Overcoming Challenges and Coaching Yourself for Business Success

Sept. 5, 2012 - PRLog -- Have you ever been afflicted with too many things going your way?  When it happens it can be so surreal.  For me when it happened it shook me and has become a significant turning point in my life and in my business.

Recently I have moved to California; a dream that I have secretly had for about six years. When it finally became reality, I had a hard time believing that I actually did it.  So far, every day I wake up, look out the window at my palm trees and feel this small wave of delight shoot through me.  Palm trees!  So cool.

The longer I have lived here, the longer I get those delight shoots going through me.  There’s the blessings of multiple organic grocery stores, as well as the sun shining outside almost every time I leave my house.  I am less than an hour away from the beach with its gloriously splashing waves that lure me into a trance.

Then I discovered speaking groups, writer groups, and book clubs.  I attended them and found that people are welcoming, intelligent and dive deeply into discussion.  After attending my first book club, where we spent the night asking profound questions about a book and considering various opinions, I was invited to join the group that had been going strong for over six years.  I left with a stack of books nestled under my arms that were lent to me to read, and clutched a long list of great books that I had to also read.

As I drove home, I reflected on just how awesome that experience was.  I had dreamed of that kind of group my whole life.  The women were incredibly kind, interesting, and the type I would love to spend more time with.  I teared-up with gratitude.  I felt so blessed.

When I walked into the front door of our home, I announced to my husband that I didn’t want to work anymore.  “There are too many cool groups to be in and too much fun stuff to do.  You’ll just have to bring in more of the money.  I want to play.”

The problem with that statement was I meant it.  I had been working hard for years, and I was worn down.  

This tiredness of working and the lure to play and to read and write for hours, called to me almost as much as the ocean and waves called for me to come play.  

I found it almost impossible to pay attention to work.  I didn’t want to bring on more clients because that took away from my playtime.  That was a seriously different thought for a workaholic.

I brought this issue of having too many good things in my life and that work seemed like something that I wanted to toss aside, up to my coach.  She agreed that it would be tempting, then she dove in and talked to me about boundaries.  

She said that the biggest thing that keeps people from making high-end six figures is not the lack of working—often people making less, work more—but the difference is how strong their boundaries are.

She challenged me to look at my boundaries around my work.  I realized that if I grew stronger with my boundaries, and gave myself more time to play, and honored that, then I wouldn’t have so much resentment about having to work when it was time.

We then drilled down on how to set a very structured schedule that would get my work done, my clients seen, and my play time in.  

A funny thing: as soon as I saw that my play was going to be honored, I was on fire to work again—in the allotted times of course.