A few years ago I hired a bookkeeper because, frankly, I hated bookkeeping so much that I wasn’t doing it. I hated it, felt overwhelmed and intimidated by it. And our taxes were a mess. So I happily handed off the bookkeeping task to someone who had been referred to me.
A YEAR later I started to wonder…
It turned out the bookkeeping she did was also a mess. In fact, it was such a mess, and so useless to us for anything, that I had to pay a new bookkeeper to redo the entire year, and catch us up to the present. It’s all now running smoothly. But why did things go so awry?
I was hiding under the covers.
I was so resentful of, and felt so incompetent with, the bookkeeping that I avoided it as much as possible. I handed over our financial records and said, in essence: “You deal with it.” I’ve felt the same way about many other things in my life such as car repair, fixing the oven, incorporating.
For you to personally do everything your business needs, at the level of competency that is required, you would have to be in school for another 20 years. Even if you enjoyed everything that’s overwhelming you, it would be physically impossible to both do the learning and actually get the work done.
So, you don’t need to be your own expert on everything. But why -can’t- you just hand a task you hate off to someone else and expect things to get done right?
Love always wins. If you don’t love, you won’t win.
When we brought cats, Kira and Rafi, into our lives, we accepted them, for better or for worse. When our little Kira was hit by a car, and we had to pay for surgery, and care for her, we did. When they are covered with fleas, we take care of it. When we go away, we make sure they are cared for while we’re gone.
Many people tell me they ‘just want to do what they love, and ignore all the other stuff.’ Your business is a whole being, and it has many parts to it. Rejecting the bookkeeping, or other tasks, is like refusing to love everything about a child of yours. It doesn’t mean I’m going to do my own surgery on my cats, but it does mean I’m going to pay attention enough to make sure they get the best care.
For my bookkeeping, I had to find the love in it. And, in finding the love, accepting the responsibility I had for it. Not responsible for -doing– just responsible for -having- accurate bookkeeping. When I accepted that responsibility, I was finally able to successfully delegate it out.
So, how did I accept something I hated without overwhelming myself? Read below in Keys to Love and Acceptance…
Keys to Love and Acceptance
• First: Accept how you feel.
Often we have conflicting emotions- we know we need to get something done, and yet we hate it, and we judge ourselves. One Moneyflow participant told me: “I’ve always considered my failures at record-keeping to be my own shortcoming to overcome.”
Accept that you don’t like the task, and that it’s okay to feel that way. Big breath of acceptance. And, at the same time, accept that the task is necessary. For instance, you just aren’t going to get around needing to keep financial records. Accept that you don’t like the task, and yet also accept that the task is there. Both are true.
• Second: Face the task.
I was coming down the stairs one morning in the dark, and I saw something out of the corner of my eye. I gave a little jump and a shout. I got scared because my imagination told me this thing that I couldn’t see clearly was dangerous. I turned the light on and faced it. It was just a bag I had left from the night before…
Are you looking at the task out of the corner of your eye? If you aren’t in acceptance of it, chances are you have your head turned, or you’ve kept the lights out. This means you can’t see the task clearly and it looks more dangerous than it really is.
Example: One of my clients hated writing and refused to do it, although he knew he really had to. After looking closely at the task, he realized he didn’t hate writing. He just had so many ideas that he didn’t know what to do with them all. He saw that he could put each idea in a separate article. Since then, he’s been an article writing machine- and these articles have earned him an additional $1500 in just a few short weeks.
To face the task just take some time and contemplate it. Write down a list of everything you know and don’t know about the task. Any assumptions you have about the task. Look it square in the eye, knowing that you don’t have to actually get it done right now. What do you see?
• Third: Get support.
Sometimes the question isn’t “How do I get this done?” Instead, ask yourself, “What support do I need in order to fully express the love I have for my business by taking care of this task?” What do you need to learn? Who do you need to talk to? What’s a truly reasonable timeline?
Take some time with your heart asking these questions. You may get an intuitive hit about someone you need to talk to, or a book you might want to read. Follow your heart, and see what support it knows it wants.
While there are many tasks you may not like that nevertheless need to be done, you don’t have to always be the one to do them. But, if it’s your business, you do need to accept them. Once you rest with love into that acceptance, you can then hand it off. Ahhh… Freedom!
