What do you do when you have big business and personal goals and an even bigger ambition, and you feel like you are always falling short?
As a Mother, I have struggled to find my identity as a Woman over the past year – to define my business and personal goals. Many Moms have had to take on additional roles in life. Many of us have had major interruptions in our careers-forcing us to work from home. Others have had to take on roles as teachers for our kids to continue learning from home. Some women have had their careers put to a complete halt. All of this change and uncertainty has killed our spirits, caused tremendous stress and a sense of hopelessness.
As the world starts to heal, it comes with newfound hope, but how do we deal with things when they don’t go our way? Here is something that I have found to help me get through challenging times.
Stay focused on who you want to BE.
What kind of person do you want to be? What do you want to be known for? In my work with female entrepreneurs, including myself, we focus on who do you want to be in your life? Your business is a natural extension of your life-at least most entrepreneurs are pursuing their dream or passion.
Consider that when you are connected to who you want to be in life, it gives you a filter to look through that helps direct what actions there are to take. Think about it. If you are being “sad”-there is a particular set of actions that will naturally occur for you to take. You might cry, sit on the couch and eat ice cream. But if you are being “courageous”-you might get yourself up and dry your eyes and go for a walk.
Most of the time, we don’t think we have a choice about who we get to be in life. Life just happens “to” us. In the book The Happiness Equation, author Neil Pasricha talks about a study conducted by the University of California which concluded that “10% of our happiness is what happens to us. So 90% of our happiness isn’t based on what’s happening in the world! It’s based on how we see the world.”
So since 90% of your happiness is based on how you see the world, maybe that tells us we should be paying attention to our views. Consider that the world isn’t just that you see it. Because, in fact, 90% of what we see is just our view!
I invite you to notice and create new ways of being in your life and business. What does that all really mean? Well, hang out with that question and just notice how much of your experiences is grounded in the 10% of the circumstances and how much of how you react is from the 90% of your view about what is happening.
Get interested in who you want to become. When you are grounded in who you truly are, the actions there are to take will occur naturally for you and will produce results beyond what you imagined.