You Can't Go Faster
With Your Foot On The Brakes
"There's this perception that if
you worry a lot
and if you look really busy and stressed out
then you'll be more successful.
You talk about how little sleep you get
and how tense you are
and how you're not getting the appreciation you deserve
and how hard you're working.
You think this is somehow
feeding into your success and your career,
and that's just not true.
Any success that you
have in your career
is despite your being all bothered and annoyed and stressed out
— not because of it."
Nancy Mayer of 'Newhouse News Service'
Many small business owners want to get more clients, make more money,
work less, and be less stressed with their business and life. And they
already feel stretched to the limit.
Does this sound familiar?
In addition to running your business, working
with your clients, managing your assistants or staff, marketing,
planning, and handling much of the day-to-day administration of your
company, you may also be writing books and newsletters, creating
information products, being interviewed on radio and TV, and running
seminars and workshops, as well as wanting to have a fulfilling
personal and family life outside of your work.
Working harder is not the answer.
Whether you have an overwhelming schedule crammed with obligations or
activities, a stack of unfinished projects, piles of papers covering
your desk, jam-packed filing cabinets or drawers or attics, people who
are less than supportive of you, clients that are not ideal, thoughts
of worry or stress that crowd your mind, ‘shoulds’ and obligations and
overwhelm, cluttered closets, and saying ‘yes, yes, yes’ to too many
others instead of yourself - all of this “stuff” is clutter, and your
clutter is getting in the way of what you want.
In fact, your clutter is actually preventing you from being as
successful and fulfilled as you’d like.
When you have clutter of any kind in your life, it’s like driving a car
with one foot on the gas and one foot on the brake (at the same time!)
while you’re trying to go faster and faster. If you’ve got your foot on
the brake, no matter how hard you keep pushing on the gas, your car
will not move forward very well. Your car will also break down pretty
quickly!
Do any of these sound familiar? (hint: these are all forms of clutter)
-
You have a hard time saying ‘no’ to requests people make of you.
-
No one can do what you need done as well as you can, so you just do
it yourself.
-
You react to what comes at you every day, rather than consciously
deciding how your day will go.
-
You don’t think you can ask for more money. Your clients already
resist paying your fees.
-
Your desk is stacked high with piles that stress you out.
-
You have clients who drain your energy, complain, and don’t pay your
fees.
-
You’re in a relationship, friendship, or partnership (business or
personal) that isn’t working, and it’s causing you stress and
frustration.
-
You believe that if you work less than you do now, you’ll make less
money.
-
Most of your day is spent responding to email, phone calls, and
emergencies, as well as handling interruptions.
Most business owners have no idea how much their clutter – physical
clutter, time clutter, relationship clutter, and mental, emotional, and
spiritual clutter – is affecting not only their day-to-day life, but is
also directly and dramatically affecting the success of their business,
their health, their relationships, and their ability to be the kind of
person they want to be in the world.
Rather than wearing yourself out by working harder and harder (and
still not seeing the kind of results you want), it’s so much easier to
gently take your foot off the brakes and start accomplishing much more
of what you want, with a lot less effort.