Yesterday I was feeling funky. So I invited the funk to tea, and this is what I discovered.
I was feeling funky because I was repressing my desire for Profit Alchemy to fill up.
Goofy. Profit Alchemy lights me up. I can’t wait to see how it changes people’s lives. It’s also a key part of my business strategy for next year. So why wouldn’t I want the program to fill?
Wanting to succeed is risky
To want something publicly, out front, is risky. You could look needy. You could look greedy. You could look shallow. For some of us with an idealistic streak, wanting something for personal benefit is, to say the least, in questionable taste.
So there’s a tendency to downplay the fact that you want business success. To dance around it. And the more you do that, the further you push desire into the closet, the ickier it gets to want what you want.
The problem is the closet
The problem isn’t wanting to succeed. It’s that you’ve pushed wanting into the closet.
When wanting is in the closet, you start to doubt everything you do to market and sell your work. Does it sound pushy? Needy? Craven?
You project these fears onto potential clients, and your imagination goes wild with what they must be thinking. (It’s not pretty.)
And all the while the desire for success actually gets stronger. Which makes you feel worse, and the cycle continues.
Wanting is the seed of creating
All by itself, wanting is an impulse to create something. To make something happen. A chocolate ice cream cone. A painting. A good income.
And creating is a good thing.
But when you reject or conceal your desire for success, when you keep it in the closet, the natural desire to create gets warped.
Meanwhile, you’re trying to do the responsible thing and promote your work. And here’s what happens. That repressed desire works its way into your psyche where it taints everything you do. You can’t have a simple conversation about your work without being haunted by the repressed desire to get a new client. You cant set a decent price for your work without noticing that you want the money.
And the more you try to distance yourself from what it is natural to want, the less clear, compelling, and authentic your communications get. No wonder you get tongue-tied at networking events. No wonder the price that comes out of your mouth is lower than the one you intended to say.
How to open the closet
The first step to getting the desire for success out of the closet is to realize you’ve put it there.
When you realize you’ve been repressing or denying your natural desire for success, you open the closet door and turn on the light. And that changes everything.
With wanting out of the closet, you get to approach it as the creative being you are. You get to decide how much you want, how badly you want it, and what you’ll do to create it. Figuring our how to succeed becomes, dare I say, part of the fun of working for yourself.
When the closet is open, the creating begins
Creating success is like creating a work of art. You start with an inkling, that morphs into an idea, that joins with a longing to make something new.
And then comes the choice point. You decide you are going to make the thing.
Creating success begins when you decide to do it. Then you figure out how to do it, and you work at it until you get it done.
Sure, there are detours and bumps in the road. But you keep on creating.
The question is, will you take the desire for success out of the closet? And what will you do to create it?
The not so subtle invitation
I began this article with a reference to Profit Alchemy, and I’ll end there, too. Profit Alchemy is about taking the desire to succeed out of the closet. People in the program make a commitment to creating success through personal transformation and plain old hard work.
It is a profoundly creative program, and it works. The early bird discount ends Friday. If you’ve been on the fence, you might want to apply now. Click here to learn more.
Photo by Darwin Bell via Flickr
Under a Creative Commons License
