We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Sarah Horgan a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Sarah, thanks for joining us today. Let’s start with the story of your mission. What should we know?

I believe all women deserve the time + space to be intentional about their own lives. Unfortunately so many of us are buried under piles of stuff, endless to-do lists and don’t understand why or how we can change.

I started simple + intentional after my own journey to simplicity. Starting in 2014 when I received a stage 4 cancer diagnosis, I began the process of understanding myself, my behaviours and how our thoughts and beliefs about ourselves contribute to how we live. I dug deep into my own perfectionism and people pleasing and made connections between how those things were holding me back from living on my own terms and creating what I wanted to create. We become very used to how we operate and what is normalized, that without seeking out new ideas and ways of doing things, we get stuck.

Fast forward to motherhood, where the demands were even bigger and I started intensely decluttering. The more I got rid of the better I felt. More time was freed up for things I wanted to pursue rather than the things I HAD to do. I realized my own sense of scarcity, the ease I had created in getting dressed and how powerful less was to living a fuller more engaged life.

I knew I had to share what I had learned with other women. I wanted them to find their way to less without getting pushed to the point of overwhelm I had reached, juggling motherhood and working full time, trying to do all the things. But instead examine their lives and choose what it is they want to focus their precious time and energy on.

And that is the mission of simple + intentional, to help women simplify; physically, mentally, digitally and in their daily routines, so they can find time and space to be themselves, live with more intention and find peace and enjoyment in their daily lives.

Sarah, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

I am a full-time working mom + wife, who lived with clutter and found my way to the other side. I radically changed my own life through decluttering and simplifying and am on a mission to help other women to do the same.

I would say my journey began, unknowingly, with a summer job helping seniors downsize almost 20 years ago. I loved that job, sorting, organizing and helping people make decisions about what to keep and what to let go of. It really foreshadowed where I am today! My enthusiasm and excitement for all that decluttering and simplifying, I’ve always had a natural sense of order and getting to the heart of things, figuring out the essential, what matters and cutting out what doesn’t. But it wasn’t until my cancer diagnosis that I started to come back to it.

In 2014 was diagnosed with stage 4 cancer. Life came to a standstill and I was forced to examine everything. I faced my perfectionism and people pleasing and began to recognize how it was impacting me. I took such a deep dive into who I was and how I was living and started to understand how our stuff is a reflection of our inner world.

Then fast forward to 2018 and becoming a mom, I had to dig even deeper. Being in survival mode with opposite work schedules from my husband, keeping up with it all felt impossible. Realizing that all the stuff, and not just physical stuff, was standing in my way of living my life, I started intensely getting rid of things and it clicked!

Embracing minimalism changed my life. Once all the excess was gone I learned to bring in less, even if it was free, challenge my mindset and beliefs and I set out to live more intentionally.

Less stuff meant everything became easier. Easier to clean, easier to manage and more time for fun, relaxation and pursuing my passions. I knew I had to share what I had learned through my journey with others, that they too could find time for their passions, their loved ones or just to relax + restore!

Now I work coaching women to declutter but really to live more on their terms, get to the heart of what they want and shift their mindset. I teach them how to build routines and habits that support how they actually want to live, declutter and get rid of all the stuff that’s weighing them down and start to take the steps necessary to build the life they want to be living.

I am also the host of the simple + intentional podcast which focuses on how to simplify your life and live with intention. It is a combination of interviews with inspiring guests and solo episodes where I share my knowledge.

A big dream of mine is to build community and help my clients connect with each other, support each other and immerse themselves in continuous, incremental growth. So coming this year will be the simple + intentional community membership! It will include group coaching, weekly meet ups, masterclasses + ongoing learning as well as group challenges and more!

Growth is a process and getting support helps us to see what we can’t. And that’s what my work is all about, supporting women to change how they live.

What’s a lesson you had to unlearn and what’s the backstory?

I have had to unlearn and unlearn and unlearn perfectionism. Recognizing that perfectionism isn’t actually a good thing when I had cancer was one thing but understanding ALL the ways it shows up and letting go of it is another.

And I think that’s the truth with any lesson, you’ll face it again and again in different circumstances and different forms, until you REALLY get it.

Perfectionism stopped me from starting, it stopped me from growing for years. I originally started a blog in 2014/2015 post cancer. I dreamed of writing again and starting some kind of business because I had always loved writing and hadn’t done it for years but my perfectionism popped up again and again.

“You have to do it this way….” Which was things like take your own photos (i.e. learn photography and buy a camera), read and research all the books that teach you how to blog (i.e. weeks of reading before starting) or make things look professional (learn and understand how to use wordpress instead of just taking the first steps).

And what eventually happened is I quit, I couldn’t keep up with my personal expectations of myself so I stopped. What I created didn’t feel good enough. I hampered my own ability to be successful and the funny thing is, there were so many other blogs I followed at the time, that now are massively successful. They created incredible businesses, And I realized I would have had success as well, the difference was they kept going. They persisted and overcame and I let perfectionism become a barrier.

So when I started simple + intentional, I was much further down the path of conquering my perfectionism. I was able to say things were ‘good enough’ and just get started. I adopted the mantra ‘Done is better than perfect” and focused on taking action, being okay with not knowing it all and it’s allowed me to do things like start my podcast, feel confident helping women and really, really recognize that so much is about being brave enough to take action over being the most experienced.

We’d love to hear the story of how you built up your social media audience?

I have found the most effective way to grown an audience is through consistency plus service. I committed to consistency initially when I started my instagram account, posting twice daily. Over time I realized once a day was sufficient and more sustainable and I checked in with the analytics to see what people were responding to. The analytics helped me see what was helpful to people. I didn’t pick them apart, just looked at what was most popular, where I got the most engagement and then looked at what that post had.
Over time I learned what worked for my audience, I kept up with consistency and I built relationships with other women who were creating similar accounts. From there when I started my podcast it enabled me to reach out to women I had connected with and I knew had great content to be a guest on my podcast. Which led to more opportunities and more connections.
I think the secret really is to be authentically you, create what you know and are good at, be consistent and build relationships.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.simpleintentional.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/simpleintentional/
• Other: Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/simple-intentional-decluttering-intentional-living/id1678834022

Image Credits
Olivia O’Young Photography for any of the professional photos