Embracing the Evolution of Your Business: The Journey of Change and Growth
Has your business changed? More importantly: Have you?
We have a relationship with our business. Whether we want to admit it or not.
It can be dysfunctional.
It can be healing.
It can be joyous or frustrating-sometimes all in the span of an hour.
But the relationship we have with it, just like all of our other relationships, changes — it ebbs and flows over time. I read somewhere that you don't spend money when you're 36 the way you did when you were 20. Something about that really stuck with me because the underlying message is true for so many parts of our lives.
Shifting Priorities and Perspectives in Your Business Journey
We aren't the same at 36 that we are that we were at 20.
We have different urgencies surrounding different pieces of our life.
We have different priorities due to the circumstances of our life.
We spend more generously and freely on things that matter to us — and the things that matter at 36 are much different than the things that mattered at 20.
The business owners we were when we started and the relationship with our business then is not where we are or who we are today.
So many things have happen as we grow our businesses that change the landscape entirely.
Most of us completely miss this as we go from day to day.
We don’t realize that in the beginning, we were running on high emotions almost 100% of the time:
hustling for the thrill of getting that first sale
the high of signing a client of your dreams
the stress of building a team and moving from one to more.
You had to figure everything out on the fly and it always felt like forward, forward, forward was the only place that you needed to go– beyond where you were. And where you were was never enough.
But at what point do you realize that the business you have is enough and maybe more importantly, that you are the leader that it needs just the way you are?
I love learning and I love getting better. But I realized that it's a game — it's not imperative for ALC’s survival. I am the leader that it needs and I am enough the way that I am if I just keep doing what we’re doing-what WORKS.
When you're in the mode of grow, grow, grow, the stress and taxing nature takes its toll. All you can focus on is payroll and expansion…and you lose sight of what is enough.
And most of all: you lose sight of: what's it all for?
The kicker is: you don't realize it when you've finally got to that point you were dreaming of because you’re too distracted to look up and realized it.
Overcoming Limiting Mindsets for Business Growth
Somebody I follow (one of my gurus, if you will) had an email a while ago that said “Do you trust your business to support you?” Basically, are you operating from a scarcity or abundance mindset?
I've been thinking about it ever since.
Do I trust that my business — with me in charge of it— will make it?
Do I trust that it will not only make it, but thrive?
And do I trust that I don't have to work so hard, and push so hard, and strain so much to get what I want out of my business (and in turn-out of my life)?
I believe all of those, but I wasn't acting in accordance to that belief — I was acting entirely differently. This month I've been pausing and taking moments out of the workday to not work, to just rest and think about how it feels to be supported by my business and know that it has lasting power.
It’s the notion that I don't have to be constantly driving so hard towards that proverbial finish line. That maybe I can take the back road instead of the highway and they'll still get to the same destination—but I'll have a whole hell of a lot more fun getting there.
It's liberating and freeing and also slightly terrifying because I've been operating with the same outdated mindset for so long…that I've started to wonder if maybe the mindset was the thing that was holding me back, not anything else.
Assessing Change for Business Growth: Reflecting on Your Journey
I believe more certainly than ever, that the business of my dreams is the one that I already have. I just needed to turn a light on to see it and I don't want to run it from the same place that I ran it 10 years ago.
What about your business? What’s that relationship look like and where are you operating from? Has it evolved through the years or is it frozen in amber waiting to be released?
I encourage you to look at your own business and your own journey to see what has changed—changed for the better, or maybe for the worse, and see if how you run things and the mindset that drives you day in and day out needs to change as well.
