I can get really nervous around brides to be.
I have a lot of thinking about the time, energy, and expense involved in planning a wedding. Some of that is my stuff. Some comes from seeing good people transformed into bridezillas by attachment to their visions of the perfect day.
In their innocent preoccupation with ideals of love, grace, and beauty, they can become disconnected from the feeling behind it all. When that happens, their well laid plans and the need to have those plans unfold exactly as designed drives them and the people around them nuts.
The same thing can happen in your business.
It starts with buying into someone else’s vision
Becoming a bridezilla in your business starts with believing that someone else knows what kind of business you should have and the right way to grow it. Just as an entire industry has sprung up around the vision of a perfect wedding, there’s an internet marketing industry that is happy to tell you what your business should look like and what you need to do to make it happen.
And hey, because you are sincere about making a go of it, you set out to do what they tell you to do. You create a vision. You form intentions. You set goals, and you make plans. All informed by someone else’s vision of success.
But just as buying into the vision of the perfect wedding can steal a bride’s joy, buying into the vision of the marketing industry can steal the joy you take in your business.
And when that happens, one of two things ensues: you flounder and beat yourself up for not following through or you become a bridezilla in your business.
Floundering happens when action is unsustainable
Even if you can stand to begin, it’s hard to sustain plans that steal your joy. There’s just no oomph, no juice. And the more you think about what you should be doing, the less you feel like doing it.
The next thing you know, you find yourself with a pile of unfulfilled intentions, goals, and plans overlaid with a hefty dose of self-doubt and recrimination.
A bridezilla is born when you gut it out
Or maybe you suck it up. Gut it out. You latch onto your plans with an iron grip. You discount your feelings, and you follow through come hell or high water.
You might end up with a business that looks like you’ve been told it should–and you might not. Regardless of the results, it’s likely that the harder you work your plan, the crazier you will become.
It’s not about the plan; it’s about the feeling
You know that nice feeling you get when your mind is quiet, and you’re in touch with your innate wellbeing?
When you’re in touch with what my friend Mark Silver calls the heart of your business?
Well that’s what’s missing when planning makes you crazy.
Because it doesn’t make sense to make plans that feel bad in an effort to create a business that feels good.
What does make sense is to steer your business from that nice feeling. With that feeling as your compass, you’ll naturally gravitate to ideas that make sense for who you are and how you work best. When those ideas take hold, then planning to bring them into form makes sense.
You don’t have to be a bridezilla
You get to choose how your business feels. You get to home in on the feeling you want around your business. How do you want to feel when you spread the word? How do you want people to feel when they hear it? Let that feeling be the litmus test for your vision, intentions, goals, and plans.
Because that feeling is the best foundation and measure of success.
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The origins of Shaboom and an invitation to apply for individual coaching
The name of my company, Shaboom, is taken from a tune written and recorded by The Chords in 1954. The refrain, “Life could be a dream” captures the promise and impermanence of dreams. It calls us to be bold, visionary, and creative. It honors intuition and alternate ways of knowing. And it reminds us not to take ourselves too seriously.
It’s exactly what I want for myself and for my clients.
This fall I’m opening up my practice to five new individual clients. This is a rare opportunity to work with me at a deep level to unleash your creativity, hook up your genius, and take bold action to create your dreams. I’m interviewing prospective clients now. To learn more and apply, please click here.
mollygordon.com/coaching/
Main photo credit by Theresa21 via Flickr
