010: Let It Be Easy

Just as the title of this episode says, it needs to be easy. And this is so relevant for me personally, that I just felt absolutely called to talk about it on this episode. Letting it be easy. What does that even mean? Well, my question to you is how hard are you finding building your business? How hard do you find a day or a week? How hard do you find it to do the things that you want to do or need to do to build your business? Are you finding it hard? And do you use language about it being hard now? Like this is an example of the sort of things that I had been saying to my husband quite a lot. When he'd say, Oh, you know what, what's your day like today?

I'd be like, ‘Oh, it's very, very busy today. I've got a lot to do today. Yeah. I'm going to be working late. Yeah, there's a lot to do’. And as I started to say these sorts of things more and more often I was perpetuating my belief that building my business was hard. Do you relate?

Have you got yourself into this negative spiral of language where your thoughts are leading how hard the day will actually be?

And I've got to a point where I think me and my husband had become almost competitive about how hard our days were. ‘Oh, well you think you've got a hard day, listen to this! Listen to how many meetings I might have or how many hours I need to do to get this tech sorted out, or these problems that I'm having. Oh, you think yours is hard, listen to this!’.

And it was ridiculous way of being, and yet it just happened. We didn't try. It just became our normal. And I think obviously being in the situation of total lockdown in London, being around in the house, 24/7 and home- educating our kids. And I know that you guys all have challenges around that. It's not easy to do everything. Even that! What did I just say? I said, it's not easy!

Well, why isn't it easy? And this, believe me, is not just a rhetorical question. I really want to know why isn't it easy. And I'm asking myself more than asking you, but let's think together, why isn't it easy? Why isn't it pleasurable? Why isn't it fun? Isn't it supposed to be?

Now, I left a 20-year corporate career believing that very often that job was hard and it was unpleasurable and I didn't enjoy a lot about it. And I believed that being my own boss, running my own business, being in charge of how I spend my day, of how I use my energy, the people that I spend my time with and the work that I take on would lead me to finding the work a hundred percent pleasurable and easy.

Well, I got a wakeup call there, because that hasn't been the way I felt the last six months. There've been many, many pleasurable moments and I've met the most phenomenal people.

I'd taken on board a belief that many elements or aspects of building my business has been hard. And today's the day that I say to myself and encourage you to do the same too if this resonates: enough is enough.

Now, what has brought this on now? I love reading. I read vociferously, just cannot stop reading. I usually have at least two different books on the go. I have a paper book you can hold in your hand that I like to read if I'm in the bath or just enjoy holding paper. But more than that even, I love reading on my Kindle and I have one of those paperweights that you can read at night. So, and it doesn't like burn yourself awake, like a normal phone screen does. And I read in the soft light and I read it every night before I go to sleep. And quite often again in the morning, and I find that it fills me up spiritually and I always make sure that I've got at least one spiritual book on the go. And quite often a book that enhances my business, maybe a productivity title or something. But at the moment, I'm actually in the middle of reading, Gabrielle Bernstein’s Super Attractor.

I've been really, really called to read quite a lot of books recently around the law of attraction and trying to understand universal energy better. I'll give you a synopsis of more of them at some point, but this one that I'm reading at the moment, Super Attractor, it's really got me thinking about how hard we make it for ourselves and how that blocks the energy that is available to all of us.

And I've been really conscious that I blocked my own energy from receiving energy from the universe, by just deciding that it has to be hard instead of allowing it to be easy and receiving perhaps divine inspiration to solve problems, or indeed just the easy energy where I don't have to worry about the outcome of everything all the time. Now let's just take a minute there and talk about the outcome.

Now, if you are a bit like me, you could be a perfectionist. I think my whole life, including my working life, I've always wanted everything to be perfect. I've wanted the person receiving that work to find it outstanding. I've always felt the pressure to myself to even exceed my own expectations. Now, whilst perfectionism can be a strong trait, and I think it's probably one of those that in my old life, I would always put on a CV (resume).

You know, when people ask you in a job interview, what would you say your weaknesses are? I’d have to always say, Oh, you know, my perfectionism, I always want things to be absolutely perfect. Which of course is one of those sort of humble brag ways of saying, Oh no, actually I'm really, really good at what I do. And everything's always perfect, but this, this life now, this entrepreneur life, it's not about that kind of thing anymore.

And I have to examine what is this perfectionism really about? What is it bringing into my life that perhaps is blocking me from being happy and achieving what I want, but in a state of ease and a state of joy. And I now understand, I'm beginning understand, that actually that perfectionism and that need that hungry need for everybody that I'm serving to say, ‘Oh yeah, yeah, you absolutely nailed it all the time’ is making me feel like it's not easy. I'm feeling the pressure. I'm actually putting myself under pressure. Let's be clear here. Absolutely nobody that I work with has the expectations of me that I'm putting on myself, and having examined that now I'm feeling like, you know what? I will always give my all when I serve. And I will always do everything within my power to show up and bring the best advice that I can bring to listen and to serve.

But why am I putting myself under this level of stress and making it hard to do because actually when I'm serving, and I bet you feel the same way, that's the pleasurable bit – it’s when everything flows and it comes through you and you just intuitively know how to serve and help the person that you're helping and help them along the way towards that transformation that they need. And it doesn't have to be hard. And that's my big revelation and the message of this episode, which is we're going to do those things. We are going to show up for our business. It may be that you have to spend a whole day tapping around on tech and trying to sort something out. It could be that it took way too many hours for you to do something and you didn't really have the time. And it wasn't quite perfect, whatever the story is, does it have to feel hard?

And that's the reality. It's about how it feels. And that's what I've taken on board. Why is it that I was feeling like everything was hard when I could feel like everything's easy. Everything might just be the same, but I wonder if I can start feeling that things are easier. I wonder if things will actually get better. And one of the first things I've decided to do from a practical point of view is to take a little bit more time off. It's like I was putting in a lot of hours. I really believed that I had to. I believed that things wouldn't happen unless I did all these things in this order. Now I'm not going to say that building a business is just about sitting around and waiting for it to happen for you. I think that you have to take action, but your actions don't have to be manic.

They don't have to be hard and they don't have to feel overwhelming. And so today I'm just going to be putting that way more into action (more action!). I'm going to be putting calm and peace into action. I'm going to put ease and flow at the top of my wishlist rather than productivity and results. Because from everything I understand, those things will come.

The outcome will be more likely to be as you want it to be. And the results even better than you expected, if you can approach things with ease and grace.

So if that helps you today, that lights me up. Please let me know if any of this resonates and I will speak to you soon. Have an action filled easy week. Take care. Bye now.