I said to my husband last night that if I’ve learned anything in the past few months of transition and growth in my business it’s this:
Everyone has an opinion AND I still have to make up my own mind
This actually hit me pretty strong over the past couple of weeks. I’ve been working on a project that is near and dear to my heart for some time now – and throughout the creative process of bringing this project to life there have of course been various decisions to make along the way. Everything from who it is for, what to include/not include, what to call it, how to launch it, etc.
At each stage along the way I found myself wondering “what is the right answer here?” or “what should I do?” And then I found myself getting stressed trying to answer questions from that perspective – trying to be “right” or doing what I “should” is alot to put on my shoulders! (and yes, wanting to be right is a thing of mine… that whole control freak thing ya know ;).
If I’m trying to be right or do what I should I’m looking outside of myself for the answers… and that is a recipe for insanity for the simple fact that everyone has an opinion and all of them will be different. I’ve heard it said before “if you try to please everyone you please no one.”
And then it hit me about a week or so ago when I was trying to sort through a bunch of ideas, thoughts and recommendations from different people…
What did I WANT to do here?
As soon as I had this thought it was like a weight lifted off my shoulders… I had been ignoring what I actually wanted for me, my business and my clients. I was forgetting what I love to do, what I like and (more importantly) what I don’t like. I was trying to fit myself into a mold of what other people do vs. considering what I want to do!
And then it became fun – instead of trying to figure out the right/should thing I just approached it instead from “if this was totally up to me what would I do here?” (and of course it was totally up to me the whole time but i just forgot..) I felt like a kid in a candy store – I really like this, would LOVE to do that, not so interested in doing that part so let’s not bother, etc. And clicketly-click, a bunch of stuff that I had been stuck in came together beautifully and I was able to finally move forward on some stuff. Go figure.
Now it’s not to say that I don’t want to consider other people’s ideas and opinions… as I know there is always tonnes of value in what other people have done and been successful with. But I think for me I was ultimately trying to find ‘the one big answer’ out there and everything I was coming across didn’t fit 100% for me. So I had to take bits and pieces of what everyone was sharing and create something that works for me and I’m excited about.
And so I did… you’ll be finding out more about all that soon. 😉
Oh, and one last thought… don’t confuse being afraid to do something with it not being the best thing for you to do. There is a difference between something that truly doesn’t fit you and your business vs. something that you know in your gut you need to do but are afraid of doing. Avoiding those things won’t serve your business so you may just need to buck up and face it.
Comments, thoughts?