Have you ever looked at your business like a living organism, similar to a pet you absolutely adore or your child that you unconditionally love?

In today’s post, I want to talk about the importance of this idea and how to implement it.

Before getting started, I want to clarify something so that there won’t be any misunderstanding between us.

In the past, I’ve written about how your business is not your baby. I still stand firm by what I’ve said. You might be thinking, “So, what changed?”

My answer is…nothing.

Bear with me for a few more seconds. Here is what I mean by it.

I’ve seen many business owners who’ve shouted, “But…but my business is my baby!” to defend their shortcomings, limiting beliefs or wrongdoing.

They were using it as an excuse to say they know what’s best for their business, but in reality, they were so off the mark, and not to mention they could’ve used some help.

In that regard, I am not changing my stance about how “Your business is not your baby.”

But I am not saying that you should not love your business.

On the contrary, I am advocating for loving & nurturing your business in the most genuine way, so that it will grow the way you envisioned.

Building a healthy relationship with your business is a way to enhance your well-being while maximizing your business’ growth potential.

One way, or dare I say, the only way, to do it is to love & nurture your business like a living & breathing thing.

If you happen to be a logical thinker like me, you might not see the point of this.

Truth be told, what I am about to share isn’t something I always believed. I started to pay more attention to this not so long ago.

My hunch is that you reading this now is an indication that there is something about it that you’re resonating with.

If so, I’m delighted that you are willing to give this post a chance.

The 3 C’s of Common Business Activities That Slow Down the Growth of Your Business

While I was thinking about how to love & nurture your business to promote its growth, I thought of things that do the complete opposite.

I do this type of exercise often because it’s easier to identify what not to do first.

Then, as part of a natural progression, I’m able to see what to do instead.

As a result, I was able to identify 3 common business activities that we are all guilty of doing myself included, of course.)

They are as follows:

Catching up

Chasing down

Cashing out

Let me ask you, what kinds of feelings do these 3 activities bring up?

If you answered, “not so positive” or “kind of stress-inducing,” you are right on the money. None of these yield positive outcomes.

“Cashing out” might sound positive and exciting, but you will soon find out that that’s not the case.

I’m going to break these down by giving you a few examples for each.

Also, I will include some suggestions on how to navigate away from these behaviors in the most effective manner, based on my own experience.

So, let’s dive right in!

Catching Up

How often do you feel you need to catch up on the tasks that sit on your to-do list? All of the time? Most of the time?

The feeling of, “I need to catch up on XYZ,” is a heavy feeling.

“I need to catch up on my emails.”

“I need to catch up on my outreach calls.”

“I need to catch up on reviewing financials.”

Every time we think of things we need to catch up on, what happens is we remind ourselves that we are falling behind.

This means we are still living in the past.

We are using the present moment to focus on things we wanted to get done in the past, and the obvious tradeoff is giving up what we could be doing at this moment.

Then we start to feel like we are not making enough progress in our business because we have a bunch of things to catch up on.

As you can see, the act of catching up can quickly turn into a source of stress, pressure, shame, guilt, and resentment.

As a result, playing catch-up puts us in a place that’s far from loving & nurturing our business.

But the cold hard truth is that there will always be something we weren’t able to finish the day before. It seems we are somehow geniuses at creating more things we can do in our business at all times, which does not help the situation.

This is why the second half of this post will cover a solution I’m excited to share with you.

Chasing Down

So, what do I mean by this?

The act of chasing down is a sign of “efforting” a.k.a. hustling, a.k.a. grinding, a.k.a. white-knuckling.

This one is a hard one to tackle as most of us are hard-wired to believe that problems are solved by hard work.

Chasing down projects, chasing down payments, chasing down new clients, and chasing down visibility opportunities…these activities represent the belief that going hard at it will produce the results we desire.

When we are in this mode, our motive is to “forcefully” make things happen, and this type of action often makes it worse than it needs to be.

For example, chasing down may give the impression that we are pushy or we only care about what we get, or we are willing to sacrifice something that’s hard to get back, such as trust, over things we want to accomplish.

In most cases, this is not our true intention. Because this is not our intention, it creates a misalignment between what we are aiming to achieve and who we want to become.

This is why we often feel drained, exhausted & burned out even if we achieve our goals because we are not being true to who we are.

Clearly, this is not a sustainable way to grow our business.

Some may argue that they are joyful and positive when they chase down what they want, so they don’t see this impacting negatively.

To this, I would say that their sheer commitment to achieving their goals, which I am all for, is only delaying inevitable burnout.

We can be naturally motivated to go after things we want at the beginning. But what about in the middle? When things start to look a bit messy with no good news to report?

This is what I call the “messy middle” and the solution isn’t just “keep going.”

Despite conventional business wisdom, forcefully motivating ourselves to achieve the results we want by chasing them down has more downsides than upsides.

Instead, what we want to do is to invite what we want to come to us. More on this later.

By the way, I’ve written a post about how to become an “opportunity magnet” as a way to unlearn our tendencies of taking action as a fix for our business problems and challenges.

Cashing Out

There’s nothing wrong with celebrating extra revenue or a surprise money-making opportunity.

But if your business has been starved for financial relief like this for some time, you might feel the urge to spend it because you feel you deserve to reward yourself for getting over the hump.

I know this because I’ve felt the same many times over.

And, I’ve learned the hard way.

Remember, the purpose of this post is to shed some light on the concept of loving & nurturing your business in the most genuine way so that it will grow the way you envisioned.

Immediately cashing out the money your business generated does the complete opposite of what we are exploring here.

Consider money as a nutrient to your business. It needs it to grow and expand.

Granted, do take care of necessary expenses and regularly scheduled pay to yourself.

But after that, plow back that extra cash into your business so that you will experience less of a feast & famine cycle over time.

What do you do with the money you plow back in?

There are 3 things you can do with money.

First, consider replacing outdated tech or systems. Doing so will free up your time and restore your sanity.

Second, invest in your education.

Want to get better at copywriting to attract the right clients?

Want to learn best practices for hiring for your team?

Want to master TEDTalk-style talk?

Invest in it.

Investing in yourself accelerates the growth of your business. Soon enough, you will be sitting down with me to strategize how to scale what you build!

How exciting would that be?!

Third, keep some in your slash fund for emergencies.

By the way, if you happen to be the person who tends to hold onto the money so tightly because you are worried you will need it in case your business experiences a dry spell, that is also not a healthy way to go about it.

The perfect balance would be to have some reserve for emergencies, invest a portion of what’s left over for your education or systems, and allocate just a little to celebrate your wins. 

Share | Connect | Grow

www.maikosakai.com

How to Avoid the 3 C’s that Cause Business Stagnation

What have we achieved so far through this exploration?

We have identified the activities that undermine your desire to grow your business. This is the first step.

When you catch yourself doing any of these 3 C’s, remember this:

Stress, burnout & depression are signs that the demand
from your business based on your needs & wants are greater than
the love & care you put back into your business.

I know this is a gut-punching statement. If you felt it, just take a deep breath & accept my apology.

Here is what I want you to know:

I still need to work on this continuously so that I don’t leave myself to my own devices. There is no reason to feel bad about this.

The challenge is simple.

You want your business to perform at its peak, but you aren’t putting in the fuel it needs to do exactly that.

By catching up, chasing down & cashing out, you are beating the sh*t out of your business to perform or sucking all it has out.

If you can visualize it, your business has become…anemic!

Not only that, YOU are running out of steam while you are at it. So, truly, what good is it? Right?

So, what’s the solution?

Let’s start with a little exercise.

What I would like you to do is to look at these 3 C’s and find which C is most relevant to your situation.

For example, you have a tendency to “chase down” to get what you are after. Instead of obsessing over your to-do list, you start your day by listing activities that would help invite more opportunities rather than taking action to make it happen.

You might include offering help to organizations with your expertise, lifting up others on social media, mentoring someone, or creating a community.

Starting your day with this new approach is a tiny change, but the impact can be immense as it sets a different tone as you go throughout the day.

To nurture and love your business, your mindset needs to shift to believe that putting a hard stop on any activities that deprive your business’ resources is your new approach.

I don’t want to sound like an infomercial, but wait, I have more! LOL

Enter The 3 A’s of Business Nurturing Framework

Now enter the 3 A’s of business nurturing framework. This is the ultimate solution for bringing life back into your business so that it will become more resilient, vibrant, and prolific.

Consider this the “antidote” for the 3 C’s you want to avoid.

Ready?

Here we go.

Accept (what is)

Allow (things to evolve without you “doing”)

Appreciate (everything)

The concept of the 3 A’s stems from the thoughts that are helpful in nudging you in the right direction, where they promote the actions that support you in getting ahead of all your concerns in your business.

Did you get this? If not, read it again slowly because this is the core message of this post.

Here is an example that you’ll likely relate to.                                                                                            

Imagine that time when you had enough time to plan out key activities for your clients or for your own business and were able to execute accordingly.

This might have taken place when you were on vacation or during the slow summer or winter holidays. You had a bit of luxury to not rush or pressure yourself to produce results.

While you were at it, you felt you were in control. You felt excited. Or you might have experienced calm but also strong determination in a positive way.

How did you feel after this experience?

Good, right?

It’s because you were able to get ahead of all your concerns in your business completely free from the 3 C’s. You weren’t trying to catch up or chase down or cash out.

Now the question is, how can we get into this “mentally spacious” zone more often, and more consistently?

To figure this out, allow me to elaborate more on what these 3 A’s do.

Accept (What Is)

This is a direct neutralizer to the feeling of needing to catch up.

We are where we are at, and that is perfectly OK.

Think about it. When you feel the need to catch up, it’s because you believe that you are supposed to be further along with whatever you are working on. Correct?

Your belief of “I’m not supposed to be fiddling with this at this stage of the game” will naturally create a dissonance in your mind that causes frustration, worry, and anxiousness. What’s happening is that you are putting up a fight with yourself.

Instead, find a way to calmly collect yourself with the firm thought that you are exactly at where you are supposed to be as part of your journey and that you are going to be just fine.

This may require you to practice letting go of what you think it should look like and letting in a feeling of “I will digest what’s in front of me by shutting off all my mental chatter & just focus.”

There is no need to repeatedly think about how you got there and why.

“If it weren’t for not having the internet connection, I would not have to deal with this.”

“If my team did what they were supposed to do, I wouldn't have to do these clean-ups.”

“If my client told me ahead of time this was going to be part of the plan, I would not have to regroup what I planned originally.”

OK, I feel you, but these are useless thoughts. You are just repeating old news for no good reason.

You are where you are supposed to be. Period.

This means that you are given an opportunity to consider placing a buffer between whatever you were working on or to revisit how you communicate with your team better or to learn to ask better questions.

The situation you find yourself in is ALWAYS a gift.

By accepting what is, you will become great at reframing the thoughts that do not help you get out of the situation and turning them into positive fuel that moves you forward.

Allow (Things to Evolve Without You “Doing” Anything)

When you feel trapped in a situation you do not want to be in and the first solution that comes to your mind is to take action, then you aren’t alone. One way or another, we are all hard-wired to think this way.

“Crap, I need to hire more help now that a surge of new clients is coming in.”

“Oh no, I need more clients since a couple of chunky engagements are leaving at the same time.”

“Hell no, I’m not letting my competitors take those deals away from me.”

The minute we identify a challenge or a problem & we leave ourselves with our own devices, we let the “survival” mode get activated, and that’s when we start chasing after things or people.

The sad truth, though, is that this is the opposite of what we should be thinking or doing.

This one is a hard one to unlearn because it is not something we can visualize easily.

I wholeheartedly relate to you when you say,

“If not me, who will?”

“Solutions will not appear by themselves.”

“Hard work is the way to get there.”

Yeah, throughout my life, I’ve said similar things to myself.

But after learning from those who’ve defied the odds and rose from the ashes like the Phoenix, I had to admit that not all actions I’ve taken out of desperation or sheer grit were effective.

This is a hard one to swallow, but actions can make things a whole lot worse.

Imagine you’ve accidentally stepped into a pool of mud in the forest that pulls you in. The more you move, the more you sink.

So, what do we do? Just sit & wait for things to resolve by themselves?

Not quite.

What I am suggesting instead is to invest in time to re-center us before we even consider moving an inch.

Ultimately, what we want is for solutions to flow through us as opposed to forcefully generating actions from a place of lack. This is the opposite of manhandling problems.

If you rolled your eyes reading this just now, I know what you are thinking.

“Yeah but Maiko, I really, really, really need money right now.”

“My business is at risk. I don’t have time for this.”

“Invest in time to do what?! No, this needs to be resolved right now!”

When our backs are against the wall, we feel like we don’t have the luxury of re-centering. On the other hand, hitting the ground running immediately seems like an attractive option.

I get that. But resist the urge to depend on empty actions.

The reality is if we are unable to snap out of survival mode, no number of actions we take will help solve the problems we face. At its best, we will just be spinning our wheels only to realize we are back at square one.

The act of allowing can only happen when you are able to quiet your mind. You can achieve this (with practice) by:

●       Taking a walk

●       Playing with your kids or pets

●       Meditating

●       Taking a nap

●       Exercising

●       Listening to music

●       Talking to someone who makes you laugh

●       Watching motivational videos

●       Journaling

●       Staring at your mood board & daydream

The biggest challenge with allowing things to evolve without you doing anything is to prioritize taking care of yourself when you (feel) you can’t afford to do so.

For the longest time, this has been my battle as well.

When you feel like you don’t have the time or energy or money to do it, consider this a sign that you must do it.

I know. This is one of those business activities that is so counter-intuitive. This is why not many business owners have an easy time mastering this skill.

But if you are patient enough and have faith in these activities, out of nowhere, great ideas will appear, which will lead to inspired actions.

The more inspired actions you take, the more solutions and options will appear. 

Be patient with yourself. You will get there.

Appreciate (Everything)

This is another way to ground ourselves when we face adversity.

The reason many advocate for gratitude journaling is that the act of appreciation prevents us from getting into a mental downward spiral.

The key here is to avoid “pretending” that you are appreciating things. You can write page after page after page about what you think you should appreciate. But you and I know that’s not useful.

What you want to do instead is to “feel into it.”

Say, you are feeling scattered and unable to focus.

You have a deadline approaching to deliver your work to your client.

You feel a bit panicky. Yet you just can't seem to be able to round up enough energy to hunker down & get to work. 

At that very moment, feeling appreciation and gratitude seems impossible. I agree.

But what if I told you that it’s fairly easy to get around it?

Here is what to do.

Instead of forcing yourself to feel appreciative by busting out fake affirmations or writing down things you should feel grateful for, focus your attention on the work at hand.

You have a deadline. Why? Because this is the scope of your engagement.

Why do you have this engagement? You have it because of the client you acquired.

Is it fair to say that you are glad to have this client?

Yes.

When you learn that they are super happy with your service, how does that make you feel?

Delighted.

Is it safe to say that this client may refer you to other projects if they are satisfied with your service?

Yes.

When referrals happen, how will you feel?

Appreciative & grateful.

Sit with that feeling for a few min.

Imagine getting inquiries to work with you because of the work you finished before the deadline that made your client happy.

You feel grateful for not having to chase down business opportunities.

You feel valued knowing you have clients who rely on your expertise.

Stay with these feelings for as long as you can.

Now you feel less scattered. You also feel much less dreadful about the deadline.

 Conclusion

Giving the love that your business needs is to shift your focus from the 3 C’s to the 3 A’s.

As a result, the typical behaviors that originate from the 3 C’s will vanish. To put it simply, what you want is to avoid making demands that your current business cannot handle.

So, stop being needy to your business. Start bringing more life into your business.

In other words, provide a bigger, more spacious container for your business to grow into. Then watch what happens to your business!

Intentionally making this shift will bring fresh air to your business.

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