when the old map no longer fits 🗺️

Hi Reader,

In my last email, I wrote about how it’s natural for your business to evolve, especially when you’ve been in business for a long time.

This can be really disorienting and uncomfortable, much like Alice in Wonderland when she ate the cake and grew too big for the house.

When we feel like this, it’s easy to want to abandon our business or go off in a totally new direction. And sometimes this is the answer, and sometimes it’s not.

Other times we find ourselves endlessly pivoting but nothing is sticking. When we’re caught in this, it can feel like an endless loop that never really gets settled.

When it feels bigger than your business, it probably is. Sometimes it's not just the business that's evolving. It's you.

Because I work in the growth and development space and because many of my clients are in this space, I see this happen all the time.

We aren't really in “set it and forget it” businesses. Most of us are in businesses where, while certain core threads and themes remain, the business itself will change throughout the years.

Often, changes happen gradually over time. But sometimes life makes a BIG change and requires the same from our business.

This can be even more uncomfortable, especially if the earlier version of your business was working, you invested a lot of time and energy building it, and nothing is technically “wrong” from the outside.

It just feels wrong on the inside.

Work you used to enjoy doesn’t interest you. Things you are good at no longer feel important. Goals you were working toward might even feel meaningless.

Meantime, new, totally unrelated interests pull your attention.

Should you follow them? Stay the course? Is this just a temporary thing? Or is this a sign that something needs major revamping?

Honestly, when you’re in it, it’s hard to know.

I've experienced a lot of this over the past year.

There’s a part of me, the part that likes structure and plans, that wants to figure it out immediately. Then there’s another part that loves the intuitive, free-flowing space to do what I want.

Following either of those down the rabbit hole is not going to give me or my business exactly what we need.

There's an important space between those two things. But you have to zoom out to see it.

You have to be able to calm your nerves (and affirm your inner child) and be able to take a bird's eye view and consider some deeper questions. Not just consider them, but live into them.

Questions like…

What do I need in this new phase? What's giving me energy? What would I love to experiment with without knowing where it will lead?

When our life has changed drastically and our business needs to pivot, the work isn’t just to “figure it out” immediately.

It’s to live into the questions. To allow the pivot to happen on its own terms. To recalibrate your compass.

If you find yourself here, you don't need to know exactly where you're going or how to get there.

Just breathe into the questions for now.

More to come,