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Grief - Your Surprising Tool for Business Momentum
by Mark Silver
Published on this site: August 10th, 2006 - See
more articles from this month
Business momentum is when a series of "events" build upon each
other, and multiply their efforts. It's when your business starts to have
some steam of its own, and you get carried along for the ride. For instance,
we had some February sunshine here in Portland, and I went bicycling.
Each time I pedalled was an "event."
But, that pedaling only creates momentum that carries me forward when
I'm not peddling IF...
IF I don't stop after every time I pedal. IF I choose a destination and
move towards it. Every time I stop, or make a sharp turn, I lose the momentum
I've been building.
To build momentum in your business you need:
- A direction anddestination,
- A vehicle,
- A continuous series of"events" - similar to pedaling.
Okay, got it. What's grief got to do with it?
To work towards momentum requires you to make what is often a very difficult
choice to say "Yes" to one thing, and to say "No"
to something else, usually several somethings.
No matter how great the "Yes" is, the "No" still registers
in your heart as a loss. As much as you might want to only focus on how
good the "Yes" feels, the grief of the "No" is there,
whether you acknowledge it or not. Collect enough unacknowledged "No"s,
and your decisions become harder and harder, as you are trying to move
forward through more and more grief-sludge.
Because the feeling of loss can be uncomfortable, it's easy for it to
go underground, and may be part of why you are finding it difficult to
do the things you know you need to do to create business momentum.
Look for grief in these two areas:
- Grief: Time lost
Like me, you've no doubt imagined that you would be living a life
that looks a little different than the one you have. You thought your
business would be further along, your love life settled, your bank account
bigger, your novel published. Whatever it is, you cherish hopes and
dreams, and they haven't all come through yet.
The illusion that you should already already be there, gets in the way
of actually accomplishing those dreams. It will be far easier to move
forward if you grieve how it feels to have spent so much time and still
not have your dreams, than to continue carrying the burden of your illusion.
Once grieved, the path to your dreams will be a lot easier to walk.
- Grief: Choices Lost
If you live to be 80 years old, you'll have lived 960 months. At
age forty, you've got 480 left. It's a sobering truth that you can't
do everything you want. You probably can't even do half of all your
dreams. But, you can accomplish some of them IF you choose.
The Ocean or The Mountain?
In my bicycling adventure, I can't ride out to both Astoria on the Oregon
coast and inland to Mount Hood on the same day. Because those rides are
each a day or more, I need to choose. If on Saturday I'm attached to both
Astoria and Mount Hood, tough luck. I need to choose one, grieve the other,
or be left with not deciding at all, and not getting to either of them.
It's the same in your business. You may have two different directions
you can go in: trying to sell your product to big companies, or to small
business owners. Take it from me: you can't do both at the same time.
Once you build one up successfully, you can switch to the other. But the marketing message and
methods are going to be different for each. You need to choose one, and
grieve the other. If you try to do both, you won't get anywhere.
Grief Equals Freedom.
Grieving in a healthy way is actually incredibly freeing. And that freedom
is what you need in order to start working towards momentum.
How does grief work in these situations? How do you keep from getting
caught in the undertow?
Keys to Momentum-Building Grief
- The first step is identifying the decision you've been avoiding.
Is it target market? Is it business structure? Is it your website? It
can seem challenging to make a decision when you aren't sure what's
right. I recommend making the best decision your heart can show you,
and then noticing what happens. When you make a clear choice to let
something go, even if it's sad, it feels clean. But avoiding that choice
can leave you feeling 'tangled' and dead.
- Anger is a natural part of grief. Retribution isn't.
It's definitely normal to feel angry when things aren't the way we thought
they would be. The best thing to do is use the anger to help you find
the real sense of loss, and let the sadness and grief come out.
You know you are avoiding the sadness and grief if you start running
continual stories of blame and/or fantasies ofretribution. While addictive,
these stories aren't satisyfing, and they don't change the situation.
Every time you feel anger, question yourself: "Is there a loss
of some sort that I don't want to face?"
- Grief is messy. It's okay to be messy.
If you really are grieving something, you'll go through cycles of blame,
anger, denial, bargaining, and sadness. And, you may feel great one
day, down the next, great the day after. It probably won't be nearly
as big as if someone you love has died, but don't underestimate the
impact of grieving your dreams.
If you really let yourself go through this process, you'll get to find
some clarity, and you may be surprised to find your business moving
into momentum, and living your dream!
Once you've let go of the "No"s and followed the "Yes"
all the way through to your dream, you get a second chance. You can
either go back and pick up one of your earlier dreams that you let go.
Or, more likely, move forward into your next dream which you couldn't
have even imagined before.
My very best to you and your business,
Mark Silver
Mark Silver is the author of unveiling the Heart of Your Business:
How Money, Marketing and Sales can Deepen Your Heart, Heal the World,
and Still add to Your Bottom Line. He has helped hundreds of small business
owners around the globe succeed in business without losing their hearts. Get three free
chapters of the book online: http://www.heartofbusiness.com
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