Today I was reading an email from a list I’ve subscribed to and I noticed it was the same email I’d read a couple of months ago. My first thought was….hmm, okay. Recycling emails. That’s cool I guess. Then I realized that I really loved that email the first time so I was actually excited to read it again. Then today I got another email that I’d read before. Once again, I reread the email and this time it really hit me how much I needed to hear that message again. Like even more so than the first time I read it. That’s when it started to sink in…maybe saying the same thing again isn’t cutting corners maybe it’s actually brilliant. (In my head I totally apologized to the email author for being judgy in my thoughts and also said thanks for helping me learn an important lesson!)
Recently I’ve been struggling with a concept I know I’ve learned more than once in the past…to follow my own path and do what I know is best for me. I first learned that lesson as a mom. Nothing like raising kids to make you have to trust yourself and your decisions (or go crazy second guessing and checking in with others). I learned it again when I went to graduate school and most people in my life thought I was completely insane (not without good reason) because what single mom with four kids and a job goes to graduate school for crying out loud?!? And here I am learning this lesson yet again with running my own business.
I’ve been catching myself wanting to reach out to others to figure out how to do this. Do I schedule a lot of clients or only a few? Do I work late or get off early to spend time with my family? Should I do paperwork on the weekends or does that make me a workaholic? I’ve asked friends, colleagues and google. The problem is that no one agrees! My email inbox was getting flooded with suggestions and ideas…about scheduling, marketing, SEO…you name it I’m sure I got an email for it. Friends and colleagues all have different ways of going about their work and none of their ways seemed to work just right for me. Finally I bought a program and I was convinced I’d found my holy grail! THIS IS IT!….I thought to myself. Finally! Now someone will literally just tell me how to run this business!
But here’s the problem….even though this program is amazing and awesome and chock full of fantastic ideas and tools for how to get my business up and running, it is in fact not the holy grail. It’s also not a checklist that I can just plug into what I’m currently doing for a magic solution. I still need to do it my own way. But what is my own way? Which brings me back to relearning my lesson. In order to be truly successful I need to learn about myself and my clients in order to make solid decisions. I need to be the one who is answering those questions for myself and I need to learn to trust myself.
As a mom I’m constantly saying the same thing over and over again. I spent years teaching my kids how to clean the kitchen and do it well. It took a long time, but now they know what they’re doing and do a fantastic job (most of the time). I’m much more patient with my kids and teaching them than I am with myself. I’ve noticed that the same lessons in life come up over and over again too. Things like patience, worthiness, and self esteem. These are lessons that no matter how much I grow I seem to circle back around to them at some point to learn them over again.
Life itself is your teacher, and you are in a state of constant learning.
Bruce Lee
I know I’m not alone in this. Often I have clients tell me the same thing. They thought they “dealt with” that issue or trigger. They thought it was behind them and they’re surprised that it’s coming up again. They sometimes think (and I used to think) once I did it “right” I’d be past the lesson. If I’m doing it over maybe that means I didn’t do it right the first time? I’m learning that’s not actually the case and in fact that that’s just how we learn. All of the best and most important lessons need to be learned over and over…
