Letting Business Feel Easy
Today I want to talk about something that I feel has been coming up for a lot of my clients and a lot of people I've been talking to online recently, and that is letting your business feel easy.
This is something that I think a lot of people struggle with. It manifests itself in different ways and it's really hard sometimes for us to get perspective on our own business. It's really hard for us to think, well it's so easy for that person over there. They're making so much money in their business, they have leads coming in left and right, they have so many social media followers, they are barely working in their business…
Why can't my business be like that?
Why can't I be better?
Why can't I be making more money?
And this is really that comparisonitis that we have. And so we ask ourselves, how can I make my business look like theirs? Because naturally, if I make my business look more like theirs, I'm going to get that thing. But in reality, that is not what necessarily is going to make your business thrive! And it's not going to be what makes your business feel good and easy for you.
Connecting back to your “why”
The thing that I always think about around this is connecting back to the why… not just the why of your business, but the why of your life.
Why did you start this business? Well, I want to help such and such clients. No, that's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about how does this business serve you in your personal life? Why did you start this business? What do you want from this business? Long term? 10, 15, 20 years from now? So many people don't get clear on the why in their business as it relates to them as a person. So they're making all of these business decisions that don't connect back to that bigger vision of that why. And they wonder why it feels so hard. Why does it feel so hard to get more clients? Why does it feel so hard to scale? Why does it feel so hard that I'm still working so much? Oftentimes, that's because you're making decisions based on what you see in other people's businesses and other businesses that you perceive to be successful. But what's going to make your business feel easy, is making decisions that go back to that big picture why.
Maybe you don’t want a million dollar business…
So an example of this is to be saying, I'm scaling, I'm growing, I'm getting up to multi six figures, half a million dollars, a million dollars, multiple seven figures.” That's super trendy in the online business space.
But if you don't want to be growing a multimillion dollar business, if you don't want to be managing large teams of people, if you don't want to be doing some of those things, even if you grow your business to that size, even if your business ends up looking like that, it's not going to feel good! It's not going to feel easy, because it didn't serve the bigger why in your business. If the things that you're doing in your business, the decisions that you're making in your business are not serving that bigger picture, It's not going to feel good.
This is where burnout starts to come in. This is where you do not feel good about your business, you don't feel supported in your business, your business feels like a job. And then what happens is, people feel guilt around, well, I have a successful business, why don't I feel happier about it? And they don't feel like they can pivot their business or burn it to the ground or sell it. Because who am I to get rid of this business that that is financially successful? But the reality is, that's not the business that is getting you what you want. So if you want to be able to pay yourself a nice good salary, and you want to be able to do things in your family, without really needing to worry about money. But beyond that, you want to work the least amount possible. So you could spend more time with your family so that you can travel more. Well, growing a multi seven figure business does not fit into that, and it's not going to feel good. Sure, we all want a million dollars. I'm not saying that's not a bad thing. But in the end, it’s not going to feel good for you.
And that is why your business doesn't feel easy, because you're making these decisions based off the shoulds. Comparing your business to other people versus just letting it be easy.
Business doesn’t need to feel hard
A lot of people feel it needs to be hard. They feel they need to work hard in order to make money in their business. They feel guilty if their business feels easy to them. If their business grows without too much work on their part, if their business is kind of growing and scaling without them killing themselves day in and day out. You feel guilt around that. Because you can't just let your business feel easy. And I think this is just something that is so important.
So if you find yourself really feeling guilt around a decision that you're making in your business, think about how can I just make this easier? How can I make this thing easier on myself, if you're stuck in a place where you are doing so much work and you don't feel like you have the time or the bandwidth to outsource, think about how can I outsource in a way that makes it easier? What would that look like? What is the easiest version of outsourcing to me that will get me what I need, which is taking some stuff off my plate?
What is the thing that you need? And how can you accomplish that in the easiest and simplest way possible? It's like taking the path of least resistance, which for some reason, a lot of us think that's bad, or that's wrong. But oftentimes, it's not. It's what you need to have your business feeling good for you.
This isn’t permanent
Don't forget, if the easy solution right now is not necessarily the best solution or the solution that's going to work for you long term, you're not married to that thing!
Just because you start to outsource five hours a week to a low level VA doesn't mean you have to use that VA forever for the rest of your life. But it's going to accomplish that bigger why right now, which is offloading some work, having more time to spend with your family, while still making a good profit margin and paying you.
So that's the thing that's going to help solve your issue right now. And that's the easiest way to do it right now. Then once you have a little bit of that time, maybe you can use one of those hours to think about what this could look like longer term. What does this look like for the growth of my business? And you can think about all those things. But stop building it into a bigger thing than it needs to be in the moment. Make it feel easier for you, I give you that permission. Give yourself that permission to make it feel easier.
So if you're working on making a decision this week, if you're trying to execute on something this week, if you're thinking about strategy, bigger picture or longer term, how can I make it easier? And just run that through your brain and allow it to be easier. That's not a bad thing. Don't assign weight to that thing. And don't judge yourself for wanting it.
Why can't it be easy? What's wrong around that? Why is it such a bad thing to have business be easy for you, you perceive it to be easy for all these other people? Why is it such a bad thing? If it's easy for you? Don't you deserve that? Don't you deserve for it to feel easy for you?
I hope this is really, really helpful. And I just hope that this week, you can really catch yourself and think about how you can make it easier for yourself this week. And if you feel yourself really struggling around this, you know, making things harder than they need to be or struggling to execute on things or struggling to make decisions in your business. That support and relate back to your why coaching is really probably where you need to be at because a lot of this stuff is mindset things.
If you're looking to start getting support on this immediately, I definitely recommend a digital strategy intensive, where you'll get a 90 minute call where we can really deep dive into this and you'll get you'll walk away with a step by step action plan for what you can do and what you can take away and improve upon moving forward.
