Rome wasn’t built in a day
Today, I found myself saying “Rome wasn’t built in a day, but here’s how they probably started.”
When I first started as an entrepreneur, I felt like I had to have this very concrete, tangible result for my clients. So many of us feel that way; like we have to promise “Six figures in six months!” or “Lose 5lbs.” It’s the ‘go from A to B’ formula.
Yet, what happens when want you offer isn’t that tangible? OR, you aren’t someone who feels comfortable making those promises? Not that you don’t get results. It’s that either you recognize the service you offer is one part of many things that a client will need in order to get to “Rome,” or, what you do is custom, and so everyones results will be different?
If you’re like me, you’ll struggle. A lot.
I had a coach who told me I didn’t have to promise I’d get someone from step one to step ten. Instead, I could say I get them from step one to step four. That did not resonate with me at all. FFS, I was an overachiever, dammit!
And then the epiphany came.
Not from me. From one of my clients. She said:
Being whole and healed is just knowing what to do next
🤯
Think about that for a minute. What if instead of all the striving we do to get to the pinnacle, we focused on the first/next couple of steps? Kind of mind blowing in its simplicity and duh-ness.
Don’t get me wrong, I was just as guilty at downplaying the impact of knowing the next step to take.
Until, I became aware of the contradictory thinking I had, and started to acknowledge it.
My brain tends to see a million different options and ideas. So if I didn’t know the next step to take, it was a failure on my part. But if my clients didn’t know the next step, that made sense to me. I never saw it as a failure on their part. I was my own double standard.
This came to a head when a few different things happened.
A biz friend said that we all need someone who can look objectively at all the thoughts we have, and provide perspective.
I found myself needing someone to provide that outside, objective perspective, and how much better I felt once I had it.
A former client came to me, feeling overwhelmed and wanted help organizing and prioritizing everything she had going on.
Which is how I found myself saying to #3 today, that I see everything she has going on, and while we couldn’t solve everything in one session, here’s what we could do to start.
Because when we feel like we can’t move forward - whether it’s because we’re overwhelmed or because we’re stuck - the impact of that first/next step is immense.
It’s how we get back on the road of entrepreneurship.
