does delaying gratification make you more resilient?

I've recently been reflecting on my resilience practices (and how these have changed since I started out in 2005), as part of being a case study in a university research project about sole traders and micro business owners.

This has involved several in-depth interviews, and one of the question prompts in these about work/life balance pointedly asked me about what things make me happy in my life (when I'm not working). After I initially started to reference a few things, I quickly realised that I rarely (if ever) get to spend time in/on them as I want to, since the start of my parallel adventures as an unpaid carer (which started in Sept 2017). Which is why you might spot me stockpiling books and Lego sets - not because I'm ignoring them, but on basis of delayed gratification.

Various studies highlight how being able to defer our pleasure that we might otherwise indulge in today can actually help us generate more longer term future success (search for 'the marshmallow test' for the science and research). And these interviews made me realise how such delayed gratification has become a core strategy in my resilience - being able to image a future state in which I am enjoying those things that I can't now is a large part of helping me better keep pulling myself forward to the end of today and to be able to start tomorrow (especially when things are tougher than we'd care to admit...).

But I'm curious to know if such approaches feature in other people's thinking and actions as to how they build resilience in their businesses and for themselves (or do people turn more to immediate fixes like cheese boards and going for runs?).

    

north star metrics don't have to be about your business

I was recently interviewed by an MBA student, as part of an academic research study into how micro business owners and sole traders like me 'do' resilience.

During that conversation the topic of north star metrics came up - if you're not familiar with this, it's the concept that there's an overarching single KPI or target that everything in your business is related to achieving (i.e. being the no1 college in England; maintaining 5* review average amongst customers; etc).

I shared how mine was not to do with my business, but rather being able to keep supporting my family: when I started my (mis)adventures in self-employment in 2005 I was my family's sole breadwinner. Which meant all parts of my business were focussed on earning enough money to support ourselves as a household. Then in 2017 I started my unpaid caring adventures for what's now become several family members, which means that all the decisions I make in/about my business now have to relate to how I can keep financially paying the rent whilst also having the flexibility to support their changing and evolving needs.

This isn't perhaps uncommon for people who are self employed to have their work and personal life so intertwined. But the conversation made me wonder about what might happen if we started to be less polarised in general about conversations that relate to our work and 'life' - after all, for many of us, there's a constant re-mixing of how we can best honour our responsibilities to our employers/clients, and those to our families.

This isn't just an abstract idea, but one based in recent research from Carers UK, showing how the family circumstances of 600 people every day are changing in ways that mean they can't find ways to find the new 'mix' they need, and so are forced to quit their jobs:

https://www.carersuk.org/press-releases/research-more-than-600-people-quit-work-to-look-after-older-and-disabled-relatives-every-day/   

There's a cliched adage that 'we manage what we measure', so if we started to measure family and life metrics of our people within our financial and other performance metrics as businesses, might we see more engaged workforces that are also easier to retain the skill and talent of?

happiness as a freelancer

Amongst the messages in my inbox last month that landed on world happiness day (20th march 2026), was a question: what makes you (me) happy as a freelancer?

Happiness may not be as easy to spot as you might think?

I initially thought it would be easy to run off a long list, but quickly realised that my first ideas were actually more about how freelancing means I'm able to be more useful and helpful to others than I might be able to if I were salaried - but does that make me happy?

So I recast my eyes and mind over the list I'd started to compile and found 3:

3 types of happy

1) chances to travel - and if I'm lucky, with enough slack around timings with clients and train timetables to allow me to briefly dip into a new museum or gallery (as those things make me happy). However, as my unpaid caring responsibilities have grown over the last 8 years, there's increasingly less opportunity for me to be able to travel around the country as easily as I once did...

2) Working From Home means I more easily surround myself with plants than I'd be able to in an employer's offices.

3) the variety of clients and work I do means that while there'll always be some that I start to struggle with / don't enjoy the work so much, at least I know that they're not my full time, ongoing work (as some people have to face each day with bullying colleagues, and work they don't enjoy, but need to remain in to afford to pay rent, etc).

Happiness is there as a freelancer - but you may have to work to find it 

So - happiness: it can be an elusive thing, and maybe the moral is that it's on us to work on making sure we can recognise it when it happens, and try to actively create ways in which we can keep reminding ourselves about it on a daily basis (especially if we're also amongst the approaching 1 million freelancers / sole traders who are also unpaid carers).

As always - credit to people where it's due for prompting my blog posts. In this instance its Jenny Holliday, who's post on world happiness day prompted me to reflect on the above:

https://substack.com/home/post/p-191264082 

    

more reasons why I'm an Iolite gemstone

Last year, I talked a lot about how my business was like a toilet (and why that was a good thing).

This year, I'm likening it to an iolite gemstone.

And after some more recent researches about this gemstone, I think it's still a substance that represents me well - 

* it's strongly associated with helping people navigate uncertain spaces (the Vikings used it on cloudy days to help them find the sun) - something I regularly do through my work with clients and in my research/policy efforts;

* it's forged in metamorphic rocks in areas of high pressure (some may recall my 'tubthumping' revelations last year which show some of the challenges that I've endured in getting my business to where it is today);

* it's mythical and ritualistic associations see it stimulating vision and creativity, and enhancing insight (another feature of what I do through my facilitation practices with different groups, and in my consultancy work).

So - this year, I'm definitely an iolite gemstone; but I'm curious to know what jewel might best reflect your business or organisation?

the worst of all worlds?

There's a pervading message that starting up your own business gives you more control of your life - you get to choose who you work with, when you work, etc. All of which helps reduce the stress of being at the beck and call of a boss (who you may not like).

But of course, there's a balancing cost to this control which isn't talked about as much: irregular income, no holiday/sick pay, no automatic pension contributions, etc (which means that various researches are starting to find that being an entrepreneur may not actually be that great for our mental health after all...).

Which means when it comes to working, there's a(n over-simplified) choice available to us:

1) work for someone else - which may limit our enjoyment, cause stress, but offers regular pay and time off;

or

2) work for ourselves - which gives us more freedom and choice, but means less security of income to pay the rent / buy food with, etc.

What I based my choice on (and the cost of this)

As I enter the 21st year of being in business for myself, I'm starting to wonder if I somehow haven't accidentally set myself up to 'enjoy' the worst of both of these options...

You see, my particular business model is based primarily on being an associate to other agencies and approved provider lists (I'm usually paid by other people for the work I do with client organisations). This means that while it may be easier for work to come to me, I have less choice in it, it may pay less, and it's usually structured so that I'm part of a managed team under a project manager/boss - just as if I were an employee (with all of the usual strains, pressures, and politics involved of such).

This model of working is based on my values of trying to be more accountable and transparent in how I work - but highlights that our values come at a cost: although there may be work coming in for me, and there are more checks and balances to check the quality of my work, it's often in a way that means I need to act as an employee would (with all the stresses of that) but without any of the benefits that being an employee would offer (no sick / holiday pay, etc).

Why I seem to be working in ways that make no sense

I can already hear some of you thinking "if you don't like it so much, then why not change the way you work?". Well, dear reader, that would mean I have to compromise on some of the values that define me. I'm therefore sharing this here not for sympathy, but to illustrate that in all of our choices, there's always a trade-off somewhere...

It's also shared in hopeful encouragement to others who are also thinking about their own respective business models / ways of working - it's up to us to work out how far we're willing to accept the trade offs of the choices we have. 

So while it may feel tougher than I'd like at times, running my business in a way that continues to buck conventional wisdom is my choice, and one that I regularly recommit to with eyes wide open. It's only me who has to sleep with my conscience at night: what I'm ok with in my business model won't be ok for you (and vice versa) - but shouldn't we all regularly pause to check that our business model isn't accidentally starting to make us become people we don't like?

NB - I always try and offer credit where its due: this particular post was inspired by Tom Jepson, and one of his 'subscriber only' YouTube lives.

Am I really the Adrian Ashton you're looking for?

There's a habit in some magazines and social media feeds to list celebrities' birthdays - not to make us feel older, but to offer us some excitement by realising who we share a birthday cake with (for me, this list includes Tim Burton, Sean Connery, and Alexander Skarsgard).

But what about other people who we share a name with?

Other authors, tombstones, and pickleballs 

I started to think about this a couple of years back, when I discovered by accident that there's a world famous bassist player in musical circles who's published books (which does sometimes cause a bit of confusion when people are trying to find copies of the books that I've written): 

https://www.amazon.co.uk/stores/Adrian-Ashton/author/B0034Q4UZ8 

Then in 2024 most AI bots (and a client I worked with) thought I was dead -

https://www.legacy.com/us/obituaries/legacyremembers/adrian-ashton-obituary?id=43461197

And more recently I learnt that I'm an amateur pickleball player in Australia - https://pickleball.com/players/adrian-ashton/clubs?club_type=memberof&page=1

Right name, wrong Adrian, but a happy accident?

So, you next time you're typing my name into an email address line, or scrolling through your phone's address book to call me, please make sure that you've got the right 'me' to avoid possible confusion... or maybe it'll lead you to a wholly unexpected adventure?

Why I'm modelling gemstones this year.

As the reflections that ran over the course of last year for my business' 20th anniversary settle, I'm now thinking about how I can be best 'brassed off' this year (the material usually associated with a 21st year milestone).

Why a gemstone is better than metal

And just as I reflected on how porcelain (the material for 20 years) seemed very apt for how I'd navigated and 'been' to that point, brass also seems a good fit too - it's strong and resilient. And in light of some of what my businesses has weathered in its first 2 decades as I shared last year, I'm nothing if not strong and resilient.  

But the iolite gemstone can also be associated with a 21st anniversary. And it might be a better choice of material for me to adopt this year, because it symbolises clarity and introspection - a core ongoing piece of feedback I get from people is how I've helped them understand things that they never though they'd be able to (clarity); and last year saw me doing a fair bit of navel gazing (introspection).

Gemstones also refract light and colour in different ways, depending on how you look at it it (a bit like my plethora of work - and that I always seems to be something new that clients never knew I did, until they take a different approach with me).

The Viking connection

It was also widely used by Vikings to help them navigate their journeys (something that I try and do with people I work with, although without the axes and horned helmets...).

(for more on iolite - https://fiercelynxdesigns.com/blogs/articles/iolite-gemstone-information)

A sparkly year ahead?

So - on balance, after being associated with toilets last year, I think I'd like to be linked with gemstones in this one.