wrong question

Me with some of my beautiful clients during an in-person capacity retreat.

Back in August, I was on the phone with an amazing woman who was interested in working with me. She’d been one of the founding members of a successful startup and was in the process of selling it. And now, it was time to create her next business. 

Except she was in a difficult dilemma I know you’ll relate to:

“The last few years have been a whirlwind getting the company to where it is. I’ve worked so hard. I know I need to be working on my capacity, for so many reasons and that capacity will be crucial for the next thing I create. Yet, at the same time, I feel like I need to rest and take some time off.”

She was stuck between “Should I rest or should I go into my next cycle of growth?”

This is not the first time I’ve heard this. And especially right now, at this time of year, we go into “assessing the year and slowing down” mode, while at the same time thinking about what we want to achieve next year.

That’s why this is the most dangerous time of year for you, too, when it comes to going to your next level of growth, wealth and impact. Because you’re asking yourself the WRONG question. 

Here’s why:

Like many ambitious women I’ve spoken with in the last few weeks, you’re probably feeling tired (or downright exhausted) from this year. Maybe you had team issues to deal with, pouring time and energy into micromanaging people who couldn’t fully support you. Or relationships blew up when you tried to set healthy emotional boundaries, and you’re dealing with the fallout.  

Maybe you’ve had inconsistent cash flow or dealt with more people who didn’t pay you on time, clients who defaulted on payments or ghosted after saying “yes” to working with you. You’re tired from money stress, sleepless nights and the lack of certainty inconsistent cash flow creates.

Maybe you had the best business minds help you create brilliant strategies set to make it rain in 2019, but here you are feeling like you’re in the same place as last year. It’s not terrible, but it’s certainly NOT the growth you envisioned.

So now you’re wondering “Should I take some time off to rest after this crazy year? Or should I seize the momentum I’ve been getting lately and start scaling and putting the things in place I know I’ll need to hit my revenue and impact goals for 2020?”

Believe it or not, if you’re asking yourself this question, you have a capacity issue.

As long as you keep focusing your mind on this question, you’re in great danger of majorly sabotaging your plans for next year and ending 2020 even more exhausted and plateaued.  

The RIGHT question to ask yourself is this: “Is my current capacity in alignment with the capacity I need to achieve and RECEIVE my 2020 goals?”

Because if it’s not in alignment (and it’s not in alignment if you’re currently exhausted from this year), “rest” WON’T solve your conundrum. Neither will going full force into your next launch, project, initiative, “scaling plan” or strategy.

When your capacity is out of alignment, you could take a month to rest and STILL wouldn’t feel rested. 

I once spoke with a woman who wanted to work with me but her excuse for not starting right away was “she needed two months off before she started our program.”  

When I checked in with her two months later, guess what she said? “I still feel so tired. I need another month.” This continued for a year. In fact, after my third check in with her, I stopped. She wasn’t ready to ask herself the right question yet.

A year later she sent me an email frustrated, disappointed in herself, and at wit’s end. STILL tired, still stuck in the same place. Some things had changed, but not to the degree she’d dreamed they would after she “rested.”

That’s when she was finally ready to ask herself the right question. She signed up for Capacity work with me and BOOM, three months later, not only was she feeling well-rested—she felt this way WHILE undergoing the most rapid financial growth her business had ever encountered. 

Both rest and growth can happen at the same time–but ONLY if you have capacity.  Capacity allows for holding two things at the same time in your reality. When you get into “either-or” mentality (I can either rest, or I can expand my business, but not both), you’ve got a capacity issue. 

When you don’t have aligned capacity, you will take time off to “rest,” and feel like it’s not actually replenishing you. 

Because you don’t have the capacity to rest in a way aligned for you and you can’t rest without feeling guilty (and therefore you’re not REALLY allowing the resting). 

Or you’ll rest in all the wrong ways, feel lazy and not actually allow true rest to expand your capacity to take on bigger goals next year. (Hello two-day Netflix binge where you feel like crap afterward.)

Similarly, if you’re thinking about scaling, your next big launch or your next initiative and you’re starting to create a strategy for how it’ll happen next year, it will NOT solve your current business problems. 

Because if your capacity isn’t fully expanded and aligned BEFORE you create a strategy, scaling plans or business model redos, you’ll create a strategy OUT of alignment with where you want to go.  

You’ll chase endless shiny objects and cool “innovative” sounding strategies.  But they won’t really move the needle in any big ways, because you’re just mimicking what worked for someone else, instead of having the capacity to know deep in your bones what IS the right angle for YOU.

When your low capacity is creating the strategy to grow next year, you’ll end up spinning your wheels and facing the SAME business/career problems you’re facing now, next December too. You’ll be frustrated, wondering why you’re STILL dealing with the same team issue, still facing cash flow issues, still haven’t gotten a promotion or STILL attracting Mr./Mrs. Wrong into your life.  

When your full-capacity self creates the strategy, you have sold out programs, something seems to “catch fire” in your business, or you finally start getting the accolades and recognition you want at your job. 

The question isn’t “which” should I do. It isn’t a “versus” situation between rest and growth. BOTH need to happen to get you to where you want to go in 2020 without ending up in a hamster wheel situation, even more exhausted than before.

And both can only happen when your capacity is finally in alignment. 

If you want real results next year, you need to stop focusing on rest vs. growth. And instead, focus on prioritizing the expansion of your capacity.

Only with aligned capacity can we start to create different results. No shiny strategy can touch what capacity can do. 

Ready to start asking yourself the right question now?

In Love and Capacity,

 

PS: If you’re ready to rest AND scale at the same time so you can create way more impressive growth, wealth and impact next year, leave a comment and let me know what your current capacity challenges are. 

I’d love to see if I can support. We have many new options to work with me on your capacity, in a variety of budgets, starting as low as $400 a month!