What is your purpose? Why are you here? Do you know or are you still searching?
I talk to clients all the time about aligning your business with your purpose, and I don’t mean that you have to have a huge world changing goal (but if you do that is amazing!) No I mean that you need to know what makes you happy, makes your tick and keeps you feeling fulfilled in life.
As you go on the journey of starting a business, or maybe restructuring and moving down a new path. I want you to ponder on a few things
- Are you filling your days with work that makes you happy?
- Are you building products or services that are sustainable for you?
- How do you want to live, work, play, etc?
- Are you creating a job that suits the way you want to live?
- What amount do you need vs want to earn to live “the” life?
- How aligned in your business right now?
- How can you move closer to your purpose?
If you want to get my 7 Secrets to Business Success guide – then please follow this link to grab your copy!
Are you filling your days with work that makes you happy?
Everyone is different, so people thrive from constant interaction and community, other people like more to spend time in deep thought. The world needs both people, but you can only be what you truly are.
So have you structured your business accordingly? I ask clients this all the time, where did the idea for your product or service come from? Is it the way it has always been done? Is the way you used to do it when you were employed? Or the way you see other people doing it? All of these are valid places to start the process. My concerns is when you end there!
You have the power to fill your days with what makes you happy, so if you want to only work on emails on certain days – set up your business like that. If you want to only work on certain jobs, learn then outsource the rest. If you want to work one to one – that fine, if you want to only work in groups – that is fine too. Ask yourself if you are filling your days with what makes you truly happy?
Are you building products or services that are sustainable for you?
This is the same with your products and or services. I hear clients say all the time I need to create X because everyone else is doing that. Now I agree that you need to consider what others are putting out into the world. But I also really believe that you need to work within your energy. So if you love working one to one, don’t create a group program. If you are all about flexibility and freedom, don’t work on-site with clients. You need to think about what you are creating and decide is this going to help me live the life I truly want.
How do you want to live, work, play, etc?
So what does this true desire look like? I always get my clients to focus on a few key areas and plan where they want to be in 3 years. Now this doesn’t need to exact and things can totally change. But it is important to you are focusing and working towards something. So think about – how many hours you want to work a week/month? Where you would like to live – location, house, even travel? Who do you want to spend more or less time with? What hobbies do you want to have started or mastered? The clearer you are on the vision, the easier it is to create it.
Now I have clients that are across the spectrum with this question, one client wants to earn enough so that her husband can retire. Another just wants to afford to buy a house for herself and her kids. One wants to change the world with a foundation that helps millions reach their potential and leaves a legacy. Some want to earn £100k, others want to earn £750k a year.
The goal itself is not set by anyone but you. And you need to feel really comfortable with making that happen in the time frame. Once you have this decided, it will be easy to continue to work for it.
Are you creating a job that suits the way you want to live?
As business owners we write our own job descriptions, so what does yours currently say? Is it allowing you the freedom and giving you the satisfaction you truly desire? On a scale of 1 – 10 (1 = no aligned, 10 = completely aligned) how aligned do you think your current job is with the life you want to live? When I ask this question in my Blueprint to Business Success course, most people start at under 7/10.
Being able to create that balance of live and work is so important. But you first have to understand how you want to live so that you can then create the job around that. I have always liked to travel, but when I started working in corporate I could only take one “long” 2 week holiday a year. With all my family are in South Africa, we would always use this time to go “home”. This meant that then for 7 years we didn’t travel anywhere else. And I always felt like something was missing.
Once I started my own business, I made it a priority that we always take at least 6 weeks (2 x 3 weeks) off and a few long weekends. In the last 3 years I have been to Greece (twice), Iceland, Devon, the Lake District and home on holiday 5 times. So you can see the difference. When you set up your business to suit your lifestyle rather than the other way around.
What amount do you need vs want to earn to live “the” life?
This is one of my favourite questions to ask clients! If you do a full account of all your expenses, savings, outgoings and tally it up for the month – how much do you need to earn to get by. Then I want you do cost your new ideal life and let me know how much you need to get by then.
The first point in your business is to get to the covering your current life with your business income, then once you do that, you can start to grow that income and invest. By investing in yourself, your business, your new life, without increasing your outgoings immediately you are able to build momentum and increase the amount you earn to the new amount you desire.
But if you spend as fast as you earn, it will take you 3 x as long to reach that overall goal. So when you are starting out I want you to ask yourself – will spending this money help me increase my overall earning potential in my business. So investments in new systems or tech, coaching and self-development are all on the table. But you need to make the investments work for you. This is how you will move from earning what you need to earning what you want.
How aligned in your business right now?
So after reading all of that, how aligned does your business feel right now. Is it fuelling the life you want to live, or stopping you from achieving happiness?
So many of my clients need to break something in their business before they can truly step into being the true business owner they are meant to be. So what do you need to break? What do you need to disrupt or challenge in order to move forward and create a business and life with purpose?
How can you move closer to your purpose?
Moving closer to your purpose is so important, and I am going to give you a simple activity with some questions to help you move closer to your why in my Clarke Journal edition on Thursday this week. (10 September) Make sure you are signed up before then to get access to all questions and be able to start this journey to move closer into alignment.
Or if you want to get my 7 Secrets to Business Success guide – then please follow this link to grab your copy!
You can also check out my Video Gallery for all the learning videos on a variety of business topics – this week will see 2 new videos on purpose and finding your why!
