2019 was a fun year for me.
I set up not one but TWO different businesses with other people, only to end the year with neither running. I had 40,000 business cards spilling out of drawers and cupboards, but no business.
So I cocked an ear to the universe, asked for a message, and got the following:
“Stop hiding in the petticoats of others. You need to go it alone. And please, while I’ve got your attention, printing business cards doth not a business make.”
(The universe speaks all fancy like that.)
And honestly, I thought: fair enough.
I spent 2020 getting financially stable and was ready last year to develop my ‘go it alone’ project. Which would be……? Tumbleweed.
So I followed the advice of Flannery O’Connor, and decided to, “Write to discover what I know.”
I wrote and wrote and followed my nose and, with pen staying just ahead of critical mind, I dipped into my heart to discern what really lights me up. The work that I would do even if no one was paying me.
Put another way, I went ALL the way round ALL the houses, to come back to something so blindingly obvious it was like I hadn’t noticed a hippo sitting in my lap.
Don’t be so hard on yourself.
People have said this to me my whole life. But saying, “Don’t be so hard on yourself” to someone that’s habitually hard on themselves is like telling an orange not to be an orange; and I never really knew what to do with this feedback.
Until now. The difference being that, after 30 years of personal, professional and spiritual development – along with ten years working with others – I realised I did now know something about how to move from being habitually hard on myself to coming into a more loving relationship with myself.
The penny dropped.
The hippo stirred.
The business was born!
I have found the work that I would do for free, forever. (And all without printing a single business card!)
It all starts with a FREE e-book: Six Signs That You’re Hard On Yourself (and three ways to break the habit).
Cover image: Photo by Oksana Berko on Unsplash