Are you looking forward to your business being in a better place?
I’m sure you are.
If you're a coach, healer or other creative working to develop and grow your business, you've got dreams. You have work to do in this world. People to help. Souls to guide. Individual to help heal. Transformations to make space for. And you know, deep down inside, that your business is the way you're going to be able to really help. To offer the world your gifts, talents, experiences, and passions to help bring about a new way of being here.
At the same time, you know you need to be sustained by your business. Supported. You want to make money. You have bills to pay, children to care for, or families to contribute to. You need to receive and give your money freely in a way that aligns with your deepest values.
And yet, your business isn't there yet.
The Space In-Between
This is a space where a lot of coaches, healers and other creatives find themselves in. It can happen to someone just starting out in their business, to someone who’s been in business for maybe five, ten or more years who hasn’t hit momentum, or to someone anywhere in between.
It’s the in-between space where there’s work to do to get your business from where it is today to where you want it to be. Work marketing and growing your business. Perhaps you must establish your marketing foundation, build clear offers, develop a compelling website, create content that shows your expertise and builds trust, or grow an offer rhythm. It could be any of that or a lot more.
It's a lot to work through.
And in order to be really effective doing that, you need to accept and be present with where your business is at today and not somehow waiting for some point in the future.
There, Not Here
Today, I’m in an in-between space in my life. We’ve been living the last two months in temporary housing. We’re renting a lovely, furnished townhome while we wait for our house to be finished. I work at my business at a small desk in the bedroom, a file box at my feet.
And there’s something I noticed.
There are days when I can fall into feeling suspended, waiting for what's next. I have caught myself waiting for when the house will be done and for when we can move. For when school will be underway. For when I'll have capacity for some larger business projects. For when I will have that feeling that comes from being in a place I know, for that sense of familiarity.
None of this is particularly conscious. In fact, I didn’t notice it at all at first. Once I looked at it though, it felt like an energetic pull toward something out there. It felt unsettled.
And this is the same thing that can happen to business owners that find themselves in that in-between space of where their business is at today and where they’d like it to be in the future.
A Vision for the Future
Having a goal or a dream or felt sense of where you want your business to be at in the future can be really, really helpful. Setting an intention to what you want to create with your business is powerful both on the big picture and practical levels.
And, yet, once set, it’s something you need to hold lightly, while being present with and accepting the fact that your business isn’t there yet. If you don’t, if you instead find yourself waiting for some point in the future, thinking that’s when you’ll be feeling better about your business, it can leave you feeling stuck. It also encourages a bunch of unconstructive behaviors, like overwork and pushing, overwhelm and frustration, or distraction and procrastination.
None of which are particularly helpful for marketing and growing your business, especially not for doing so from a place of authenticity and ease.
How Long Will It Be?
This subtle leaning into the future or energetic waiting has two other downsides. First, who knows how long it will be really? For me, there could be a delay in the house being finished. Already certain items are backordered or difficult to find. My daughter could decide to join a sport or after school activity and I'd need to renegotiate travel commitments. It could take a while until I find a place to find good fresh produce or a doctor I like.
If so, what until then? Where is my energy being focused? Is it being pulled away somewhere in the future or is it instead of on what I need to do today? The blog post. The networking email. The phone call to the insurance agent.
And for you, how much time will it take to bring your business from where it is today to where you want it to be? Unfortunately, there are no real, sure-fire answers out there. No formulas. There are guidelines. Generally, it takes between two to five years of working on developing your business, but every business and every business owner is different.
At the end of the day, you don’t know. So you can ask - where is your energy? Is it being pulled away from where you’re at today and what you need to be working on? Or is it in the present, with your business and the work you’re doing to market and grow it?
Being here today
This sort of energetic waiting also robs you of the chance to appreciate where you are right now. When you’re looking so far ahead, puzzling on and worrying over how you’ll get there, you miss the creative journey you’ve undertaken to bring your sacred work into the world.
For me in the townhome, once I realized what was going on with my energy, I realized I wasn’t really marveling at the east sun as it shone in the early morning through the metal blinds. I didn’t really appreciate the cozy entrance where birds built a nest and where just yesterday, I saw the babies unsteady and hopping near the edge of the hot sidewalk. I wasn’t really sinking into the spaciousness I have with my daughter, where we're picking parks to explore each weekend and snapping pictures of the rolling hills near the Big Sioux River. I wasn’t truly enjoying the freedom of living in a place with few belongings and little to care for.
For you, in one or two or three years, your business will look different than it does today. And until then, it’s giving you a chance to enjoy being with it and all that it has to offer today. Like sinking into the open spaces in your calendar between sessions, the wide swaths of time you have to dream up projects or reaching out to connect with colleagues or friends just for fun. Perhaps it’s the joy of coming up with new ways to offer value to your audience and ideal clients. Ways that seem fun and a treat to do. Or maybe you have the freedom to tinker with or try out new systems or messages or content, just for fun.
Of course you want your business to be fully developed, full with clients or groups, people making inquiries, projects and opportunities completing and starting, revenues up, engagement opportunities coming your way.
You want your business to be able to sustain you, help you thrive, and to allow you to help others in the way you're meant to.
That's what you're working toward, of course. And yet, it can be easy to find yourself leaning toward that too much. You can hold both things at once, being clear about where you want to go and seeing where you are now. The trick comes is spending most of your time with your business exactly where it is today, enjoying what’s beautiful and possible as you stay with the work you need to do to create something entirely new in this world.