Safe to say, I have never understood the entrepreneurial struggle as deeply as I do now.
It has come to my attention that I am STILL working through a bunch of stuff I thought I’d worked through already (as we all do).
Our old demons resurface and they rear their ugly heads in every season of our lives, just in different ways.
For me, my a familiar struggle is slowing down.
I’m the type of person who sets her eyes on the goal and doesn’t stop hustling until I get there.
I will push myself and do whatever needs to be done, for the purpose of hitting the mark.
But what I also have the habit of doing is moving the finish line.
As soon as I get close to the finish line, I raise the bar, I change the standard and I push myself under the premise of “believing I have more to give.”
This habit however, upon close inspection as proven to be one that does not serve me.
Moving the goal posts only causes fatigue, dissatisfaction and a chronic sense of “I’ll never be good enough.”
I try to justify it by telling myself “I believe in myself. I can totally do this. I have the strength inside me to do it, so why not?”
But it’s all coming from this masculine hustle-mentality that “if I’m not exhausting myself into the ground, then I didn’t work hard enough.”
I dont know what it was that programmed this into me but look at the way I am in all areas of my life outside my business (…all the leisurely stuff like my training, my diet, my relationships, my personal development)- I’m exactly the same.
The truth is, I can always work harder to get there (and I probably will). But will I enjoy the way I got there? Probably not.
What if strength could also be found in restfulness? What if slowing down is what allows us to tap into unthinkable strength?
I am always striving for something and I’m never genuinely content with the work I’ve done.
There’s always something to be fixed, some agenda to be proved or some goal to be reached.
I can never just sit with the feeling of success or enough-ness.
But one lesson I’ve recently been coaching with my mentor on is the idea that slow is not bad and pleasure is not wrong.
The reason for this is because EVEN WHEN I give myself space to be restful and when I try to sit with accomplishment, I feel disconnected.
I feel “out of character” and guilty. And this is because I am simply not used to allowing it.
I tend to criticise myself for not being productive enough on weekends or feel guilt when I find myself watching one too many Netflix episodes.
I struggle to relax and switch off… and the hardest part is- I sometimes don’t even know who I am outside of my business.
My business fuels me from Monday to Friday and when the weekend comes, I feel like a total potato with nothing on my agenda.
When business is off… terrifyingly, so am I.
But I know this is not who I am. I know deep down, there is so much more of me that I’ve buried over the past 2 years of figuring this whole entrepreneurial thing out.
While I am forever grateful for the growth I’ve had- now I sense that the season I’m in both in life and business is a season of slow.
Slowing down and ALLOWING myself to experience, truly, the life I’ve built.
To enjoy the journey and every moment that comes with it.
To experience pleasure, joy and abundance (even in the hardships)
And to soak up the wonder of everything I get to do… because I simply can.
Not everything has to have an agenda.
I can reflect and express self gratitude, I can treat myself and indulge in nice things just because I can and I deserve to.
No further explanation needed.
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