All you want to do is to snatch up some of that sweet sweet honey (or moolah), but no matter how hard you try, no matter how much you struggle you. Just. Get. Stuck.
I had a mentor client who was spending her days and nights making business plans. She mapped out strategies and then revised them, crossing things out, adding things in and repeating the cycle day after day, slowly losing her mind over her business.
She had her hand stuck in the honey jar and she was trying to plan her way out of it.
She was trying to force something amazing and it wasn’t coming and it was making her frustrated, sad and emotionally drawn to sugary foods.
She came to me in tears, asking: “What should I do?”
I told her to do nothing. Instead, I asked her what she was passionate about.
Cue allll the silence.
“What did you spend your time doing before all the adult responsibilities took over?” I asked.
She said, “Ummmm, drawing?”
Good,” I said. “Go buy an art journal and forget about the business plans for at least a week.”
She was confused. And I’ll be honest … a little frustrated.
After all she’d just hired a business mentor to tell her not to focus on her business? What kind of whack job was she dealing with anyway?
The best kind of whack job, obvs. The kind that had been where she was (multiple fricken times) and knew that the only way to get unstuck is to stop struggling.
Ever seen that episode of the Simpsons where Homer gets his hand stuck in the vending machine?
Turned out that the reason he was stuck was because he was holding onto a chocolate bar.
Holding. Onto.
Because when you hold onto stuff – whether it’s plans, strategies, anxiety or chocolate – you get stuck.
And trying to force something great will never ever produce anything great. But doing what comes naturally to you will always lead to a path of greatness.
After a week of drawing and tuning back into her passions, my client came back to me a world of stress lighter.
“Anna, it’s crazy, but it actually worked. I figured out what I have to do next … and I didn’t even have to figure it out. It just came to me.” She said.
And best of all her new plan included a way for her to incorporate her passion – drawing – into her business.
Pretty cool huh?
So this week, why not take an hour – or even a day – to do something you love doing? You never know, it might just invoke the ah-ha moment your business needs to get unstuck.
