Taking a Step Back to Thrive in Your Life and Business
Sometimes you just need to take a step back.
If you are feeling overwhelmed with your business tasks or trying to fit life and work and family and side businesses in around the edges, all during an uncertain global pandemic, where worry and anxiety are a normal part of every day, maybe it's time to take a step back.
Take a step back for a day, for a month. What about two months or a term or a quarter? What will it take to create space enough to relax, not actively seeking out the next fire to put out, and allow yourself to approach your business from a fresh angle.
I know that taking a step back for a whole quarter sounds ludicrous for some businesses, but what if you really tried to take stock and see if it were possible? What could you accomplish in that quarter, or that month, or that week that you were able to stop business?
Whenever an artist creates, there are always several times where they step back and observe the colors and textures and light. They check in with the emotional resonance and the truthfulness of it. And oftentimes, when they do, they can see a slight adjustment or an addition that's needed.
Sometimes though, it can be disheartening because sometimes what is made known by that stepping back is the necessity of starting again, starting from scratch or cutting away the parts that don't work. Rewriting the last half of a manuscript. Cutting off the clay face of a bust and creating different clay bone structure. Revising your business plan. Changing your hours.
COVID-19 has changed many lives globally. If ever there was a time when people are expecting disruption and are giving themselves and others around them, a bit of slack, it's now. Take this opportunity of global slowdown to create some space for yourself and for your business, in order to reevaluate what is necessary to thrive and sustain yourself, and to show up as your best self as the CEO of your business--whether it's big or small, whether you're the sole proprietor, whether it's a side hustle.
And ask yourself, how can my business be its best self? Corporations are entities, too, for better or worse, so what does your business need to thrive right now? Is it getting new covers on your books? Or taking a class on Facebook ads or using new keywords for what you're selling on Amazon. What about a session with a financial advisor, so you can get a better handle on good financial business decisions? What about a class on financial independence? Or maybe it's just polling your audience to see what they need.
So two tasks here.
One, what do you need to thrive here in your business?
Maybe it's selling your business. Do you have the courage for that?
Maybe it's digging deeper and doubling your efforts. Just the opposite. Do you have the courage for that?
Maybe it's instilling a two hour lunch hour for yourself so that you can have time for a walk along the river in between clients or desk work. Maybe that would help you thrive.
Or gifting yourself an hour to read a novel of your choice after you eat before you get back to work. I started doing that, before I went to work full time, and it really helped me find the joy in the day of work.
Maybe it's a much needed new workspace for yourself, or maybe it's hiring an assistant. Maybe that will help your business-- help you thrive in your business.
Maybe it's talking with your family about needing extra support while you take your business to the next level, whether that's: a few hours of uninterrupted time on the weekend to write, or work on client work, or taking care of admin and marketing that didn't get finished during the regular work hours of your week. Or it's deciding to budget some allocated funds to a business investment that you think is necessary.
What do you need to thrive in your business right now?
And then, two, second task. Second question. What does my business need to thrive?
Maybe it needs a whole new makeover or rebranding.
Maybe you need to take it to a new location.
Or make new menus or put new hours out.
What about buying gym memberships for all your employees or offering a free yoga class after lunch for all workers?
Now is the time. Summer. 2020. About ready to head into the fourth quarter. Now's the time to take a step back and reevaluate. Whether that's taking a sabbatical and shutting things down for a limited time, or if that's just not feasible, maybe it's building that re-evaluation time into your schedule somehow, by hook or by crook.
I try to have a business brainstorming session with myself every Sunday morning for just a couple of hours. It looks like journaling, but it's in a separate CEO journal. And my mindset is geared toward what will grow my business and how I can make my audience and my target market happier. So that doesn't involve me shutting down the business. It just allows me to re-check-in every week and have that brainstorming session.
So take a step back and tell me what you discover.
