The Question I've Fumbled The Answer To Most Lately
"Saying you're enjoying the process is enough."
Yet another truth bomb from my counselor.
I was telling her how hard it's been to talk about Empathetic Enneagram when people ask lately. I'm not rolling deep with clients. I'm not paying any bills. I'm actually losing money at this point. So it's been hard to have an answer to "How's your business going?" that feels like it will be quick and positive.
It's hard to explain how I feel about my business quickly because even though I just listed a bunch of things not happening right now, I don't feel like I'm failing. I actually feel pretty good about it, usually! Because even though I don't have quick facts and figures to point to, for now, I know I'm in a very important stage - the messy middle - and it is a richly important stage even with its lack of dollar signs.
It has only been 9 months since I launched my new business, which means a lot of you are asking me the question “How’s your business going?” So today, I wanted to take some time to share a bit of how it’s going and what I have learned in the last 9 months, even though it's tricky to articulate all the way. Without further ado, let's jump in! We'll start with a few lessons that look good on a bulleted list:
People either know enneagram really well and don't want to pay for education/coaching or they don't know enneagram at all and don't want to pay for education/coaching. This has led me to start thinking deeply about my coaching philosophy and offerings beyond or in partnership with enneagram education that I'll be rolling out this fall.
Trying to launch a business and parenting full-time means that your business launches really slowly.
Imposter syndrome is a b*tch, but she's hiding deeper issues, and if you stand up to her long enough, she shows her cards.
You don't get over really hard things in 6 months.
Inflation is wild. My advice is don't start a business when historically high inflation rates are mere months around the corner (not sure why my crystal ball didn't see that one coming last year).
Shifting from a high-community, highly-collaborative environment to a life of a solo-preneur/stay-at-home mom mash-up is wildly disorienting.
Social media content isn't bringing in paying leads, and the frequency at which I was publishing eats up all of my work hours. Time for a marketing shift.
Dairy makes me sick and tired.
These aren't the lessons I really want to share with you though. I want to tell you about the most important lesson I'm learning right now, and it's this:
I am allowed to enjoy my life right now.
Full stop.
I don't have to wait until I'm replacing the salary of the job I quit to enjoy business building. I don't have to figure out a way to spend more hours working to get up and running now if I'm enjoying being with my sons during the hours they are awake. I don't have to go viral to enjoy making social media content. I don't have to fit everything I say into the right box. I don't have to worry if I'm posting too many Stories, or not enough Stories.
I am allowed to enjoy the process right now. This is exactly enough.
This isn't a concept originally engrained in me. The story I have believed about my life, previously, is that I always need to be contributing tangibly. If I'm not stressed, tired, or inconvenienced on behalf of someone else, then I'm probably wasting oxygen. An incorrect message coming from a little bit of culture, a little bit of bad theology, and a bunch of misogyny.
Learning to enjoy without apology is my biggest lesson right now. And it's not been easy for me to learn, ironically. If you're from a background like mine, you see a message like this and might think that human nature is hedonistic enough at its core to lose any sense of decency in the pursuit of pleasure. And while for some people here and there this may be true, I think there are a lot more people trapped in the cycle of people-pleasing and seeking permission to enjoy the one life they have been given to live. And that's been me too.
Earlier this year I came up with the phrase "Compassionate Confidence" to describe a mindset that I want to help cultivate in the lives of my clients. It's a mindset that embraces the complexity of life - it can see that we are both profoundly talented and limited, it can hold both grief and joy together, and it can help us hold important boundaries as we selflessly serve. It's the mindset of the sweet-spot, messy-middle, finite Image-bearer reality that makes us who we are. But you know what I have been struggling with in my own journey towards Compassionate Confidence? The confidence part. The permission to live fully into the life and identity God has given me to experience this one time starting in 1989 until only God knows when.
And so, my friend, you might ask me - if you see me - "How's your business going?" and here's my fully honest answer: I am enjoying it.
I am enjoying the grace of the pace and how this pace has lent me the opportunity to really learn important lessons. I am enjoying my 570+ and growing Instagram community. I am enjoying writing content. I am enjoying mulling over the idea of Compassionate Confidence and the steps we can take to move towards it. I am enjoying recording EntrepreNines with my friend John. I am enjoying monthly conversations with friends I've made along the way who are also launching businesses right now. I am enjoying laying my almost 2-year-old down for each of his naps and then picking him up out of his bed myself when he wakes up. I am enjoying the little noises my almost 6-year-old makes when he plays Minecraft on the couch in my office while I work. I'm enjoying the fact that I got to take a Wednesday ceramics class and daydreaming about what it would be like to take up such an expensive hobby on the regular. I'm enjoying family walks that shift our days into evenings and soaks in our inflatable pool (thanks Granny). I am enjoying learning the lesson of how to live my own life all the way – pleasure and pain, laughter and tears, calm and chaos, comfort and stretches, receiving and giving – even when the only person it benefits is me.
What's next? August, y'all. August is a full month in my personal life. We've got a big trip, two birthdays to celebrate, and 1st Grade to start so I'm planning to keep the pressure off and enjoy all that's coming in August. This fall I plan to push myself a bit when it comes to writing and be in more regular communication with you all. I'll launch new aspects of my coaching business that I have felt were missing, but couldn't place until now. I'll share more of the things I'm learning beyond enneagram. We'll learn, together, how to embrace the journey (even - maybe especially - these messy grey places) with grace.
Until then, grace and peace to you as you enjoy the rest of your summer.
-Bonni