An UNEXPECTED Lesson I Learned About Why I Hustle
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✨This is going to be a different kind of blog today…✨
Lately, my blogs have been very focused on being actionable and tangible. Give you a very tactical tip and then some action steps for how to go about implementing that tip. But, that’s not how things are going to be today…
No, today is going to be about mindset. About personal growth. About an aha that I had that hit me so profoundly and that, I’m sure that you, as a high-achiever, will appreciate and see yourself in too.
It’s something I’m sharing because I bet you can relate to this experience, this aha, it’s going to be huge for you. You might find that this is a mindset that you might have as well…
so, let’s get into this…
I joined this program called Side Biz School by Kacia Fitzgerald. Kacia and I have known each other for years, basically since she started her foray into entrepreneurship and I actually had her on my old podcast right as she was launching her now insanely popular podcast, EmpowerHER. Her podcasting growth is unreal and amazing in and of itself, but when Kacia launched Side Biz School, I knew I had to get in on it. Kacia has this superpower when it comes to building community and communicating her message and who she’s for that, frankly, I wanted to get in on. I wanted to be able to pick her brain about it because she’s so insanely good at it.
Anywho, I digress…
As we’ve gotten started in Side Biz School, we have these biweekly Q&A calls where Kacia dives deeper into the program’s content, but she also gives us the opportunity to break out into smaller groups where we can not only get to know each other, but we can also celebrate with each other and support each other through whatever problems we’re facing. And that’s where I ran into a really interesting problem—I was having a lot of trouble coming up with a problem!
So, I kind of defaulted to my standard one: how can I find the bandwidth to do the growth activities I need to do in my business while I’m working full time? I always find myself running out of bandwidth to do those things.
My team helped me out and I really appreciated their insights, but—because that wasn’t really my problem—I wasn’t super invested in the guidance and insights they gave me and I couldn’t quite figure out why that was.
Our time in our small groups ended and we “reconvened”—if you will—back inside of the larger Zoom call where Kacia started calling on people to see what support they’d gotten and if they needed any further support. One of the people she called on was this girl Gabby—shoutout to you, girl—and she started talking about her situation and how she was in a season where things were going really well and she found herself feeling like she “should” be doing more or something us to push and challenge herself more.
Kacia and her started talking. They were talking about how sometimes when we’re working in our business or in careers, we’re not necessarily in a season of growth or struggle because the previous growth is paying off. Sometimes we’re in a season where things are just happening and happening easily, where we don’t have to work so hard to make progress. Sometimes, in those moments, we can lean into that season just as much—if not more so—as we should lean into the seasons of growth.
As they were talking, I had a freaking epiphany:
this was exactly where I was at in my business and my career!
For my entire business and career as a business owner—whether we’re talking about starting in the NLM in 2014 or my coaching business in 2018—every single thing I’d done to build my business had been hard. Finding new clients, signing clients, making an income, etc. I had to work from everything in my business! And that’s not a bad thing, but it created a mindset and an expectation that that’s how building a business should be. That that’s how it had to be.
So, I put this in the chat and said “Holy shit girl…you’ve stumbled across something that I didn’t even know was a problem for me!”
I’m in a season right now where—for the first time in the 4 years since I started—people are finding me. Whether we’re talking about coaching or speaking, clients are coming to me. They’re showing up in my inbox.
And there’s a reason for that! I spent the last year working on improving my SEO so that when people Google “burnout coach”, they find me. And it’s worked. I’m a top result on Google now. Hell, that may be how you ended up here! But, it’s the first time that finding prospective clients hasn’t been so damn hard. I don’t have to work so damn hard to find my people anymore. They find me now….
It’s amazing…but I also didn’t know what to do with that!
I’ve gotten to the point where I associated difficulty and struggle with success…
but now it’s not like that anymore, and I don’t know what to do!
So, she brought me on the screen to talk more about it and she said some things that really hit home with me. And I want to riff off of some of those things now…
Don’t default to creating stress because that’s what you’re comfortable with.
I think that so many of us as high-achievers—which I’m sure that’s what you are too if you’re here—are just used to hustle! We’re used to busy. We’re used to our ambitious, jam-packed lives being go-go-go from the moment we get up until the moment we go to sleep, and, sometimes when our lives aren’t like that we internalize and interpret that: “oh, I must be doing something wrong…” Because we’ve associated busyness and hustle with what it means to be a successful productive human.
I was trying to create the hustle and the hard because that’s what I was so used to…
The analogy I came up with for this is it’s like I’m on the flat part of the hike (I know—I’m such a PNW girl) where it’s easy-going and comfortable, but I don’t feel like I’m working hard enough. So, I try to rush ahead to where it gets to the steep part again instead of just relishing the break that I’m in. Instead of just relishing the ease of the flat part of the hike.
The steep, hard, challenging work is going to come. Hell yes, it’s just ahead of me! So, why am I trying to rush ahead? Perhaps because I’m so much more used to being in struggle and chaos. Like the struggle and chaos make me feel worthwhile…and because that’s what I associate success with…
That was the aha. That was the realization and it led me to ask some profound questions…
Am I creating a problem because I’m so much more comfortable with chaos?
Do I feel like struggle and hard breed success, not ease?
And, what if I just change my perspective? What if we all do?
Whether we’re talking about building a business or our career, what if we change our perspectives? What if we just accept and savor being in cruise control for a hot second? What if we just relish that flat part of the trail? I can do that when I’m hiking. What if I can do that same thing now?
I’ve been in growth stages in my business so often. Hell, I’ve been in failure stages in my business so often, and, hell, I’m sure you’ve felt the same way in your business or in your career. And—if I pause for long enough to think about it—it feels damn good to be in a stage where things are going well, where it feels good, and where I feel like I’m in alignment.
Everyone talks about being in abundance and having an abundance mindset. Honestly, I’m in one of the first stages in my business where I feel like that abundance actually applies to me! How freaking exciting, am I right? 😃 What if, instead of fighting against that, I relish that? What if we relish that? What if we just appreciate that and are grateful for that?
This unreal and unexpected lesson is making me realize that, yes, we can be in growth seasons and stretch seasons, but we don’t always have to be in those seasons to be making massive progress…
And if we force ourselves into seasons of growth that we aren’t in, that might lead to burnout as much—if not more than—everything else we’ve talked about!
That’s the aha that I had. That’s the lesson I’ve learned.
Just because difficulty and struggle and challenge and massive stretch growth have been my story as I’ve built my business so far, it doesn’t mean it has to continue to be my story. I can be on cruise control. I can enjoy the chill and ease of being on the flat part of the hike that I’m cuz, hell yes, more steep parts are going to come that are probably going to kick my ass. But for now? Let’s just be where we are. Let’s just be on cruise control…
Let’s enjoy this. Let’s lean into this. And if you’re in this too in your career or your business, I hope you can try to lean in too. I hope you can relish as much as I’m trying to, too.
I know how hard it is for us. As achievers, people who are ambitious, people who want and have these massive goals, I know how hard it is for us to slow down, to pause, to slow down in our lives because we have so much we want to achieve…but we can do this! And hell, we need to do this!
