Does How I Do My Personal Life Really Impact My Professional Success?
After two decades of semi-anonymously hiding out in my therapy office under the umbrella of professionalism and appropriate client confidentiality, I ventured out into light as I launched my transition into my career as a coach.
I figured out very quickly that a coach who is not seen makes little to no money.
So, I hired mentors who would guide me and hold me accountable to my new life of positive visility, so my ideal clients could find me.
But being in the spotlight didn’t agree with me. I felt like my warts and wounds were in full view. Cracks in my relationships in my personal life created confidence struggles.
A push to begin public speaking to promote my coaching business made me feel even more awkward and self-conscious about what my body language was communicating, regardless of what was coming out of my mouth.
Being visible wasn’t the only tip-off that some internal work was needed. I also stumbled through appreciating my value, asking for money (and knowing how to properly use it), and depending or not depending on others to help me lead a well-run operation.
Amassing knowledge on how to be a successful business owner and coach didn’t remedy the incongruence between what was happening inside me and in my home with the philosophy I was advocating and promoting in my business.
So, does how you do your personal life really impact your professional success?
Do I really need to ask that question?
STABILITY, MINDSET, AND SHOWING UP
STABILITY
The optimal personal life for business success provides stability. The less you have to think about what is going on or not going on at home, the more you can thrive at work. You want a smooth-running system full of love, joy, reciprocity, respect, and happiness.
A family is where everyone’s needs are met. If society is to be a habitable place for people to live together in peace and harmony, it must begin from home.
If your family and home fall short of this picture, putting some energy to uplevel both will make running your business much easier. Ignoring or minimizing the reality of the home scene creates multiple drags towards achieving your professional goals.
MINDSET
Business owners solve problems, both for their customers and for themselves in their own businesses. Over-focusing on problems and under-focusing on concrete steps to fix those problems in a systematic way leaves business owners in a state of overwhelm.
Personality defects like perfectionism, poor self-awareness, integrity problems of not doing what you say you will do create a negative barrier between you and your potential customers, referral partners, and staff.
All of this baggage flows into our thoughts, your expectations, and the basic worldview we have and project.
Like attracts like. If you feel burdened, mired in challenges, clueless on what might be causing issues in your business or personal life, you will attract people and opportunities to you that reflect all of those things. Typically those kinds of opportunities and people don’t spread abundance, but rather headaches, frustrations, and lead to further missing the marks on your goals.
While you can’t control the external world, you can control your thoughts and you can honestly assess and take steps to improve your personal environment.
SHOWING UP
If you are functioning at a level in your personal life where you can at least be present in a neutral or positive way to all you do, consistently showing up with a teachable spirit will help you bridge the gap between where you are and where you want to be.
The first key is to assess if you are at a functional level. You need to be able to get the basics done to operate your life and your business. Being authentic doesn’t mean you have everything together with your thought processes, habits, and relationships. It does mean you have awareness of who you want to be and are on some trajectory of getting there.
Showing up imperfectly comes next. By taking the action you will continue to see what is and is not working. You will see what gives you traction and what paralyzes you or creates setbacks. Waiting until your personal life is perfect to show up consistently in your business paves the road to bankruptcy and failure.
Get to an acceptable baseline, do the best you can, move forward, and continuously learn.
BE A PERSON OF GROWTH
So, absolutely, how you do your personal life impacts your business (and vice versa). This is why I’m a believer in taking a holistic approach to success. Know where you desire to go in all areas of your life – health, wealth, personal fulfillment, career, spirituality, and relationships – and have some plan in place to get there.
You will attract different clients at different levels of your own personal and professional development. As your own quality increases, so will the quality of those who want to use your products and services.
Just start where you are; ask God to show you the next area of growth; and humbly and cheerfully be transformed one minute at a time.
Christian Entrepreneurs Biz and Life Tip: Listen to how others further on in their journey have bridged their own gaps in improving their personal life and their interior life by becoming a regular listener to my weekly Christian Biz Owners on Fire podcast. You can sign up for show alerts and find our archive shows at this link:
