What I had to quit as a multi-passionate entrepreneur

For those of you who don’t know, I am a self confessed multi-passionate creative entrepreneur*, I have my fingers in a lot of pies including building websites for amazing people, helping people get unstuck with their online biz, co-running a hub for female entrepreneurs and blogging about trying to keep it together.

For the past 5 months I have battled with taking on too much, being spread too thin, feeling guilty for wanting to take it all on, feeling pressure to give something up and ultimately trying to choose what it was that I had to let go. I was focusing on all of the SHOULDs. I should do this and I should do that**. More specifically, that old saying ‘You can do it all, just not at once‘ was doing a infinite loop in my mind so I was feeling pressure to let go of something.

This pressure built up in a big way, manifested into some kind of controlling mass that made me start hating everything and wanting to just give up and run to the mountains, worse yet, go get a job.

The pressure was holding me down, making me stuck, preventing me from moving forward, it seriously felt like I was sinking into quick sand. My creative flow went missing, my motivation disappeared and inspiration was no where to be found. Not only that, it made me physically sick for several weeks (hello adrenal fatigue) and emotionally drained (aka not a hoot to be around).

Truth be told, I was resisting so hard because there was absolutely nothing I wanted to give up. I love it all, I thrive on diversity and if I had to do just one thing only for the rest of my life I would likely stick a fork in my eye to get some kind of enjoyment.

I love running multiple online businesses as they each have something different to offer. I love helping other people run their online businesses because they inspire me to keep going. As soon as I realised I was playing out the ‘Shoulds’, it became crystal clear the only thing I had to quit was putting pressure on myself to let something go. I had to quit the ‘Shoulds’. I remembered that I am driving this car, I get to choose the route. This is why I do this.

OH boy, letting go of that pressure was like a huge weight has been lifted. Within an instant, my creative flow, inspiration and motivation have all returned. Just like that. I’ve already put together outlines for future programs and products and I am so freaking excited about it!

My goal now is to focus on the journey, enjoy the process, do it my way. Because as funny as it sounds, as soon as I look towards the end goal I just get lost in the forest.

So instead it’s one step at a time for me.

Are the ‘Shoulds’ stopping you from doing the work you love?

 

 

*I hate the word entrepreneur but I guess it’s the best way to describe it other than crazy person who can’t stop creating, I’ve heard people refer to themselves as boss ladies and the like, I’d love to hear if you have an alternative that you use. 

**The inspiration of identifying the “should’s” is credited to this amazing blog post (soon to be book). A must read!!