My Holiday Wish for You: More JOY!
Full disclosure: my creative muse chose to play coy with me over writing this blog. She would give me brief flashes of inspiration, and I’d head down that path… only to find a dead end. No flow to the writing. I’d try again, same result. (I seem to recall this being someone’s definition of insanity. Hmm. 🤔)
After two weeks of diving into the writing and then back out, thinking / dreaming / fretting about it, finding other possibilities … and getting nowhere … finally, at 11:58 pm the night before my deadline, I threw my hands to the keyboard and erased it all.
Total blank page. Finally a sense of relief and then oh sh*t, where do I go next?
As I headed for bed, the muse started twinkling and a realization hit me...
Mentor Moment: Okay I’ll be transparent and say that the muse often finds me when I’m in the bathroom. Why I have more clarity and creative breakthroughs there than anywhere else seems odd to me. Perhaps it’s the small space? Or time on my hands... might as well talk to myself. And in the shower, the water helps clear the brain fog. The problem is, I rarely have something to write those amazing thoughts down on or capture the recording (yes, I prefer my bathroom time to be digital free). Today, my friend Hilarie Dahl told me about waterproof whiteboards. So in case this happens for you, here’s a link.
...for well over five years, during this time of year, my blog posts have been all about the “doing”:
Getting your bookkeeping ready to close out the year;
Thinking about 1099s and requesting W9s from vendors;
Considering tax planning;
Getting your financial plan ready for the year ahead.
(Granted, these are all things that are important, and if you really are interested in at least getting your finances in order, I will link one of my resources for that at the end of the blog.)
AND that is not my focus now.
The bookkeeping business has been closed now for about five-ish months. My focus is no longer on being the “doer,” and yet the record in my head of what I’m supposed to do this time of year keeps hitting a skip (for those not familiar with a vinyl record, that would be a mark on the record that makes the needle keep replaying the same last bit of song - it’s annoying; and if you don’t know what a vinyl record is, Google it!).
As I laid my head down on my pillow, I called out a plea to my spirit guides.
Please, please help the creative muse solve this problem so I can meet my deadline.
More importantly, help remind me what it is.
Sometimes creativity does strike in my dreams or in the early morning as I wake up, and unless I’m quick to capture it, it runs down the drain as I take my morning shower.
Before I can even find slumber, the song - JOY to the World - starts echoing in my ear. I don’t know the words to the whole song, so there was some humming in there, but I got the jist of the message.
JOY
That one word was the whole lesson, the key to it all.
I had created the bookkeeping business because I was very gifted at the skill of putting the numbers together and using the tools to organize them. AND while it was comfortable to stay small on that couch, there was no love for it. Perhaps a few moments of JOY occured or I wouldn’t have left my J.O.B. to start the business, but it sure was not enough JOY to sustain it.
As I continued pushing the business, I was working harder, longer. Chasing six figures to only have the cash dribble right back out of my hands. Focusing on the lack all around me with time, money, and that ever increasing debt.
I tried different formats of the business, pulling myself out of most of the hands-on work and bringing in team. AND I kept hitting that skip on the record in my head. Going forward a bit, only to find myself falling back to the beginning.
During this time, I started my own personal development journey. It was odd at first, especially when the questions being asked were - What do you really want? What makes you joyful?
My brain immediately jumped to crafting the response, pulling out my best “A+” student behavior. However, my heart and soul were not attached to what my brain was saying, and the answers continued to fall flat. I kept hitting that skip on my internal record.
Back in March of this year, my rock bottom moment had my heart and soul crying out loudly, screaming at me to find a new record. I realized that no matter what action I did or was supposed to do, or new training I did, or shiny new tool I implemented - none of it would work if I didn’t find and follow the JOY behind it all.
That was really THE underlying reason I burned the business down. LACK of JOY!
Breakthrough! I seeked out the original creator of the quote below and failed to find one. I know this was a lesson David Neagle often talked about and it was repeated in the Joy of Business book by Simone Milasas.
“Money follows Joy, not the other way around."
Whomever the originator, I thank you for the reminder. Many of us were raised to think, once we HAVE money, life will be easy and we will be happier. Not TRUE!
Think about it. Would you rather work with a consultant that is excited and joyful to talk to you about their gifts, or someone who just walks through the tasks?
It’s JOY that customers are attracted to. When our energies vibrate at the higher frequency of JOY we attract people, and that attracts money. When we are BEing fully in our JOY our internal energy batteries are filled, meaning we have taken the time to recharge which also shows in our confidence.
JOY is the ultimate key. When you are in your JOY gratitude is natural, seeing abundance around you is easy, and money is attracted to the energy.
What you focus on you create more of. ~ Jen Sincero
I wrap with the quote from Jen Sincero because it represents the underlying purpose of what I now do. While I normally use this when I talk about money, as I’ve shown above, money is the end result - the metric of what we can measure.
Where you start is with your passion, your vision, your JOY. It is also why I really do want to know what your big vision is for your business, that ultimate Big Kahuna dream.
As we wrap up this year, I encourage you to find some down time and refill your JOY cup. Find a creative outlet. Spend time with people who make you laugh, deep from your belly. Journal about it. Meditate and ask your spirit guides for support in finding it. Unplug and get outside.
Whatever you choose, my wish for you is to find the JOY in this holiday season; with your business and that Big Kahuna dream you truly desire; and know that money will be there to support that.