It’s wild, but I’ve seen this happen quite often. Someone has been working hard on their business, trying to get it to produce, to do well… and then it happens, money and clients coming in, success!
And… all of their motivation drains away. They stop pushing, it’s hard to keep going…
What the heck is going on? Two things, I want to address both of them.
1. Depletion deserves rest.
If you’ve been working really hard on your business, it’s natural, expected to feel exhausted when you cross a finish line. Especially if you’ve been working under the pressure of the current culture, that expects you to work way too hard.
It’s one of the reasons I recommend folks rest and celebrate when hitting milestones. And to define those milestones in the first place.
Getting your business to “work” or to “succeed” is such a vague, undefined goal, and no matter how well you’re doing, there is always more.
You have to define milestones. Here are some examples:
“Making enough three months in a row to cover business expenses.”
“Making enough three months in a row to cover business and personal expenses.”
“Making enough to cover expenses and put some in savings.”
“Taking a vacation that the business paid for.”
“Getting to capacity client-wise.”
“Getting hired at the highest rate you’ve ever charged.”
There are an infinite number of others. Hitting a milestone means you should rest, you should celebrate (it doesn’t have to be extravagant), you should really embrace and acknowledge what you’ve done.
After, you will probably feel better, but your motivation might not have returned.
2. Shifting motivation fuel.
Survival is a powerful fuel for motivation. At the same time, there are a surprisingly large number of people who aren’t motivated by money per se. Meaning, for many of us, me included, once a minimal level of comfort is achieved, working hard for more money doesn’t really push us to act.
This is actually healthy, there’s nothing wrong with this. Except one thing. The “minimal level of comfort” is often a miscalculation.
The feeling of comfort might arise from having good cashflow for a few months, but it doesn’t mean the business is in a truly stable place. It doesn’t mean that savings and retirement have been fully funded. It doesn’t mean that there is a prudent reserve of cash saved up.
It also doesn’t mean that you are proactively caring for the evolution of your business, so that it doesn’t become stagnant over time.
What’s needed here is a shift from survival as the motivator, to inspiration and vision and dreaming.
The good news is that inspiration and vision feel so much better. They are often gentler, even when there is urgency in the dream, it never feels like panic or push to me.
The bad news is that we don’t give a lot of priority to vision and inspiration, and because they feel different we can end up ignoring them, or at least not treating them with the care and love that is needed.
I’ll admit that I don’t live in inspiration all the time. There’s plenty of moments that survival can crop up, because I’m human, and that’s what we do.
But I can tell the difference, and often I can shift. I want you to be able to shift as well.
What I recommend.
Even if your business is still in survival, I recommend trying out these steps, because it’s way more healthier, and it gives you a different way to move forward.
And if you are coming out of, or completely out of, survival in your business, then I definitely recommend giving this some spaciousness to practice.
First, just see if you can feel the difference in your physical body, and in your spiritual heart, between inspiration and survival. This is more important than you think, because survival can be so loud, that inspiration can feel like the absence of survival panic, instead of a positive thing on its own.
Seriously. Take thirty seconds, and just see if you can connect with your dreams, your inspiration around your business, and just notice what that feels like.
Second, practice stopping when survival push comes up. The Sufis say that the only power the small-s self has is the power to cover over the truth. Survival is our small self pushing to make something happen.
Using our will power to stop that push is a step toward healing. Even if you end up taking the same actions you would have, to do it with inspiration, connected in your heart, rather than pushing from survival panic, can make a world of difference.
Third, take a task, and see if you can connect with the inspiration, the larger dream that the task is contributing to. See if you can notice how that inspiration is pulling you forward, heart-first, instead of being pushed by panic.
How does that feel? What do you notice?
Be gentle with yourself over time. Shifting from survival panic-push to inspiration is not just healing, but it’s resistance to the deadly, overly productive culture we exist within.
I’m curious to hear how this lands for you, what your experience is, and whether you have made the shift to inspiration.
with love,
Mark Silver, M.Div.
Heart of Business, Inc.
Every act of business can be an act of love.
Healing through Past Lives: A Free Online Workshop:
from Rachel Horton White
Full disclosure that Rachel is an individual client of mine, and I receive zero from her in terms of affiliate or other kinds of payments. I’m sharing this simply because I know she does fantastic work, and is worth knowing.
From Rachel:
Often when we feel stuck and aware of a recurring pattern in our lives, we don’t always know how to break that pattern. In my work with clients as a hypnotherapist, I have found that the answer lies in accessing our past lives.
Come learn more about what you can learn in past lives and how it can help you in your current one! In this free virtual workshop, Healing Through Past Lives, you will hear about four specific areas that can be tapped into from a past life for healing.
Please join me in this complimentary online workshop:
Healing through Past Lives
Sept 26, 7-8 pm EST on Zoom.
Register here to join.
(and recordings will be sent to all who sign up)!
These four areas have to do with breaking patterns, incarnating with other people, uncovering our innate gifts and learning soul lessons. Register to join this workshop on September 26, 2024 from 7-8 pm EST on Zoom (recordings will be sent to all registrants).
There will be no upsell, no offer of any kind here. I just love talking about past lives and bringing their significance to light for more people. I am looking forward to seeing you there!
