I’ve made a LOT of mistakes in my journey in business (and that’s okay because we all have to learn, right?)! One of the biggest mistakes I’ve made is not getting CLARITY in my business up front.
When I say clarity, I’m also talking about being in ALIGNMENT with myself. For so long, I did work just to make money or just because I could do the task.
The problem? I wasn’t doing things that lit me up! The result? My work became dull, boring, and I ended up hating it!
Now some might be thinking – So what, you can’t always do work that lights you up. Work is work.
To those who are thinking that – I agree. To a point.
The point is if you are in business for yourself the core business that you do SHOULD light you up. You should feel excited to get out of bed and get to work because you are doing work that matters to you. Otherwise, what’s the point of being in business for yourself?
My Story…
All my life I struggled with not knowing what I really wanted to do/be (when I grew up). I knew I could do anything – but I just didn’t know WHAT!? It plagued me in college when I had to pick a major. I had NO idea what to pick (there were so many choices)! It plagued me when it was time to get a job.
When I knew I wanted to work for myself and start an online biz, I looked into what I could do. There was the problem again – I didn’t know what I wanted to do. There were so many things I could do. How do I pick?
So I searched for things I could do and I jumped in and started learning skills and helping people with content, marketing and more. BUT nothing I did ever felt fully aligned with me. I could never ‘go big’ because I was always changing my mind. I didn’t know what my problem was. Why couldn’t I stick with anything? I felt like something was wrong with me.
It wasn’t until I read an article by Laura Garnett about how to look to your core challenge to find fulfillment in work that things started to click. She talked about understanding your core challenge and how you could use that to find meaningful work. As I looked over my life the one thing that stood out was the challenge mentioned above – not knowing what I really wanted to do in my business/work life.
At that same time I was learning about the zone of genius. I knew I needed to understand how to mix what I do best with the people I really wanted to work with. I needed a strong dose of CLARITY if I was ever going to have the life and business I truly wanted! It was time to dig deep.
So I went to work to understand what my mission and message was, what were the things I did best, who would care about it, and how I could help them. I went out and tested out a few ideas…worked with a few people.
AND THEN…
The light bulb went off!
While I love teaching marketing strategies (and still do), I also believe and KNOW that marketing is COMPLETELY useless if you don’t have clarity in your business. Since I’ve been working with people to find clarity in their business I can say that I’ve found meaningful work (to me)!
It is PRICELESS to be fully aligned with YOU and to have absolute CLARITY in your business. It gives you all the confidence you need to really put yourself out there and do great things.