WHAT TO DO WHEN YOU WANT A COSY, PEACEFUL DREAM LIFE & A WILDLY SUCCESSFUL BUSINESS
Welcome to the SOUL-LED & SUCCESSFUL SERIES.
This is letter three, so if you’d like to start from the beginning you can find letter one by clicking here.
LETTER THREE:
I have a quick question for you… How many times have you been told to get outside of your comfort zone? To push through the fear, take the leap, do it scared? And how does it feel in your body when you get this advice?
It's some of the most prolific advice in the online business world and it’s obvious why. No one wants to stay stuck, everyone has big audacious dreams, and lightning speed growth is celebrated. For some women this perspective on growth works beautifully. But for most of the soul-led, heart-forward women I work with (and definitely for me!), it just doesn't work. The ‘bust out of your comfort zone’ rhetoric actually creates more anxiety, more exhaustion and more evidence for the belief that maybe they're just not cut out for this.
They’re stuck between wanting a cosy, peaceful dream life and wanting a wildly successful business. The comfort zone perspective on growth tells us that business growth only happens outside of our comfort zone, but our cosy, soul-led life requires peace, not constant stress and overwhelm. It’s quite the conundrum right?
Thankfully there is actually another option that works a whole lot better for women like us, so let’s get into it…
One of my clients started our time together feeling really disillusioned and discouraged. She knew she needed to get visible to grow her business, but she was feeling pressured to grow and get visible in a specific way, even though it made her uncomfortable and didn’t seem to fit her personality. She thought she had to just suck it up and get it done even though she really didn't want to. She felt that the only alternative was not having a business, but she wasn't willing to give it up. So she felt like the only option was to do things that were way outside of her comfort zone.
So many of us find ourselves in this position in our business whether it’s to do with visibility or some other facet of our work.
I’ve always been particularly stubborn about protecting my comfort zone. I think it comes from a lifetime of anxiety and years of chronic fatigue as well as an intuitive knowing that this is something I’m supposed to talk about.
When I first started sharing my perspective on comfort zones I kept getting shut down, but I knew it was important. Years later, things are shifting and more people are craving the safety of this perspective.
What I want you to know is that meaningful growth doesn’t have to be a massive leap, it can also happen in a culmination of smaller, more comfortable, more intentional steps.
As you take each small step your comfort zone EXPANDS with you from a place of SAFETY, rather than pushing yourself too far into overwhelm.
It’s about understanding how much discomfort you’re willing to handle. If you prioritise peace, safety and joy it’s very possible to grow in a softer, more sustainable way that honours your boundaries, personality, and desire to feel good.
When I started my business I tried so hard to do all the things I was told would grow it, even though many of them made me incredibly uncomfortable. I was so determined not to let fear be the reason I failed. So I got on calls, hosted group sessions, ran a Facebook group and did live videos. All things I was capable of, but that made me nervous, uncomfortable and exhausted, especially when stacked on top of each other.
With chronic fatigue and two young kids at home, protecting my energy and my peace (i.e. staying inside of my comfort zone) was a non-negotiable, so I stopped doing those things.
I knew I had to stay within my comfort zone if I wanted to be the happiest, calmest, most confident version of myself.
The problem was, I didn't know how to protect my peace AND grow my business at the same time. This is the position so many of us find ourselves in when we’re doing everything we’re supposed to do but our business still feels heavy and unsustainable.
So that's when I got really serious about taking control of my growth in a way that felt sustainable and comfortable. I realised that many, many baby steps allow me to achieve the same amount of growth I would have achieved if I'd thrown myself in the deep end, EXCEPT THAT I GOT TO EXPERIENCE THAT GROWTH FROM A PLACE OF SAFETY & CONFIDENCE INSTEAD OF OVERWHELM AND PRESSURE.
I learned that we all have a different capacity to hold change and growth and when we work within our natural rhythm we can achieve incredible things and also feel the ease and flow we desire in our business and life.
My client discovered this too.
She started looking at her goals differently. She started creating solutions and growth steps from a place of confidence and calm, rather than from comparison and pressure. She looked at her overall vision and gave herself permission to go a little slower and do things in a gentler way because she didn't actually need to earn a million dollars overnight, she just needed to create a business that could support her long term. She stopped comparing her growth to everyone else and stayed in her own lane.
The incredible thing is that as soon as she shifted her perspective, she experienced rapid growth because every step she took was from a place of empowerment.
What really matters more than anything else, is that you understand your unique capacity, energy and reality. Looking at what’s working for someone else and expecting yourself to be able to keep up rarely works because they have a different personality, energy, soul gifts, time availability, boundaries and vision. They also have a different capacity for holding change and discomfort.
If this conversation is resonating with you and you’re eager to embody this perspective shift in your business and life, I invite you into my FREE audio series You Are The Magic where I go deeper into how to create your cosy, peaceful dream life AND have a wildly successful business.
For now, I want you to know that how you feel each day matters just as much as how fast your business grows. Being able to function from a place of safety where your nervous system is regulated, where you can sleep through the night because you’re not anxious about the next day, where you can do your soul's work without feeling pushed to the limit, is a non-negotiable. It's also the exact thing that not only leads to sustainable, long-term success, but to a dreamy life that actually feels like freedom.
You don't have to choose between growth and peace. You really can have it all.
With love,
Michelle xxx
P.S. Click below for letter 4 :)