Wishing and Sweeter Sweet Spots: Building Businesses That Support Our Dreams
I’m taking an online class called The Wishing Experience with Andrea Lewicki. One of our first assignments was to spend five minutes writing down all of the wishes we’d like a genie to grant us. Sort of like an extended birthday cake wishing session.
Looking at my wishing list was a bittersweet experience.
Because The Wishing Experience is about being curious about ourselves I started thinking about the “why” behind my bittersweet feeling. Why, when all that I’d wished for is well within my grasp, did my wishing list make me both happy and sad?
When I was little and wished out loud for something my Dad would say: “Wish in one hand and sh*t in the other and see which fills up first.”
Which I’m realizing now I carved into my brain as the limiting belief that “wishes are stupid.” But now what I really think Dad was getting at is that wishes require action to have a chance of coming true. Wishes grow and flourish and live in the sweet spots that we create for them.
Crafting Sweeter Sweet Spots
We all started our businesses for our own reasons. Money is a primary motivator, of course, but there’s so much more to it than that.
We have skills. Skills that can help other people. When our skills meet up with another’s pain or wants there’s a special connection, a sweet spot where skills and money are happily exchanged.
But beyond that, beyond the “why we do what we do for our clients and customers” … for many of us there are deeper, precious, personal reasons why we started our own businesses.
In the rush to build our businesses and learn social media and launch products it is easy to forget what we were wishing for from our entrepreneurial journey in the first place. It’s easy to lose track of our own dreams.
These dreams are so important to our life and to creating a business that serves us. When we can choose to align our dreams with what we do well and someone else’s dreams we can create an even sweeter sweet spot.
To get to that sweet spot we have to keep reminding ourselves of those deeper personal reasons behind launching our own businesses.
I started my own business to share my skills with the world (I help women build beautiful online businesses). Because there is a need for my set of skills there’s a really sweet spot where I can do what I love and help other women build their dream businesses and get paid well to do so.
There’s also a place where I get to do what I love and get paid well AND have a business that supports my bigger life goals. For me this means building a business that honors the level of flexibility I need. A flexible workload and consistent income stream so I can manage a chronic illness, have time to devote to writing fiction and be able to spend quality time with my parents, children and hubby.
After my wishing session I felt bittersweet because I realized I’ve been spending a lot of time circling around this sweeter sweet spot. I keep telling myself that the sweeter sweet spot isn’t always possible, that I should be happy when two of the three requirements align. That flexibility isn’t that important.
In fact, I told myself that some of my deeper wishes are downright selfish.
How selfish is it to think we could take our kids and travel around the world? How selfish is it to want to write fiction every day? What will the neighbors think? What will my parents think?
We hold up the dreamers, the doers, we applaud their adventurous lives, but we don’t allow ourselves to move into that sweeter sweet spot for ourselves. We stand in our own way. We don’t believe in the magic of a wish or in our ability to look at those bigger life goals and make choices that pull us into alignment.
In retrospect we can always see where we could do better. I’m the person who chose to spend 10 more minutes on Facebook instead of 10 minutes writing fiction. I decided to watch another webinar while snacking at my desk instead of stopping to take a walk and enjoy my lunch.
When I’m making those kinds of choices, which take me farther away from where I really want to be, I’m ignoring those deeper reasons why I went into business in the first place.
When we don’t honor our whys we find ourselves veering off track and wishing, wishing, wishing for a genie to make it all better, when the power is right there with us.
So what can we do to keep ourselves on track? I made myself a little cheat sheet that I keep by my computer. It’s a list of those deeper wishes, those deeper personal whys behind my entrepreneurial journey. When it comes time to decide if I’ll take on another project or spend another 10 minutes on Facebook, I’m training myself to stop, look at my list and see if what I’m contemplating matches with where I want to go.
I know I’m going to continue to make decisions that sometimes leave me feeling bittersweet. I’m human. I know that I’ll keep circling around that sweeter sweet spot. But I also know that many times I’ll be living right there, I just have to stop and smell the roses.
What are you wishing for in your life?
Do you want to be working from a cafe in Paris this time next year? Do you want to spend afternoons hanging with your kids at the park? Do you want an art studio in your basement so you can sneak down and paint in every free moment? Do you want to buy a yacht and head out on a round the world adventure?
The cheat sheet is a great idea! It’s a great visual reminder/prompt, and also, you know how I feel about saying things out loud (writing them out has the same effect).
I’ve found that if I have several different kinds of “tasks” related to my big picture, I can move between them and still make progress. There’s only so long I can write before I need a break to noodle and formulate, so I move over to designing something, doing admin work or starting/continuing conversations with people.
Sometimes I wonder about the specificity of the sweet spot – if it’s too specific, it means we’re going to spend more time out of it than in it (Spanx! Ha!).
Also, I’m glad you’re human. 😉
I think having a morning mantra around those bigger whys would be a good practice, too. Sort of like reciting the alphabet in 2nd grade. I can still so clearly picture those big alphabet cards from my mom’s classroom.
“I’m building this business to support my dreams….”
I think the sweet spot moves with us and expands and shrinks. It’s more malleable than rigid.
Oh, Christie – this is very timely for me. I am going to be making a cheat sheet tonight! I find it so easy to get caught up in the “stuff”. You mentioned a studio in a basement. Interestingly, we remodeled our basement last year and specifically built a sewing/writing room for me. I barely use it. That’s something that needs to change. Thank you for the important reminder to focus on why we are doing we do.
How awesome that you have a sewing/writing room. What would you like to be sewing this spring? One of my wishes was for more time to sew. Oddly enough my office is also my sewing room, when I make time for it.
What a beautiful, authentic post! It looks like you created yourself a compass that will always bring you back to your purpose, when you notice you may be slightly off-track. And it sooo helps with time management, too 😉
Thank you for sharing your insights. And don’t stop wishing. Pleeeaaase! It’s not stupid. It’s smart!! It keeps you growing in the right direction.
Thank you Anya. Yes, a compass. So easy to get off course. But so powerful to know that we can correct course at any time.
Great post Christie! A few months ago I started creating a new list each month of all the tasks that would get me closer to my big goals in life. Those lists have totally changed the way I tackle my days. I love your idea of also creating a list of whys. Whys are so much more motivating that just a list of to do’s!
Shay – I can see the results of those lists! You are on fire. Traveling, launching Fast Fitness to Go!, what’s next?
This is absolutely WONDERFUL Christie! I just love you. I have so many big ideas and WHYS, and sometimes really believe I am working on them….but at the end of the day, mor often than not, I am like…..what happened today? how can the day be over and I didn’t get any closer to my goal(s). LOVE this idea….SO need to do this….
Thanks again….and BTW, the graphic is gorgeous!
xo, Tina
Thank you Tina. I think we have to keep reminding ourselves what we want and give ourselves leeway to veer back and forth off of our path… in part because what we want changes and morphs all the time.
As I write this comment, we are on vacation. It is one we have been doing for 10 years, the one on which my son took his first meaningful steps, the one we look forward to every year. It was the first one on our list of creating a sweet spot of experiences for us, our kids, our family. Since then, we’ve added plenty of other travel adventures. Some are annual. Some are once-in-a-lifetime sorts of trips. And still…
It is so easy to continue to circle looking for a sweeter spot. That’s where you have plenty of company in that human category!
Jennifer Peek
Find Your New Groove
Left-Brained Strategy for Right-Brained Businesses
Jennifer, I so love that you’re commenting from a vacation! Definite sweeter sweet spot!
Beautiful! and so well said! So many of us just realized what you are saying only later in life. Life is way to short to make half hearted decisions or agreements that don’t completely rock your world. Lovely article, great to affirm a focus on what drives and feeds you and what you can give your all too 100% Many thanks for this great article!
Anastasia Valentine
Positive Instigator, Strategist, Maven
Take BIG Steps, Make BOLD Moves
Thank you Anastasia! Affirming and reaffirming and doing it over and over…so necessary.
What an exquisite piece, Christie, for you and for me. Thank you for it! Yes, you have woven much in and through it. Dreams… wishes… your childhood, your father’s way… and your deep seeing into his words that could feel harsh to some… such was the way of our father’s (mine & yours)… and their wisdom.
At the same time, we are moving away from the old paradigms into some new sometimes uncomfortable ones. When I hear the words… “some of the deeper wishes are downright selfish” this is what I think of… the past generations and how many would view our choices and thus why we are at times haunted by them.
I am left to wonder about what illness you are working with. Sending you much love & support in that area.
I love your cheat sheet… though i might suggest another name for it. My awareness page! haha! or how about my Mandala of Self…. which conveys to me all the many threads of self that are important to weave in… including my social engagement with those I love! Like YOU and being here with you. Yes, all feeds into my larger purpose.
Thank you for this post, Christie! I am witness to your growth and what feels like a flourishing in this new piece.