Does your business make space for the rocks in your life?
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6 Comments
Oh yeah, I meant to say - my friend and mentor Mark Silver has had a similarly rough time this month… He wrote a beautiful post about it here: http://www.heartofbusiness.com/the-most-wearing-two-weeks-imaginable/ …It’s an inspiration for anyone else whose running a business and having life happen at the same time.
Yollana,
What a poignant reflection on your current business reality….
I struggle to adjust my business needs around the other big rocks in my life (husband, 2 young boys, friends and family)…. because I love business but also it is a lot easier to measure a tangible ‘output’ or result in business than it is to see the ‘output’ of spending time with family (or so I have thought).
Having said that, I just had the opportunity to experience for myself this afternoon the joy in being 100% present to my 15 month old… he wanted to take me on a walk…. and instead of pushing my timelines on him, I let him take me. And in is own way of nodding, gesturing and grunting, we had a fantastic conversation about the things we saw on our ‘adventure’.
Your lesson of giving up the need to be consistent is a very powerful one for me… thank you.
Congratulations on your pregnancy…. I hope you can now enjoy the process more.
Cat
Yollana,
There’s so much wisdom in this! Where in the world did we ever get the notion that we were machines who could work steadily and consistently 24/7?
Oh yeah, the industrial revolution and the military!
Never mind.
A couple insights I had as I read your article:
1. We may be the business owner but we can’t do it alone, we need systems, processes, and people to help us through the times when we can’t be fully present for our business.
2. Businesses are cyclical like everything else (actually I remember this from Eckhart Tolle’s Power of Now). Businesses aren’t constantly growing, growing, growing. There are always down times, transition times…even times when it’s time for the business to end.
Thanks for reminding me to have some mercy for myself and my business.
Love to you
Judy
Yup! Just as I thought, you landed a good one here. the consistency/should piece can be especially strong in my mind. For the first time in literally years I missed a Wednesday deadline for my article- in the past when I’ve missed, we’ve used past articles to at least show up on Wednesdays.
Last week, nothing. We didn’t send out anything. It did go out Friday, and, you know, it’s okay. That’s what’s needed.
For me, one of the big rocks in my life is family. And, in the blog post you mentioned above so kindly, I reported how I found that one of my own big rocks is also holding my role as provider. Business is a big rock.
@Mark, Judy and Cat… Thanks so much for your very real and authentic replies. What a confirmation that we all struggle with the same basic stuff.
@Mark, yes… Reflecting on this article after I wrote it, I noticed how even in the writing I was “justifying” my absence to my clients and readers. Nothing wrong with that in itself, except it was only after I had written out all the huge stuff I’ve been going through that I begin to feel an easing of the “guilt” associated with my inner “shoulds”. As Judy so astutely pointed out - Where did I get the idea that I’m a 24/7 machine?
And, yes, for many people the Business is a very big rock. I notice that it has a slightly different place for me because I am not the sole provider in my family. This has various implications for me (some you might not even think of), but the bottom line is that it’s good to acknowledge what’s true for you… and that it is different for different people.
(Another area that I am exploring (and I’ll leave it for a later post) is the whole dilemma of being a woman and letting my husband be a man… and making space for my femininity without abandoning my business. Fun!)
@Judy, thanks. Your comments bring mercy and compassion for me too!
@Cat… Thanks for your brave sharing about the ‘output’ factor. It’s great to hear your voice here, and I appreciate you as a fellow traveller on the mamma/business path. I always find it funny how it feels to switch brain modes from hanging out - timelessly and “unproductively” (at least the productivity is unmeasurable… how do you measure love?) with the little magical thinking children, to the timelines and strategising of business. I reckon the back and forth from these modes must create some interesting neural pathways for us working mums, and perhaps some opportunities for unexpected creativity???
Hi Yo
You are a courageous trekker making this personally real trail evident and risking the standard business world crunch! And your posters say -yes that’s part of my life too, - so why hide it. I have had experience of knowing my soul voice- and of how to “hear/feel” its promptings on those twists and turns, and then following my head with the 9-5 (try 7-7) work career plus family demands. The result: I stopped being able to hear the soul voice, felt stolid and frozen. Reconnecting is a struggle- and still requires courage to stay in the present on a path less trod. But I think I lost a lot of a-liveness in the intervening years .