I share personal essays and behind the scenes, a lot about grief and loss, coming back from that grief and loss, and learning to, I don’t know, uncouple myself from overconsumption and overworking, and really learning how to be more present in my life.

So all you have to do for the next couple of weeks until I come back with your full-force regular episodes of On Your Terms® on September 14th, is just kick back, put in your headphones, maybe even go for a walk, and listen to my reading of this week’s essay from Substack. If you’d like to subscribe to my Substack so that you can also read these on Substack or on the app, go ahead and just click the link down below. It’s completely free.

Why I can’t stop working even during my gap year. On not knowing the line between resting and being restless. I’m doing everything I can not to start this post with some self-deprecating explanation or apology for how badly I’m handling my entrepreneur gap year. I’m sort of trying to be done with saying sorry for everything.

I linked in that sentence to a article that I wrote about stopping saying sorry all the time. And as my mom would say, I didn’t figure out I was addicted to work as a way of busying myself on a Tuesday at 3:47 PM. I’m not sure why, but things were always on a Tuesday at 3:47 PM with her and we’re just going with it.

Instead, it revealed itself slowly in little moments when I saw myself trying to avoid thinking too much about what’s happened to me. It wasn’t like one day I just realized, like, “Oh, I see why I post relentlessly and day in and day out, even if I’ve gotta wipe snot away from my face from crying so hard all day just to post it.

It’s because I’m trying to distract myself. Problem solved.” If only it were that easy. No, instead it started with a spark, a little, “Oh, I feel myself reaching for my phone because I just remembered the time that Dad and I came to this park together, and now he’s dead. So let’s just go on Instagram.” I had zillions of those little moments, each one stretching a little longer until I reached for my paci.

As time went on, there were moments where I was able to feel myself instinctively reaching for a usually digital distraction tool, but instead chose to take a walk or chat with a friend. Sure, some of those walks included picking up my phone like 22 times to check if anybody had liked my post yet on Instagram, but I still walked.

Yet there were others when I knew what I was doing, like avoiding, distracting, and I just did it anyway. Sometimes you just need a good scroll. I was/am still very early on in this whole trying to detach from work and social media as my adult paci when I decided earlier this year to take 2026 as my entrepreneurial gap year.

And just like my meandering journey to detach myself from work, devices, and social media more, my entrepreneurial gap year journey has had more turns than the Pacific Coast Highway.

I’ve reached for my paci more times than I can count, typically re-downloading Instagram on my phone just to see what’s going on in the DMs or reaching out to my director of ops, Lindsey, with just a little idea. Even though I hear this quiet voice in the back of my mind saying, “You’re supposed to be off,” it just feels too natural, too easy to fall back on my old ways.

One thing leads to another, and suddenly I’m teaching trainings, writing two newsletters a week, and doing podcast guest interviews all in a month where I was supposed to be off. “I’m not working in May,” I told my friends. “I’m just teaching a training, working with a writing mentor, have my mindset sessions, therapy, trying to grow my Substack, joining my weekly mastermind calls, and posting on Instagram stories sporadically.”

“That sounds like working,” one of my friends who can tell it like it is said. We all need those friends, right? Whoops. Without even meaning to, I had turned my time off into a normal person’s full-time job. It’s hard for me to figure out what being off or slowing down even looks like. To me, my month off in May felt like retirement, yet to my friends, it looked like full-time work.

As I told my friend Shawn Blanc the other day, the other issue is that I really love what I do. Not just selling legal templates, but writing my business newsletter, recording episodes for my podcast, On Your Terms®, getting interviewed on other people’s podcasts, et cetera. I love doing all of that stuff.

To be honest, when I take time off, I just get a little bit bored. Not because I need to stay busy, but because I want to use my brain. But where’s the line between not being able to rest and being restless? It’s not one I’ve been able to find quite yet. This whole year I’ve felt like I’ve put my paci away in a drawer, only to yank it out again, only for me to bury it a little bit deeper in the closet.

As I close in on halfway through the year, I’m learning how to adjust and live more without it, but also not beating myself up for still feeling like I wanna reach for it sometimes I never claimed to be good at this. I’m just a burnt-out girl trying to figure it out. And maybe I, like other people, expected to go into this with a perfect game plan.

But if I had known and accepted when I set out on this gap year project that that it would be just as jolting as being in the car with a first-time driver, I think I could have been kinder to myself as I inevitably navigated those bumps.

More than anything, I’d rather be someone who works through the speed bumps than someone who never approaches them in the first place.

XO, Sam. P.S. I wrote this essay on the day of my three-year anniversary of my mom’s death and also the three-year anniversary of getting my book deal. Very weird day. It’s days like today where I think no wonder I just want to work. The pain of her loss, especially how I lost her, is unimaginable, and I’m not sure I’ll ever, quote-unquote, “recover from it.”

But I don’t give myself enough credit for showing up every day and just doing my best, even if it’s not always the right or the best thing to do in that moment, even if the people following me online think I’m doing too much, too little, or just not right enough. So I’m sending love to all of my grieving friends, and thank you so much for being here.

Thanks so much for listening to today’s essay. I hope that you liked it. I would love to hear from you over on Substack, so make sure you come and subscribe to my Substack below, and go and comment on the essay that you just heard me read. I’d love to see you there. With that, I’ll talk to you next week.

Thanks so much for listening to the On Your Terms® podcast. Make sure to follow on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you like to listen to podcasts. You can also check out all of our podcast episodes, show notes, links, and more at samvanderwielen.com/podcast.

You can learn more about legally protecting your business and take my free legal workshop, Five Steps To Legally Protect and Grow Your Online Business at Samvanderwielen.com and to stay connected and follow along, follow me on Instagram at samvanderwielen and send me a DM to say hi.