Written by Jessa Lewis
It’s so easy to believe that you HAVE to do business a certain way, that it has to look like this or that and specifically like everybody else’s – especially when you’re first starting out.
The truth is, it can look any way you want it to.
You don’t need to work 9-5, a certain number of hours a week or even consistent hours/timeframes from week to week. You don’t need to be all offline or all online or the perfect balance that Entrepreneur X is doing. You don’t need to look, dress or speak a certain way. And you certainly don’t need to show up with similar strategies, opinions, modalities or methodologies to anyone else. There are a million different ways to do business, do business in your niche, do business in your country, do business on your platform(s) and do business with the type of service or product that you might be interested in selling and providing.
The idea that one single way suits all is ridiculous.
Especially because this is what will stop you from being able to have a soul aligned business that you’re able to design perfectly around who you are and the way in which you want to live your life.
When I launched my business, I had had the advantage of having worked with those that did buck the trends and, I surrounded myself with mentors who advocated for authenticity and alignment over following the rules but, even so, the idea that I had to tick certain boxes in specific areas still crept its way into my mind here and there.
Incorporating a way to check in with yourself on a consistent basis to verify the reasons why you are doing or wanting to do XYZ is an imperative step in ensuring that your intentions will always be in line with your individuality and specific goals.
Here are a few of the ways in which we can all tune in on this:
- Journal on what our actual motivation is in different areas
- Meditate and tune in to higher guidance for how to move forward in different areas
- Allowing space and time to check in with our sacral authority/gut instinct
- Asking ourselves what we would be doing if no-one was watching or judging
- Reminding ourselves of our mission and how that gets to override the fear of being different
- Get inspired by expanders who have acted with courage in areas where want to too!
Once you KNOW exactly what aligned direction you want to take in your business and life, this is where it gets to work around you and your life (or how that gets to evolve) because that is in fact where true alignment will always take you.
For example:
The hours that I set for being available on Voxer with my clients or mark as available for coaching calls aren’t dictated by what anyone else in the industry is doing. I look at what suits me, around my children, around my other responsibilities and around my own cycle.
In fact … during the first week of my own cycle, I am very open with all my clients that I have limited availability and might in fact be in my bed half the time. The other half where I may work, is also from bed – haha. I don’t place pressure on myself to perform exactly the same way week on week out even though that is perhaps what society dictates and prefers, because that is not how I work best.
When I show up on a livestream or when running a masterclass, I do so with my own boho woo woo style, with no apologies for imperfection and complete allowance for the fact that (especially as of writing this with the Virus having us all in isolation) my 5 and 4 year might break into my office and interrupt the perceived lack of chaos at any point.
I don’t pretend that I’m not a mother working from home or that I’m someone that doesn’t have flaws and doesn’t swear from time to time – because I am who I am and my audience in fact love me for that. I am not available or appropriate for anyone that is not ok with that. Side note – there are billions of us in the world and we are NOT designed to compatible for each and every person!
I don’t always have a perfect sales page when I launch something -sometimes it’s just me popping up on Instagram stories and saying ‘Hey! I have something to offer!’ and that’s fine.
I don’t always use photoshoot images for my social pictures. I mix between photoshoot images, selfies, graphics I design and my own self-timed tripod isolation photoshoot photos. And that’s fine too.
I don’t speak perfectly or act at all times mature. Because I am not.
Structuring your business around your life means considering your own set of rules and boundaries and guess what? These might be tested at times but it does not mean that you need to waver at all. Personally, my soul seems to have signed up for a lifetime of lessons in boundaries so I do find that I receive lessons over and over again with other pushing my boundaries around values, time, energy or otherwise. But, each time this happens, I just get the chance to re-establish what my expectations and standards are and then welcome that back in.
When we follow alignment with how we run our businesses and don’t mimic those around us, we attract in the exact audience that is craving someone as unique and fabulously flawed as we are.
Owning the fact that we are not robots or cookie cutter makes us stand out from the crowd.
Doing things in our own way and being a permission slip for our clients and audience to be brave and do the same is an interesting and attractive quality.
And designing our business around our own lives allows for us to create an expansive relationship with our own business that then amplifies our energy, joy and the value which we can then give back. And that, is quite possibly the best possible feeling in the world.
Designing Your Business Designing Your Business Designing Your Business
