Have you ever felt lost in your business?
Like something just isn’t quite right, but you can’t put your finger on it? I’ve been there too.
The funny thing about finding clarity in your business is that it doesn’t come from sitting and thinking. It comes from taking action. When you test your ideas and learn from what works (and what doesn’t), that’s when things start to click.
Let me tell you about one of my clients. For years, she ran a business that helped her learn about the online world. It wasn’t her dream business, but it taught her so much. Now she’s making a big change – one she’s wanted to make for 15 years. Every time we talk about her new direction, her whole face lights up. She keeps saying, “It feels like coming home.”
That’s what happens when you find real clarity in your business. It feels like coming home to yourself. You stop trying to be what everyone else says you should be. Instead, you build something that fits who you are.
But here’s the catch – you won’t find this clarity by:
- Taking another online course
- Watching more YouTube videos
- Reading more blog posts
- Copying what worked for someone else
The real magic happens when you try things out. You might fail sometimes. That’s okay! Each try teaches you something new about what works for you.
Think about it like trying on clothes. You can look at clothes online all day, but you don’t really know if something fits until you try it on. Business clarity works the same way. You have to try things to know if they fit you.
In This Episode You’ll Learn:
- Why thinking too much about your business (instead of taking action) can leave you feeling stuck and confused
- How to tell when you’ve found the right direction for your business (hint: it feels like coming home)
- What to do when you feel overwhelmed by all the business advice coming at you
Ready to find more clarity in your business? Start small. Try one new thing this week. Pay attention to how it feels. Does it energize you or drain you? That’s your clarity compass pointing you in the right direction.
Have you felt like your business
is off and not sure why?
Maybe you are not showing
up as YOU in your business.
Take the Business Personality Quiz & Find Out!
Remember: Your business should fit your life, not the other way around.
You don’t need to follow someone else’s blueprint. You just need to take action and learn what works for you.
Let’s Connect:
- Instagram: https://Instagram.com/martagoertzen
- Facebook: https://Facebook.com/selahstudiosco
*******
Are you ready to start your own business clarity journey? Iād be honored to help:
*** BUSINESS CLARITY COACHING: If you are in transition in your business or if you are feeling stuck and unsure what your next best step is, Business Clarity Coaching can help. Together we look at your options and create an action plan to help you get unstuck and moving forward again. ā https://SelahStudios.co/business-clarity-coaching
*** SELAH SOCIETY MASTERMIND: For when you are ready to take action on the clarity you have found in your business. It’s time to refine your clarity, take bold action, and do it all with the support of a Gentle Business Coach and an incredible community of women who are on the same path. ā https://SelahStudios.co/mastermind
TRANSCRIPT:
[00:00:00] In the last episode, we talked about testing our business clarity – not just sitting with it and thinking about it, but taking action to verify it. We discussed treating it like an experiment where you take the idea, test it, validate it, tweak it, adjust it, and make it work even better the next time.
[00:00:20] Too often we just sit there and think about making changes. When we sit there for too long, the business doesn’t feel good. It starts to feel like something’s off, and we wonder what’s wrong with us and what do we do now.
[00:00:41] Today, I’d like to talk to you about what happens when you’re stuck in doubt and confusion. What does that do to us? What does that do to our experience as entrepreneurs owning and running a business? And can you imagine what it would feel like if your business felt like you were coming home, like you were coming home to you? That’s what we’re going to talk about today.
[00:00:57] Hello there and welcome to the Selah Entrepreneur podcast, where we take a look at doing online business a little bit differently for women who have businesses and are ready to make some changes but have some fear around it or are really unsure of where to start.
[00:01:12] The goal of each episode that you’ll listen to here is to help women just like you find the clarity needed to confidently redesign a business so that it aligns with your values and your purpose, and hopefully feel a lot less stressed in the process.
[00:01:27] So if you’re ready to design a business that fits you in the current season of life you’re in, then join me today as we take a look at what it means to feel like you’re coming home in your business.
[00:01:40] This may sound a little odd, and this is something that I don’t hear get talked about when we discuss finding clarity about our business and finding clarity in the work we do. The best way I can actually describe it is when you nail it and you’ve got it, it feels like coming home. It feels like you’re returning to who you were meant to be and who you were created to be.
[00:02:03] That sounds very lofty and nebulous, especially if you’re in the midst of your business clarity journey and everything feels crazy and chaotic. And it does when you’re in the moment, but when you find it, it is like coming home. That’s the only way I can describe it.
[00:02:24] Back when I was starting my clarity journey, there was nothing but doubt and confusion. There were questions about what I had done and wondering about the dreams of what I wanted to do. Was it possible? It really felt like I was pushing a boulder uphill and trying to juggle my way around tons of questions.
[00:02:43] But what I can tell you is that it is worth the time. It is worth taking the time to figure it out. And to be totally honest, you will figure it out even faster when you work with a coach. If you are somebody who’s in the midst of all that, I would love to walk you through and help you shorten that timeline.
[00:03:03] It took me a long time to find business clarity. It took a long time for me to admit what I really wanted to do. Working through lots of questions and learning how to help other women answer those questions changed my business clarity journey. And it’s changed for many of the women I coach.
[00:03:21] When I finally admitted and claimed the title of coach, it was like a weight had been lifted off my shoulders. I had resisted it for so long. A friend once said to me, “Remember when I asked you about being a coach and you said no repeatedly?” And I did remember. I said no for many years because I didn’t understand the coaching industry the way it was. I didn’t like a lot of it.
[00:03:43] I realized that my favorite part of designing websites was really understanding the client’s business and how to bring that business and fine-tune that messaging so it showed up on their website. This gave them confidence to share their website and talk about their business.
[00:04:37] When I really looked at all the clients I had worked with, the ones I had the most fun with were those who got really into the process and loved co-creating their website with me. They got really clear about what they wanted to do. That is coaching. I just never put that word to it before.
[00:05:00] The other aspect was getting very clear on the type of person I wanted to help, the type of business I wanted to have, and how I wanted to help people solve their problems – specifically finding the clarity that had been holding them back.
[00:05:17] At the time, I had two businesses. One was my web design business, which was well established. I also had this side blog where I talked to women about managing stress and anxiety and what it means to be an entrepreneur. I did a lot of self-publishing, talking about stress management and gratitude – things I’m very passionate about.
[00:05:53] Once I saw how the two businesses could be combined, that was the icing on the cake. My whole body sighed, my brain started clapping its hands, because no longer did it have to split itself between publishing and blogging on one side, and web design and Google consulting on the other.
[00:06:40] Without going through the clarity journey, without going through the years of working on websites, consulting, and coaching, I wouldn’t have been able to accept that. I wouldn’t have been able to see the potential of me as a coach without doing all the legwork, without doing the work day in and day out with my clients over the years.
[00:07:07] That’s an interesting way to approach business clarity – looking back at what you’ve done. What did you like? What did you not like? Who were some of your favorite clients to work with? What projects got fantastic results and excited you? There are clues in that.
[00:07:56] When we want to go on a business clarity journey, when we want to get that feeling of coming home to who you are, to the work that you’re called to do, to the work that you’re actually good at, it takes taking action. You don’t find clarity by just sitting and thinking about possibilities. You find clarity by taking action.
[00:08:33] I have a client right now who’s going through a major pivot in her business. It came through necessity and time, but it came through taking action. For the last several years, she’s had one business that helped her understand the online world. She needed to go through those steps, take action on various aspects of her business, iterate on services she liked, let go of others, and bring new ones in.
[00:09:25] She came on to a call and said, “I feel like I’m coming home. This has been on my heart for 15 years. I trained and started this journey 15 years ago, and now I’m ready.” If it hadn’t been for starting that other business that got her back into entrepreneurial shape, taking those actions and understanding what she liked and didn’t like, she wouldn’t feel confident making this pivot now.
[00:10:18] Right now, I’m recording this right after Black Friday and Cyber Monday. There was so much noise coming at me in social media, in my inbox, on TV, in advertisements, that eventually I just stopped looking at my inbox. I stopped logging into social media because I was tired of being buried under the noise and opinions of others telling me who I need to be in my business.
[00:11:01] We get lost in that noise. We get lost in the opinions of others. We get lost trying to piecemeal all these little different things from different coaches, different freebies, different trainings, and trying to cobble together some idea of how our business is meant to be.
[00:11:54] I see that in my mastermind. I see that in the women I coach regarding getting clear on their websites. When I talk to women about their business clarity journey and where they are now and the vision of where they want to be, right in the middle there is almost always this big sense of being buried under the opinions and trainings of everybody else and forgetting who you are as an entrepreneur.
[00:12:22] As a female entrepreneur, as an older entrepreneur, as someone who may be highly sensitive, maybe somebody who’s introverted, maybe somebody with health problems, maybe somebody with caregiving responsibilities – nobody is like you. There’s no one cookie-cutter answer.
[00:13:15] When you fight for that clarity, when you are willing to dig deep and ask questions and get honest with your answers and not just give those surface-level answers, you appreciate the journey so much more. You appreciate the clarity when it comes, and you understand it, and you’re ready to take more action on it.
[00:14:02] That’s what coaching can do for you. That’s what I love to do as a business clarity coach – help you remember who you are. Identity is a big deal. Understanding who you are as an entrepreneur, not what somebody else says you need to be, is crucial.
[00:15:03] As our lives always change, our business needs to wrap around our lives and not our lives around our business. Every step of the way requires taking action. It requires investigation. It requires testing and experimenting.
[00:15:22] This doesn’t mean you’re making massive, huge changes all the time. Sometimes it does require a major pivot like what’s happening in my client’s business right now. But at each phase of your journey, each level of clarity, you learn more about yourself. You learn more about what you’re capable of. You learn more about what it’s like to be you, the entrepreneur.
[00:16:45] If you would like to experience what it’s like to come home to you, who you were created to be, you need to go on a business clarity journey. Getting there from where you are right now to where you want to be requires action. That does require some bravery along the way.
[00:17:17] My business is going to be going through some changes. This podcast is going to be going through some changes. I’m really excited because I’ve been through another level of clarity. I’ve taken action. I’ve tried things. Some things have worked. Some things have not – probably more not than have this year. And that’s okay. I have learned so much.
[00:18:10] If you would like help with that, you can visit me at SelahStudios.co. One of my favorite ways to work with entrepreneurs is through my Selah Society Mastermind. This is a small group of women who are on this journey of creating businesses that are flexible, that fit their life, and they’re willing to take action on what they know to find even more clarity.
[00:18:52] Thanks for joining me today. Let’s keep moving forward in creating a business simply and sustainably so that you can steward your gifts, your calling, and your business well.
Marta Goertzen is a Gentle Business Coach and founder of Selah Studios, host of the Doing Business Gently podcast. She helps Christian women entrepreneurs over 50 rediscover who they’ve become, realign their business to match, and fall in love with their work again, gently, at their pace, without starting over. As an avid photographer and lover of the outdoors, she daily explores the trails and beaches of the South Central Oregon Coast with her dog Mochi in tow. Take the free Business Alignment Audit as your gentle first step, a way to pause, get honest, and see clearly where you and your business are right now: https://SelahStudios.co/alignmentaudit