Last week we talked about choosing the EXPERIENCE that you most desire in your business and making a decision to optimize for that experience. (If you missed the article detailing step one you catch it HERE).
Today we’ll dive into Step 2.
Step 1: What would you like to optimize your business for?
Step 2: What will get in your way of optimizing for this?
Step two is critical to optimizing your business in a way that works for you. Because often we think that making the decision is all that needs to happen, but if it were that simple, we’d all be optimized. Let’s face it, it’s not the first time you’ve considered how to create more of what you want in your business and your life, right? Thus step two.
The moment we gain clarity about our desire, anything that is out of alignment with that desire will show itself. This is not a test, but rather the Universe showing you just what you must transform in order to live in alignment with that new desire. If you are paying attention, you will quickly see the pattern our subconscious is determined to repeat.
How do we know what would get in the way? Usually we don’t. That’s why I always have coach or mentor. Generally we take the action and the misalignment appears, often as the ‘sly disguise of opportunity’ Napoleon Hill refers to in Think and Grow Rich.
However here is a way to be ready for it. Once you’ve answered the question in step one, ask yourself: “What is my history with ____x_____?”
In other words, what is your history with connection, for example. And begin to explore. One way to explore is to look at what you are currently experiencing in that area, or to look at the part of your business (or life) that is most out of alignment with that area.
For me as I began to optimize for connection, I saw what I call a ‘bad news insight’ in the realm of connection. I saw that in my family growing up, true connection was generally forged when times were hard. People only truly let their guard down and created intimacy (in-to-me-see or letting others in) when life was too heavy to do it on their own. Heaviness and sadness were the currency of connection.
And I’d definitely taken that on as a layer of what I believed to be true. I know I developed it young when my parents would fight and make up. Yet one story illustrates it perfectly.
When I was 19 my stepdad and my 5-year old brother were in a major car accident. They were both in extended comas and had long paths to recovery. Neither fully recovered and the remnants of the accident are why my stepdad is no longer in this lifetime. It was a lot to deal with, and I looked for the good in the situation when asking why this had happened to us. What I found was imprinted for me.
Before the accident my family never hugged and never said “I love you.” After the accident we did. Heaviness and sadness = intimacy and connection.
Woah.
I had to look in the recesses of my mind and heart to see all the ways in which that still felt true to me. In what ways was I making connection heavy? Making transformation heavy? Making my business heavy? Because if I was making connection heavy, and I was optimizing for connection – well, you can see the inherent conflict, right?
I had to shift the root of what connection meant to me, and in turn shift the ways in which I was choosing to connect (which means disrupting relationships too) so that I could redefine how connection works in my world. I had to create a new story of connection based on experiences that are light and free. From this space, optimizing for connection is, well, light and free.
True Business Alignment
Optimizing your business for that which fuels your heart and alights your soul is not for the timid. The world, and the internet, is full of great tips such as ‘optimize your business for what you most desire.’ It can be fabulous and insightful right. Our wheels can beginning churning, and our mind can create all kinds of practical changes we can make to become happier in business. You’ve read them and implemented them. Focusing on the One Thing, getting Traction, Working on Your Business vs. In Your Business, etc.
But with every conscious change comes a whole unconscious iceberg that needs to be revealed. When we don’t address the root of what these changes really mean to you, personally, the change becomes one more thing to do that doesn’t create a lasting impact.
Excavating the iceberg doesn’t have to be time consuming or difficult. In fact it may not even need to be excavated. But it does need to be seen, heard, and honored. Your truth needs to be seen, heard, and honored. That’s true business alignment. Alignment is a commitment for the bold. And your alignment matters.
For the next year I’ll be working personally with a small number of business owners specifically on creating a business that is aligned, i.e. optimized for that which you most desire. This opportunity is designed specifically for the transformation-based entrepreneur who already has a foundation for your business established, has clients and at least one working marketing strategy, has learned a lot about what no longer works for you, and knows it’s time to boldly optimize for what does. If this sounds like you, simply email support(at)alignedentrepreneurs.com with the subject line ALIGNED for an application.
Want to join the conversation for alignment? Join us in our FACEBOOK GROUP over at the Aligned Entrepreneurs Tribe.