Can you do more with less?

It's obedience He's after

Less Is More

Reading “What if the best growth strategy this year is subtraction?” made me reflect on my journey, especially at the end of 2022 when God challenged me to do more with less.

As a multi-passionate creative, I’ve wrestled between my voice and my hands—until my voice won. I loved design and built a career around it, but my heart has always belonged to writing. I guess in some ways writing requires active participation from both my voice and hands.

I remember being six years old, writing short stories and recounting experiences to share my perspective with family and teachers.

Secretly, I’ve always dreamed of becoming a well-known author, but that dream got buried under the weight of my many passions. Whenever I discovered something I could do, I’d go all in, learning and mastering the skill. Even in all that tinkering, God found ways to develop my voice—through his word, through study, and through sharing his goodness on a podcast I started with zeal.

While my hands kept busy, my voice kept growing.

These days, I crave simplicity. The beauty of doing more with less. I’m writing and reading again, dreaming of self-publishing books, maybe even landing a publishing deal—embracing a life centered on literature and words.

It feels creative to return to the basics. When there’s nothing to prove, only lessons to share and the confidence in God’s intentionality to guide every experience.

Design wasn’t just work—until it was.

Until the joy of creating visual stories to communicate my clients' visions faded. It became a chore. These days, I feel a wave of sadness whenever I sit down to design. It’s a wild shift, but it’s not without its lessons.

Design taught me discipline and attention to detail. It showed me how to make something out of nothing. And for that, I’ll always be grateful.

Right now, you’ll find me sharing thoughts on Substack, creating short-form clips on Instagram, and diving deeper into topics on YouTube. I even paused my personal podcast to collaborate with my pastor on an intergenerational podcast that explores the intersection of faith and culture for rising voices and seasoned saints.

I’m cutting back on screen time. I deleted Facebook and Threads from my phone—TikTok is next—and treated myself to a Kindle. My hope? To dive into more fiction this year and let my imagination take the lead.

Less is more.

I’m living proof.

We don’t have to chase metrics or cling to things that no longer serve us. We can explore for the sake of growth, but we don’t need to keep our hands in everything.

I’ve let go of podcasts, businesses, ideas—and now, design as a career—to stand once again at the crossroads asking, What’s next, God? I’m stepping into the unknown where he’s already waiting.

It’s obedience he’s after.

It’s the stillness he’s cultivating.

It’s contentment.

Focus on what you should. Release what you can.

Don’t stifle your growth by clinging to an outdated version of yourself. You never know—when the season is right, you may return with maturity and clarity, better equipped for what’s next.

Now it’s your turn.

What can you release? Or what is God calling you back to?

With love,
Janae Carlee