When you want to break up with your business…

When you want to break up with your business…

 I loved reading Verity Johnson’s article on falling out of love with your business on the stuff website this week. (you can check it out here)

 Verity has hit the nail on the head here, on a topic that I for one, think we need to be discussing more openly.

Its hard to run a business

Its especially hard if you are a sole trader and responsible for every single aspect of the business from bill paying to client facing to product development to social media. The ugly truth is, there are days when you actually hate your business and wish you had never created it in the first place. Yes I said that out loud!

If your business was a romantic partner you likely would have broken up with them multiple times by now because quite frankly they are just plain hard work! 

Its time to be REAL about this

The reason I felt compelled to write about this and to share Verity’s article is because I have seen so many clients and colleagues struggle with this reality and the burn out that comes as a result of giving, giving, giving your energy to your business and not feeling like anything is coming back in return. The most concerning part of this for me as a coach is that I continually see people making it a personal failure.

“I dont love my business so their must be something wrong with me”

“I just cant seem to make it work or catch a break or connect with the right people so maybe I’m just not cut out for this”

“My competitors (and everyone else I am comparing myself too) seem to be doing so much better and make it look so easy, What’s wrong with me?”

I think its high time we normalised the tricky, unrelentless and down right disappointing side of running a business and began to foster acceptance that its ok for it to feel hard and to sometimes suck!

I’d love to see more conversations in the media, in networking and facebook groups about the relationship we have with our businesses. The good, the bad and the ugly. We need safe spaces where the business “highlight reel” we all hide behind can be let go in favour of genuine conversations about our daily business lives.

The thing is success doesnt happen by accident.

Success happens through hard work, adjustment, failure, gettting up again and trying a new approach. Success comes from sleepless nights and left turns that turn out to be just the innovation that was needed. Maybe we could all get there quicker and bypass the burn out if we knew it was meant to be hard and often unrewarding!

 No amount of reconnecting to your “why” will save you from the self doubt

But just maybe a real and supportive conversation will.

Maybe knowing you are not alone in your experience will

Perhaps sharing about the tough times we dont speak about will

We celebrate our success but we dont create the space to nurse our wounds after our losses.

What I really want to say is, that if you are having a tough time in your business, if you have lost the love and feel the approaching fatigue and fog of burn out, its not because you are all the negative things you believe about yourself.

Its not that you’re a failure. Its because its bloody hard and you are a hero for even deciding to get in the game. So before you throw it all away, close the doors and call it quits, take a breath.

Give yourself some space to reflect and recover

Talk to a trusted friend, coach or therapist

Decide what you really want from your relationship with your business and find a way to get that. Even if it means a hybrid business/paid work model or putting your business on the backburner for a few months.

To have stepped into the small business arena takes courage and a big dream and those things will still be burning away somewhere within you. But maybe they look a little different to how you first imagined and maybe there is another way that feeling bad about yourself is keeping you from discovering.

And to those of you who are currently in a loved up phase with your business, I’d encourage you to take a moment to be a supportive ear and wise counsel for another business owner who’s currently in the mud with their’s.

 I’d love to know if this resonates with you? free to leave me a comment with your thoughts

 

 

 

 

 

I’m always happy to lend an ear if you find yourself in a quandry with your business. For a free chat Book here

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Advice I wish someone had given me for Business and Life!

The Advice I wish someone had given me for Business and Life!

We learn to do life by experience, don’t we…..and the reality is we are not always very well equipped for some of the experiences life throws at us. Like navigating relationships, losing someone you love and running your own business. 
These have to be the 3 most challenging experiences life has given me and recently I have been reflecting on what I have learnt and how much that underpins my work as an Intuitive Coach. It has made me realise that many of the pitfalls of starting out in business (and in life) could be avoided with some really simple advice…..

“Know yourself, Believe in yourself and take ownership of the habits and patterns that trip you up so you can change them”

If you are super self motivated and you can take the sentence above on board and action it then you don’t need to read the rest of this blog! But for everyone else let me explain this to you a little bit more.

(1) Know yourself: by this I mean work on getting a really clear sense of your own identity. Who are you outside of your job, your qualifications, your family and you relationships? What are your values? What do you stand for and believe in? What are your strengths and weaknesses? What is your vision for the future and what legacy do you want to create?
When we know these things we are uniquely positioned to make choices about the people we hang out with and the direction of our business and personal relationships that are in alignment with who we are and that creates a life that is more fun, more satisfying and that expresses the truth of who we are.

(2) Believe in yourself: I would say that 80% to 90% of the problems my coaching clients bring are self worth problems. This is no surprise to me, having had to work through my own self worth issues for many years. When we don’t have high self worth and self belief we don’t put ourselves forward when we know we want to. We second guess every decision we make and we procrastinate on the things that are most important to us. In business we feel unable to take action on our most important goals. We hide from the spotlight and play down our success. We constantly look for the “shiny object” will be the answer when ultimately, the answer is inside us all the time. Investing in growing your self worth is the best investment you will ever make. It will pay dividends in every aspect of your business and life.

(3) Take ownership of the habits and patterns that trip you up so that you can change them : Otherwise know as self sabotage, these things show up routinely in life when we are just starting to get traction on our most important goals. They can look like binge watching netflix instead of working, overeating, opting out with drugs and/or alcohol or simply finding a reason not to keep working away at what it is we really want. The truth about habits and patterns is they are simply well worn pathways your brain has created in response to experiences in your life. They show us where our fears are and just as our brain has created them to keep us feeling safe, it can create new pathways that move us towards what we want rather than away from it. The sooner we own these self destructive habits and patterns the quicker we can start creating new more supportive responses to our fears.

Over the 4 years I have been coaching I have become crystal clear on the effects of low self worth, ignoring habits and patterns and not really knowing yourself in my own life and those of my clients. That’s why I now take care of these 3 things first for my clients, because no amount of business strategy, social media planning or marketing will get you the results you are after if you don’t know yourself, believe in yourself and free yourself from the habits and patterns that routinely trip you up.

If you feel like you are clutching at straws in your business or that life just keeps on giving you lemons instead of lemonade get in touch and lets talk about which of these 3 things could be getting in the way for you. Book your free chat here

Photo by Kristina V on Unsplash