OK, so the Truth is that I am more happy and in love with life than ever before. Apparently it shows. There’s not a day that goes by lately that someone doesn’t point out their observation about this.
And guess what? I love it! 🙂
But here’s the funny part. If you had described my life today when I was starting my business I probably would have run screaming. I never would have picked it and would have probably thought it was a very bad idea.
Because, while I was in love with my business from Day 1 (after years of being afraid to do what I loved), in so many ways I didn’t know what love was. I knew I wanted to help people to make decisions from love rather than fear. I knew I wanted people to realize that they were OK exactly as they were, and that who they are naturally, without pretending to be anything else, is so important and needed on the planet.
But while I started my business with a vision of love, I had a lot to learn about loving and valuing myself. In many ways I now see that I started my business for that very reason. To give myself what I wanted for others: a willingness to be myself fully without fear of judgment. The Universe has a funny way of delivering us exactly what we need when we need it, and it always unfolds when we follow our desires.
Thank God for Divorce.
So here’s the thing. Most entrepreneurs get hung up because they think that they have to get all the lessons figured out before they go for it. Luckily for me I had an experience through which I learned that I really didn’t have it figure out – I failed at marriage after about 6 months, and my ego was never the same. 🙂 As I moved through that experience I learned that sometimes we have to make decisions and learn from them, and that I could survive any mistake and any judgment. Hallelujah, because I’m still making risky decisions daily!
Love Fear Love Fear
When I started my business I was ready for failure. I’d done it and I was willing to do it again.
Yes, but.
Losing my stepdad at a young 52 and longing to reverse time to have asked him all of the things I didn’t know about what mattered to him is what prompted me to create the business that helps people share themselves fully.
On the surface this looks like love, yet in many ways it was coming from judgment. I wanted to save and rescue others from having the experience I and my family had because I judged it as bad. Yet in truth it was neither good nor bad, it just was. Whatever you choose to do in your business is neither good nor bad, it just is. When we’re on a mission to change something that we think is bad about the world, there is no freedom. There’s only judgment. And when we’re judging the world we’re judging ourselves, and in our judgment we’re never ready. Yet we can’t become ready without doing it.
So the question becomes, do you love it?
I gave an idea to a client today as something to consider. She said, “I smiled really big when you said that.” Then it’s probably love. And it’s about that simple.
We complicate it.
I don’t know about you, but I can be a complicatin’ machine. But the complication is only a tactic to avoid putting my heart on the line and playing full out at something that down the road I might outgrow.
We sacrifice the joy of being in the moment, fully present to what matters to us now, just in case something might change down the road. The number one change I’ve made that has allowed love to move into my life is overthinking what might happen in the future.
Control Freak
We can’t experience love in the moment while attempting to control the future. The moment we think about what might happen later we are no longer present to our current experience, and we will talk ourselves out of any decision. I don’t have this all figured out just yet, 🙂 but let me give you some examples I heard just this week.
- I didn’t want to sell a long-term coaching package because I am worried that sometime in the future I might have a down period and then I won’t be able to inspire them.
- I could have brought in a client but I wasn’t sure I’d know what to do next!
- I really want my business to be about this, but what if I change my mind?
- I know what really matters to me, but if I start to talk about it I know that some of the people around me are going to judge and maybe even leave, so I’ll tone it down until they get used to it.
All of these things take us further from love. Fixing what’s wrong and controlling what we believe is right come equally from a place of judgment, and don’t leave us free to love what we love and do what makes us happy!
What if you started making gut decisions based on what you love, just for the joy of it? Love to love to love!