Are You Sitting In the Wrong Room?
It finally feels warm here today, so I’m allowing myself to think about spring cleaning…the business.
Whether you’re just starting out or you’ve been working away at this for awhile or you’re anywhere in between – I encourage you to take a good look around and ask yourself honestly how things are going. If your answer sounds anything like this:
Things are going okay. I’m doing all that I can. I’m doing everything I’m ‘supposed’ to be doing. This is the most I can hope for in this economic climate. What else could I possibly do?
Then, I invite you to listen to this story.
When I was 20 weeks pregnant with my daughter, we found out that she was really small. Everything else about her looked fine, other than the fact that she was tiny. By the time she was 35 weeks it seemed like she just wasn’t getting what she needed in her internal home – at all. So, the doctors wanted to take her out.
The very idea of this turned everything we knew on its head. She wasn’t fully cooked! Babies are supposed to thrive in the womb for a specific amount of time. All of the conditions on the inside are ‘supposed’ to be perfect. So, how could bringing her out make it better?
All I know, is that it did. When we brought her out of the womb and into the room 5 weeks early at 2.8 lbs., she thrived. Gained 2 oz. per day, hightailed it out of the NICU in a week and a half, floored the doctors, never had a thing wrong with her.
Think about your business, your creativity, your productivity. If it’s moseying along, but not flourishing. If you think there could be more – even though you’re doing what you’re supposed to be doing. Think about doing something else. Find out if you’re sitting in the wrong room.
Maybe you need to:
- Switch professions
- Find a niche
- Join a social network like Twitter
- Attend some live conference or workshops
- Shift your workstyle
- Change the physical space where you usually work
- Collaborate with other creatives
- Write in a new medium, like blogs, white papers, annual reports
- Get a new computer
- Combine forces with another freelancer who complements your work (a writer and a web designer, for example)
- Go directly after a company that you’d like to work with…
There are so many ways to ‘change rooms’…What could it do for you? How will you do it?
FYI – Flexpaths is a great resource, if you’re thinking about changing careers or creating a flexible work environment.
Image courtesy of RBerteig
Filed under How To, The Business | Tags: business development, business growth, copywriter, designer, freelance copywriting business, Julie Roads, small business, small business owner, Writing Roads | Comments (6)Self-Sabotage or Self-Care?
So, has this ever happened to you? Everything is going really well, and then boom – you get destroyed.
Let me get more specific. I’ve had an astoundingly exciting few weeks. All good things, some dreams come true. I’m sailing along, working hard, high as a kite. The reality of that last sentence looked like this: rarely sleeping and working about 80 hrs/week.
And then, out of nowhere, a kidney stone. Sidelined, stopped in my tracks, immobilized, useless.
The question looms big: is this some form of self-sabotage? or is it self-care?
Did my subconscious freak out and say, ‘Are you kidding? You can’t get all that you’ve ever dreamed! You don’t deserve that! Who do you think you are?’ And then throw the kidney stone right down the center of the lane, a perfect strike? Wedged somewhere between hell and, well, hell?
Or…
Did my subconscious take a deep maternal breath and say, ‘Here we go everyone, preparing for lift off, let’s just slide her a little stone here so we can get her to rest and relax before the big launch.’
My father is going to argue (he’s a lawyer) none of the above. He’s going to take the pragmatic route, “When your number’s up, your number’s up” or tell me this is another example of his beloved reversal theory (in this case, just when things are going really good, something bad happens).
I’m going with ‘self-care’ because: 1. It was a very mild kidney stone as far as kidney stones go. 2. I enjoyed all of the naps I’ve taken over the last 3 days. 3. Life feels a lot better when I imagine my subconscious is rooting for me 100% percent.
So, here I sit, almost back to normal (whatever ‘normal’ was) and wondering what you think. Has this happened to you? What’s your take on it? Feel free to tell me that I’m thinking waaayyyy too much…I’ll gladly blame that on the morphine.
p.s. I was going to put a picture of a kidney stone in this post, but they were so hideous, I just couldn’t do that to us.
Filed under How To, Myth or Reality, News | Tags: business growth, copywriter, copywriting, growing pains, Julie Roads, kidney stones, marketing writer, Writing Roads | Comments (12)how to succeed in business…successfully (and like a real person)
Hi! My name is Al Aboutme from the Al Aboutme Print Shop! We print everything. Even holiday cards. Have any of those? ‘Cause I’ll print ‘em! What? You have cats? We print cat posters too! Come on down and visit us. Come to our website, www.printhereorelse.com. I need business and I want yours. What? You never print things? Sure you do, come on down, we’ll find something you can print…blah blah, blah blah, blah blah.
Gross. Don’t be like Al Aboutme.
To build your business, you have to network and you have to work with other people. You need to talk to them, collaborate, do business – but you don’t have to do it like Al, and you shouldn’t. Why? Because it isn’t comfortable for you or for the people around you…oh, and it doesn’t work.
Think about this: when a company comes at you via email, a social network, on the phone or by direct mail, you typically cringe at the sight or sound. You sense the ambush, you know they want something from you. But, when a person approaches you via email, a social network, on the phone or by direct mail, you wonder who they are, you look forward to making a connection, you engage in conversation.
Please be a person all the time:
- Listen to what people need.
- Listen more than you talk.
- Give more than you take.
- Be generous with your time & information.
- Be in places where your clients will be.
- Realize potential clients are everywhere.
- Be kind.
- Be your most authentic self.
- Stay true to your goals and mission.
- Check in with yourself & make sure your actions/words feel comfortable as they happen.
- Be honest about what you can and can not deliver.
- Have the resources to help your clients with the things you can’t supply.
- Grow with your industry & the world’s needs.
