I'M PACKING IT ALL IN. I'm done.
Sometimes it just feels too hard... doesn't it? Trying to do life and do business can be tough stuff. No time more so than now as we're experiencing a variety of craziness most of us haven't experienced before. Maybe a part of you just thinks it would be easier to just pack it all in?
At a few points in my fifteen years in business, I've felt like packing it all in. Usually because, and feel free to choose from the list as appropriate...
IT GOT FRUSTRATING - trying to build a profile, find clients, get leads. If it doesn't seem to be happening or not happening fast enough, it leads to frustrations.
I RAN OUT OF ENERGY - the amount of energy required to do all that back room stuff as well as serving my clients, doing what I actually do, had me feeling drained and depleted.
MY SELF CARE WENT OUT THE WINDOW. I was neglecting myself and even getting ill.
PERSONAL STUFF knocked me off balance - for me, that could be a whole new very long list that includes, but is not limited to, relationship breakdowns, bereavement, serious illness....
MONEY - I felt I had make money before I could spend anything on getting help and it just wasn't happening.
Listen, I get it. Even as recently as late last year, I felt some, if not all, of this and wondered if it was time for me to give it all up. One bereavement too many. Personal health challenges. Lack of engagement from my community. Opportunities that didn't quite come to fruition despite putting the work in. Bills and expenses literally falling from the sky, yada yada yada. Well ok, maybe not bills literally falling from the sky, but it damn well felt like it.
As if that all wasn't enough, just recently and within the space of a week, I lost not one but two people who were stupendously important in my life. My '2nd Dad' Granville, who stepped in when my own Dad died suddenly at only 57. Granville remained a constant in my life, encouraging and supporting me however he could. The other was my original mentor, friend and guide. Stephen Russel aka The Barefoot Doctor was a man who shone his incredible light on my life, helped me in my business and made the world an all round better place to play in. We had been talking about finally working together.....and then he left. I was emotionally broken and physically shaken. Still am! I lost focus. I couldn't get clarity. I lost my mojo.
If you know anything about me, this all might surprise you but here's the thing. I'm human too. Part of what makes me such a successful mentor and coach is that I feel your pain. I've walked where you're walking. I've faced the challenges, overcome the obstacles and felt like packing it all in. I know that you do too sometimes.
I literally lived my whole life in crazy turmoil, from my childhood spent alone with my violent paranoid schizophrenic mother to battling to carve out a career in the advertising industry, to toxic relationships and even cancer. Does it get more crazy? But here's what I learned about craziness and crazy times. We should embrace, flow with it instead of trying to resist it and if we do, it can bring gifts. Creativity, resilience, realising we have strengths we never knew we had, adaptability and the chance for real change. How many times have you sat quietly hoping that things never really return to the way they were?
Here's what I can share with you about all this. Brace yourself though, because it's probably not going to be completely what you expect but here goes.
"The gold lies just beyond where you stop digging." Often when I've reached the point where I feel like giving up and I've pushed myself to just find a bit more....energy, focus, commitment, passion, that's when things have finally fallen in to place. It really is usually just around the corner. You've just got to find ways to keep moving. Whether that's reaching out to friends or family to encourage you, joining a community (online or offline) or getting a coach or mentor, we're not meant to travel alone.
You'll feel like this again...and again. It's all part of the wonderful adventure of life and business. The Yin and the Yang, the dance with the universe, but it will pass. It HAS to pass because it's all just energy. We need it all. The light and the dark, the rough and the smooth. How can we appreciate one without experiencing the other?
Be you. When you're being wholly you, things get easier. The times in my life and business when I've fallen for the whole 'follow the way of the guru' nonsense or when I've been too afraid to be the real me, are the times I've got in the most mess, felt the most stuck. STOP! Stop now. Be you, in all your perfect imperfection. That's how you find your community, your tribe and your purpose.
Swallow your pride. I used to be just terrible at this. As a lone survivor of multiple instances of trauma with no support network, I learned to go it alone. Reaching out and asking, connecting, is relatively new for me and I'm an ongoing work in progress. I know this though, without doing that, I'm unlikely to get my mojo back. Like my ancestors on the Savanna, when a tribe member goes down, the rest of the tribe step up to take up the slack and help them to heal. I have a great support network and I'm blessed that they know me well enough to reach out to me so that I don't even have to reach out to them. But now, I would if I needed to.
Don't skimp, invest. Once I stopped believing I had to make the money before I could invest in getting help, and once I realised I just didn't have the damn time and energy to learn how to do everything myself, even after spending hours and days consuming FREE stuff and watching YouTube videos, things shifted for me. Don't ask "How?", ask "Who?" Who can you find to do the stuff that is not your zone of genius? Who can you find to take on the stuff that saps your energy and leaves you feeling depleted because when you feel like that, you don't serve the people you're here to serve or live your purpose. I'm not, by any means, suggesting you get yourself in to unmanageable debt to do stuff, like I did, (though I can tell you that didn't half motivate me to drive my business forward and make money) but you can start small. Can you pay someone to walk the dog a few hours a week, do your ironing, create a one page website (that's really all you need), work out some automation that will save you time and loss of customers/clients because you don't get back to them in a timely manner. Or do you need a coach or mentor who can work all this stuff out with you? Getting coaches and mentors for me, both personally and in my business, made the biggest difference by far for me.
So, for now, I'm still here anyway. I'm not going anywhere just yet except on new adventures to do new work and meet new people. That's how I designed my business; to provide the life that excites me, fulfils me and lights me up. I walk my own path and when the terrain gets rough and storms show up, I know to take shelter for a while, regroup, rest and plot a new way forward. I have the right gear in my backpack and I'll be on my way again soon. Maybe we will meet along the way. I hope so.
As my beautiful friend Stephen would say..."I am exactly where I I'm meant to be. I alone determine what kind of life I have - no one and nothing else."
Here are a few more quotes of Stephen's in tribute to the Barefoot Doctor for a life lived truly in service of others and the greater good. I hope they help you as they have me...
"Always be the small child laughing in wonder at the unlikelihood of the whole damn game of life.
"You are under no obligation to continue with beliefs you've grown
out of."
"The way you serve best is by enjoying yourself, no matter what."
"Breathe through all life's suffering and confusion until it passes,
as everything does."
Want to know more about exactly HOW I transformed my life and went on to build a successful people helping business that provides me with the life I designed for myself too?
Book a chat with me and let's see how I can help you and whether my work is a fit for you. If it isn't, I'll tell you. No force fits in my universe.
https://outlook.office365.com/owa/calendar/MicheleHenshawcom@michelehenshaw.com/bookings/
Michele
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