Let’s pretend this is a story about “Anna.” Anna is your quintessential plucky Hallmark main character. She has a bakery and wants it to be the best bakery in town. 

So she hires a marketing agency who assigns her an “expert” who happens to be a hot guy with a dumb temper and even dumber opinions, probably named Trevor. 

Anna doesn’t agree with Trevor’s opinions, but because she doesn’t have Boundary Capacity™ – she just nods her head while quietly seething…queue the plucky “uh oh, there’s trouble brewing” music as Anna rolls her eyes into her head.

Sadly, many of my clients when they came to Capacity Work™ were living in a Hallmark movie – just quietly nodding at their coach/mentor, meanwhile knowing they are not in alignment with their purpose and not speaking up. 

A few years ago I worked with the lovely “Natalie” who had been through two “Trevor-like” coaches, spent tens of thousands of dollars and had still not made a penny from her business. 

She didn’t know what on earth was going on. When we dug in in our first session, I realized the problem. Not one of these business coaches she’d worked with had asked her what she loved to do. Can you believe that?

Instead, they’d totally steamrolled her and told her what “hot niche” to base her business direction on. The first coach told her to focus on sex & relationship coaching. The second told her to focus on money coaching. 

They gave her all the latest techniques they were teaching all their other clients and she did them all. Starting a free Facebook community, doing a huge virtual telesummit to “get more people on her mailing list.” Here she was a year later with zero sales to show for it.

She had trouble conducting sales calls, didn’t feel comfortable showing up in her free Facebook group every day to keep her audience engaged. She felt she “must not have what it takes.” In reality, she had Boundary and Purpose Capacity™ deficits. 

She was building an entire business based on what a coach had told her was popular. Instead of based on what was aligned with her purpose. Can you see the problem?

Building a business or career in an area you’re not passionate about is a recipe for quitting. The road to success is challenging enough. How can you expect yourself to show up for it when everything is a sh$tshow and you don’t have a deep CALLING for what you’re doing? How can you ride out the tough times if you don’t like what you do?

You can’t.

The reasons Natalie couldn’t even ask for a sale wasn’t because she sucked at sales. It was because some wise part of her knew she wouldn’t enjoy working with a sex or money coaching client. It wasn’t her purpose. So she resisted booking calls with people.

She couldn’t show up consistently to market, post on her social media accounts, or for the large email list, her virtual telesummit had amassed…because deep down some part of her knew those weren’t her clients. They wanted sex or money coaching. Those things weren’t her true purpose.

There’s something I often say to clients when they feel so royally blocked by their resistance and are pulling their hair out like a Hallmark movie bakery owner who can’t figure out her grandma’s secret Christmas cookie recipe: 

Sometimes your resistance is wisdom. It was for Natalie.

She couldn’t make money in her business because the business she’d built wasn’t aligned with her passion at all. None of her previous coaches had thought to ask her this (I don’t know why). She also didn’t have any Boundary Capacity because instead of pushing back and telling her previous mentors “hey, that idea doesn’t work for me”, she stayed quiet and just went along with everything they said, giving no input on the matter. 

In a way, I don’t totally blame her previous coaches. How were they supposed to know what she was passionate about if she wouldn’t say “no” to the ideas they did present?

Her eyes went wide when I pointed this out. Here she’d been mercilessly beating herself up thinking she just wasn’t good at business and that she was the problem. She was relieved to know that wasn’t the case.

Luckily she’d booked a Capacity Intensive Day with me, so we dove right into expanding her Purpose and Boundary Capacities. Within a few hours, we were clear on what SHE really wanted to center her business around, had the whole business model created, two ways of working with her that excited her fully formed and we even had her whole tagline, marketing message, and a year’s worth of content ideas DONE. All aligned with her TRUE purpose.

Can you believe she got her first client within a week after that Capacity Intensive? It’s incredible what alignment with your purpose can do.

Are you trapped in some toxic Hallmark-movie reality? Here are some things to look for:

• your mentor doesn’t listen and steamrolls their opinions over you instead of co-creating with you, while also giving honest feedback on what does and doesn’t work based on their experience (there’s a difference between steamrolling you and pointing out blind spots in you like any good coach or mentor will do.)

• you’re giving up your power to your coach and don’t speak up when something doesn’t feel aligned or you don’t understand something.

• you just “go along” with someone’s plan, hoping it will make you money, without giving any of your own input.

• your mentor doesn’t foster an environment where your desires can be heard and integrated into what’s being created.

So how’d you score? Your answer could be showing you a Purpose Capacity deficit that needs your attention. 

If you find yourself resisting marketing, not showing up consistently, feeling confused about what to say to your audience, or just plain not showing up…

Maybe it’s not that you “aren’t cut out for this” or that you “don’t have the willpower”. Maybe you’re unclear on your purpose and how it expresses itself in your work in a clear, concise way. 

Maybe something’s out of alignment and there’s some help you need in getting back into alignment.

Because when you’re aligned, the journey feels joyful and manageable. It’s challenging of course, but it shouldn’t be THAT challenging.