What are you creating these days? Is it drama, chaos and bitterness... or rest, stillness, and joy?
There are so many times I have caught myself the last few years (sheesh! decades!) condemning myself for not being good enough, not being pretty enough, not being skinny enough, and not being rich enough...
'Direct me in the path of your commands, for there I find delight. Turn my heart towards your statutes, and not towards selfish gain...' Psalm 119:35-37 NIV
The moon has begun to wane and it reminds me again, that life always ebbs and flows in a divine cycle of growth and release.
As we enter this powerful time of release (fourth moon in the tetrad anyone?) I wonder what I'm ready to let go of, but I don't wonder for long. The answers, as always, are right there... simply waiting for me to get quiet and ask the questions that I need to ask.
Ooooohhh!! Ladies, there is something very cool happening. We are being called out of hiding, out of the dark places where we have thought we could pretend to be less than we are.
Please, please find the places where you are hiding and make a decision to clean it up, clean it out and get on with being the awesome shiny goddess you are meant to be. Let's all do this!!
For most of us, and especially for women business owners, we spend the vast majority of our time in the Important and Urgent category. This is known as 'fighting fires'. Every day we are scrambling to get done what NEEDS to get done NOW in our life and in our business.
We deal with client situations, we take care of the bills, we handle the kids and the parents and our friends and our spouse and... EVERYTHING!
And, if you're like me and my people, you're really REALLY good at it.
Maybe you even THRIVE on it. It can be a rush. It can be addictive.
Today, we're going to look at what is maybe the most important and also the hardest aspect of our business: our numbers.
Cashflow, Profit and Loss (PnL), Balance Sheets, Taxes, Taxes, and more Taxes, and all the other numbers that determine whether we'll be able to pay our mortgage and vendors at the end of the month - let alone take a salary for ourselves.
If there is ANYONE who has succeeded in your business niche, that means that you can too. You CAN make it work. You CAN succeed.
But you have to be willing to be very uncomfortable. You have to be willing to do what I call Fail Forward Fast. You have to ask for help - a lot. You have to find the people who have the knowledge and skills you need to build a business and to make it successfully, sustainably profitable.
We're going to talk more about numbers in the last part of this series. Today what I want to talk about is the thing that most entrepreneurs LOVE to talk about: your thing.
Y'know, the thing you do that nobody else can do as well as you. The thing that compelled you to start your business in the first place. The thing you love.
As small business owners, sometimes it can feel like we're at the mercy of the markets. We have ups and we have downs. But not every business is up at the same time and not every business is down so what actually makes the difference?
Wouldn't it be great to have a business where the downs were minimized and the ups were even higher? And, wouldn't it be even better if the overall trend was up, up, up?
Well, there is a way, and it's one that most entrepreneurs really, really don't like...
Sometimes it is easier to escape into someone else's life than it is to deal with the reality of our own life. When we are hurting. When we are scared. When we are lost.
There is so much waiting for you. There is beauty and joy and rest. A deep rest so profound that every cell in your body will take a deep breath and slowly exhale in peace.