Hey there, First name / friend!
I recently had a conversation with someone that I have only known for a brief time. They are a marketer and fellow business owner, and they very frankly asked me why I haven’t posted on social media in so long. (My last static post on Instagram was September of 2020 and I couldn’t tell you the last time I did anything on Facebook.)
I shared that it just sort of happened that way. It no longer felt aligned and I didn’t want to expend energy on something that felt like an obligation, especially when the space once felt like a beautiful container for connection and creativity.
It’s something I believe and practice and also tell my clients: the energy that we put into something can be felt by others.
If I’m coming to the app begrudgingly, posting something because I feel I must, then I believe that heavy energy is transmuted in how it’s felt and received on the other side of the screen.
I want to be in an open and grateful heartspace as I’m creating. And for whatever reason, posting to social media still has not felt spacious, so I choose not to post.
This person responded and shared that they view posting to social media as creative fitness and it takes some discipline to show up and do it consistently. (I think this is fantastic, by the way. But it’s just not right for me.) They then tried to brainstorm ways in which I could take what I’m already doing and repurpose it.
And I get it. I know that’s an option, and it’s common (and even sound) advice for business owners. But it still doesn’t feel right for me in this moment.
I’ll admit, that conversation had me reeling a bit afterward, running through questions in my head like, was this a case of me not being disciplined enough? Am I really that unmotivated? Could I be making this a bigger deal than it is? Could it be easeful?
And it is moments like these that remind me why having a solid foundation and connection to My Why is so vitally important.
When the winds of shoulds came fiercely blowing in, in the kindest, yet sneakiest of ways, trying to make me feel like what I’ve been doing is wrong, I allow those possibilities and questions to sit within my body. Then I feel the sensation of having those possibilities live within me ever so briefly.
In this case, it was in those moments of focused reflection and inquiry that it became clear that these external forces were trying to make me feel as though I wasn’t doing enough, when in fact, what they were asking of me was truly misaligned.
This is what it means to Own Your Why. To be faced with a scenario—however innocuous—and choosing your truth over your fear.
And not just in business, but in your life as a whole.
We are inundated with messages from so many inputs, many of them truly well-meaning, and still, only we know what is congruent with our highest vision for ourselves and our work.
We may step off course every once in a while, and then we course-correct. That’s one way in which we learn. And eventually, in time, as we practice this pause and Owning Our Why, we can begin to glimpse 1, 2, maybe 5 steps ahead and envision where this will lead. We can say no before we’re in the thick of it, when it gets more challenging to step away.
So the next time you feel that inner critic getting loud, trying to make you feel bad for procrastinating or not doing that thing, pause long enough to check in and see if perhaps you're stalling because you intuitively know it's no longer right for you.
I’d love to hear how this process works for you, so feel free to press reply and tell me how it goes!
xo,
M.
