Have you designed a you-shaped business that suits who and how you are?
Your business can’t give you what you want, if you don’t know what that is…
I don’t think many of us take enough time to dream into what we really want for and from our businesses.
I’m not talking about the regular goal-setting stuff and the monthly and quarterly targets. (Which are all important)
… I’m talking about something that goes way beyond how many figures we’re hoping to make.
About mindfully looking at our own lifestyles, health, circumstances, needs, cycles, personalities and preferences to plan out the shape of a business that truly works for us.
Business by design
Designing your business – taking the time to think about what it is that you really need from it – is the non-negotiable first step of building a business that feels good.
Because we can’t ever get there unless we first take the time to ask what that’s going to look like.
It won’t happen by chance. Or by accident. We have to think, dream and design it first.
Some questions for you
Here are some journaling prompts to help you design a more you-shaped business:
- What would my business look like if it better supported me, my life & my lifestyle?
- How could I adapt my business model to better reflect who I am as a human?
- How could I create more space in my business for creativity and connection?
- What times of day am I at my best and how could I use this to my advantage in my business?
- Which activities energise me and which drain me? How could I allow more of the former and reduce the latter?
- What would my ideal day look like if my business were already perfectly me-shaped? When would I start and finish? Where would I work? What work would I be doing? Who would I be working with?
The answers to these questions are likely to change over time as we and our businesses grow. So I’m suggesting that we come back to them often.
A kinder business
I know this kind of enquiry – with its focus on nourishing ourselves as we work – runs directly counter to the work-harder, push-more, go-bigger/louder/faster culture that props up nasty capitalism.
But I’m not offering it to be contrary (well, that’s not the only reason).
Even though these questions don’t fit the standard business growth narrative, I really believe that they are KEY to sustainable, you-shaped growth.
Because taking our needs, our experiences, our circumstances into consideration as we stretch and grow the work we do, means we are acting from a place of increased safety, joy and space.
Three delicious ingredients for increasing creativity.
So these questions aren’t just a nice, feel-good exercise’.
They can set you on a path towards designing and growing a more you-shaped business that will be MORE successful (in the money department) BECAUSE it is nourishing, rather than depleting.
Spacious, rather than constricting.
Kind, rather than punishing.
And surely we all deserve that.
