The emotional storm

Last week was all about looking back over the year. I explained the five steps:

• Identify what you did.
• Identify the results you saw.
• Identify what you had hoped for this year.
• Compare what you were hoping for with what happened.
• Dream about next year.

There are nuances to each of those. You can read the full post here.

I’d like to dive a little deeper into step 4: The comparison.

Comparison is an opportunity for learning. It’s also an opportunity for a hellish emotional contortion that leaves you grieving and broken. Oh, the choices we have! 🙂

One of the most important capacities we can develop as human beings, is the capacity to be with challenging emotional states without needing to escape or fix. The more we develop that capacity, the more resourceful we can be, the more wisdom and love we can access.

Without that capacity, we’re just pinging around, avoiding the uncomfortable and always seeking comfort. Yet learning and growing require us to go into unknown places, which tend to be uncomfortable.

If your results fell short, perhaps far short, of your hopes, one of the best ways to be more effective is to take time to just be with the difference.

Please note, no where am I asking you to shut down or ignore your emotions. Our emotions are beautiful, necessary and require space. That’s okay.

One of the challenges in trying to do a year-end review in a short period of time, a morning, or a day, is that you have no time to walk with the emotional impact of the year. Many people haven’t looked at the year as a whole, and that impact can feel huge, when you take the time for it.

If you are walking with the year-end review and dreaming into the new year over days or a couple of weeks, then if you take a day to be with the emotional impact, you aren’t “behind.” It’s just part of the process.

Once the hurricane of emotions wash through and you regain your heart, then it’s possible to be more grounded. “Oh, I wanted this, and I got this. Hmm… curious… what happened?”

Now you are ready to gain insights. Some insights you might have:

• I didn’t have a large enough audience to get those results.
• I’m not charging enough to get those results.
• I’m missing skills or knowledge in critical areas, which means the results broke down because I couldn’t follow through the way I needed to.
• Other huge things happened in my life, and I didn’t have the capacity to get those results.
• I didn’t have the clarity in my audience, or in my offers to get those results.

Other insights?

If it’s helpful to you, please take advantage of our free assessment. It can be a key part of how you understand your business.

Click here: Free business assessment.

Did you compare your hopes with your results? How did you weather the emotional storm, if there was one? What insights did you gain?

If you’re willing, please share.

With love,

Mark
Heart of Business, Inc.
Every act of business can be an act of love.