7 Reasons Why You Havent Discovered Your Dream Biz (And What To Do About It Today) - When I Grow Up

7 Reasons Why You Havent Discovered Your Dream Biz (And What To Do About It Today) - When I Grow Up I have 10 years of coaching hours under my belt with hundreds of clients, and I’ve heard some things. Actually, I’ve heard all the things when it comes to  creative, multi-passionate women discovering, igniting, or achieving their dream careers. And you  are no exception. {I mean that in the best way possible.} The reasons why you haven’t hit on it yet aren’t new or unique, and I hope by laying them out below it makes you feel seen, less lonely and totally freakin’ ready to take some action. Here are the 7 main reasons youre not discovering your dream business, in no particular order: You have too much going on. Whether it’s by choice or not, you have to say No to one thing in order to say Yes to something else. As an extreme extrovert and a recovering people-pleaser, I have total FOMO and always wanna do all the things…but my body and my family shows me otherwise. Look around and see what you can say No to in order to say Yes to moving the needle on your dream business discovery a few times a week. Whether it’s your after-work happy hours, SVU marathons or spin class, remember that you’re working on your long game for long-term happiness! You’re feeling Resistance like whoa (which includes perfectionism, procrastination and more). The War of Art by Steven Pressfield (so recommended!) classifies everything that’s keeping you from following through on your creative pursuits as Resistance. Resistance only exists to stop us, and the longer we don’t do what we’re supposed to â€" what’s calling to us â€" the stronger Resistance gets. Our only way to fight Resistance for the day (because Resistance comes back daily, no matter what)? Do. The. Work. Even if it stinks. Even if you throw it all out. Even if it’s just no good. If you put the work in, Resistance is defeated another day, and those Vampire Voices that suck the good stuff outta ya get softer and softer. You haven’t been struck by lightning or tapped by a fairy to tell you THIS IS IT! I can promise you: you won’t feel like Snow White dancing in the forest and singing to animals when it comes to clarifying the What of your dream business. Usually, there’s fear and lots excuses â€" with some excitement thrown in that you may even decide to ignore. Just because the angels aren’t trumpeting and the “Hallelujah” chorus ain’t being sung doesn’t mean you haven’t found It. The War of Art says, actually, that the closer you get to Doing What You’re Meant To Be Doing, the louder Resistance gets. So it’s actually a good thing when you hear those excuses being shouted at you! It means Resistance feels so threatened by you, bad-ass. You’re not convinced that any of the ideas you’ve come up with are what you’ll want to do for the next 10-30 years. Is it worth starting even when you’re unsure whether it’s “right” or what you “should” be doing? Of course! In this case, the only wrong thing to do is nothing at all. Start somewhere. Anywhere! And keep going. Following whatever makes you feel scared and excited always leads to The Land of No Regrets. You’re ashamed of your new choice and/or don’t immediately identify with it. When I initially heard of life coaching, back in ’06 or ’07, I immediately lit up. Here was a way for me to help others, use my communication skills, and build relationships without having to go to grad school and/or listen to upsetting or depressing stories that my clients tell me (so much respect to the therapists and social workers who do that!). But the reputation that life coaching had then â€" think hippies who read crystals and don’t wear deodorant â€" made me feel totally disconnected. It took me months to reconcile the type of coaching I wanted to do â€" and how I wanted to do it â€" with the stereotype of a life coach. You think it’s too late or you’re too old. It’s not. Don’t believe me? Think of how many years left you have until retirement. Wanna suffer through that? I thought not. You’re afraid you’ll look like a big flake if you decide to start a business now. I had 20 jobs in 7 years (pre-2007!) and still got hired in Corporate America and have been taken seriously as The When I Grow Up Coach (I made the Top 100 Websites For Your Career by Forbes, dammit!). Nobody has a linear career, so shed those expectations and jump on the roller coaster, taking transferable skills and life lessons along the way. If you’re ready to pull the trigger, hit the Commit button, and go down the unknown road towards your dream business, then be careful what you wish for! Here are 5 things you can do today that’ll get you started:   Change your mindset. It’s hippy-dippy but absolutely true: If you don’t believe you can make a grown-up living with a business you love, then you won’t. I honestly believe it’s the biggest roadblock keeping you from your dream business, and once you shift your mindset from Can’t/Won’t to What If, the possibilities open up. I hope it’s comforting to know that I’ve yet to work with a client who found their WHAT and then couldn’t find their HOW. There is always a way. Really look at your finances. I promise you that spending just a couple hours working with the numbers will be more empowering than you think. Even if you do some crunching and realize it’ll take you four years to save up the money you want in order to quit your job and be a Woman of the World (aka full-time entrepreneur), you’re then able to work from a proactive place. What can you cut back on? How can you put more in savings? What can you do in those four years (which’ll probably go down when you commit to cutting back and saving up) to make the career transition as comfortable for you as possible? In my experience, most of my clients realize they can make the transition earlier than they thought once they get familiar with their own numbers. Create your support system. It might not be that your loving family members and trusted friends don’t support you and want the best for you â€" they do! But they probably don’t understand your choice. Why leave a “perfectly good” job to do something that’s not guaranteed? Why “waste” your experience and start all over? These aren’t safe choices, and those who love us want to see us safe and secure. While I feel it’s important to loop your family in to your goals, plans and challenges â€" it can only help if you can count on them for support! â€" it’s also important to be around people who are like-minded in their own goals, plans and challenges. Thankfully, there are both local and virtual places for that, so you can choose how you best receive support. Be kind to yourself as you go through this identity shift. I’ve been hearing statements from my clients that go something like: “I don’t really like this idea of me being  ABC, but I can’t get it out of my head because XYZ.” They’re uncomfortable with the label of the thing they wanna do, not wanting to be seen as a “self-improvement person” or a “flaky artist.” I know this dis-ease ( on-purpose hyphen) first hand, when I resisted becoming a life coach because I did not want people to assume I’d read their aura or that I braid my leg hair. But once I realized that I could be the life coach for those who, um, also didn’t want their crystals read â€" and that being a life coach fed into my grown-up passions, skill set, values and priorities â€" then I bit the bullet and signed up for my certification. I still introduce myself as a career coach, though. ?? Notice your Vampire Voices. Vampire Voices are the voices in â€" or out of! â€" our heads that suck the good stuff right out of us.  Their why-do-you-think-you’re-so-special? questions and you-could-never-make-it-work quips are our fears articulated, and they keep us away from The Thing That Matters. That’s their whole purpose. But they also point us to what we need to specifically look at so that we can reach our goals. Does your Vampire Voice tell you that you don’t have enough experience for the new job you want to transition to? Then it might be worth looking at how you can build up your confidence in that arena. Does your Vampire Voice say that you’re not unique enough to stand out in a crowded marketplace? Then it might be worth talking to your loved ones about why they think you’re a special snowflake. I highly recommend writing down every Vampire Voice you hear around this dream business journey, and take notes on what you think it’s pointing you to. Which one of these resonated most with you, either now or in the past? What will you start doing today? Leave it in the comments and I promise to comment back with any questions, thoughts or resources that could help!