The result? Self-employment feels like an endless treadmill, rather than the journey of freedom and fulfillment we’d hoped for.

As I celebrate the 5th birthday of You Inspire Me – yep, that’s five solid years of profitable self-employment (woo hoo!) – there are plenty of generic ‘rewards’ to choose from. “A meal out!” “A manicure!” “A new dress!”

One reason we often resist these options, I suspect, is because they feel too self-indulgent. But also, just as it would be illogical to celebrate weight loss with a slice of chocolate cake, so too perhaps we crave more meaningful, more relevant ways to celebrate our business landmarks and milestones.

Here are three suggestions to break you out of celebration avoidance, in order to deepen and strengthen your ever-evolving business:

1) Rest
Our precious hard-working brains need decent rest in order to process the new changes, information and responsibilities we’ve been dealing with. We can make this rest relative to what we’re celebrating: a long bath after your first session with a new client; a massage after a big workshop; a weekend away after a sustained promotional campaign. Time away from concentrated work often opens up access to creativity and inspiration, and creates space for the new to flood in. The watched pot never boils, all work and no play makes Jill a dull girl – you know the score.

I spent a week in Scotland with its bracing wind, cafe culture and great company. What rest can you can allow yourself?

2) Invest
The fact that you have something to celebrate is likely to mean that your business is growing – so find an aligned and logical way of celebrating this. Just completed your professional training? Invest in a business mentor. Earned more than last month? Invest in an accountant. More people wanting to join your mailing list? Invest in professional list-management software.

As I celebrate more clients, more income and more requests on my energy, it’s time to invest in partnering with an assistant. Tracie Shroyer joins the You Inspire Me team this month, freeing my time back up for creating content and doing more in-person work. I look forward to introducing Tracie to you properly in due course!

Whatever you’re celebrating – what does that enable you (or call you) to invest in?

3) What’s Next?
Just as the team behind a blockbuster film decides to ride the waves of success by coming up with a sequel, so your celebration can pull you forward into next steps. Let yourself really feel this success; use music, dance or exercise to lift you up into that physical sense of joy. Bask in the possibilities of that place, then pluck one of them out and decide to turn it into reality, knowing that it in turn will carry you into the next level of success. For example, if you’re celebrating getting an article published in a magazine, ride that wave and add that publication credit to the next article pitch you send.

Selling out my group programme, ‘Turn Your Passion To Profit’ spurred me on to consolidate the individual coaching programme I offer. Would YOU like a profitable business to celebrate in five years? Come check out the details > >

What might be the sequel to this success of yours?

Join (Or Start!) The Discussion…

How are you with celebrating the various steps along your self-employment journey?
What are the most congruent, useful ways you’ve found of celebrating?
How easy do you find it to rest, invest and decide what’s next?
Leave a comment below, let us know…

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© Corrina Gordon-Barnes, 2010

But joyful, ecstatic, all-engrossing passion is an ingredient which also makes the journey harder.

Here are FIVE challenges we’re likely to encounter because we’re following our passion:

1. You Are Besieged With Ideas

It’s not unusual for a passion-led entrepreneur to wake up at 4am with a new service concept, words for a blog post, or a new page for your website. It can literally be exhausting to have so much inspiration and frustrating that you don’t have the hours in the day to see every aspect into reality.

Solution: Establish structures into which you can channel your inspiration. I have twice-monthly calls with my Heart of Business mentor, Jason, where we stick to a strategic plan, filing away certain ideas and taking immediate steps with others. Once you have big picture focus, you can assess whether each fragment of inspiration takes you in that direction, or whether it’s a distraction.

2. You Love It So Much You Won’t Share It

This is your dream, your baby. It can be really hard to allow others to help you take care of something so precious – and so instead you do everything yourself, to the point of burnout.

Solution: Seek support and delegate. In addition to my mentor, I have a web developer, an accountant and am in the process of hiring an assistant. This is also an inside job so look to your spiritual practice to help you find the safety to trust others.

3. You’re So Close You Don’t Know How Good You Are

Put your finger on your nose. Try to see the tip of it. Yep, you can’t, you’re too close – and that’s how it is when you’re so “in” your business and “in” you that you can’t see what others see. Your skills come so naturally and abundantly to you, you don’t realize they’re a rare commodity to others.

Solution: Ask for and receive feedback from supportive others. What do they see in you that’s special and unique? What do you bring that others just don’t/can’t? Get some perspective to overcome your blind spots and recognize your value.

4. You Love It So Much You’d Do It For Free

It comes so effortlessly and enjoyably to you that it feels unfair to charge for your service. Money is compensation for slog and sacrifice, no? So you find yourself giving away freebies, undercutting yourself and chronically under-earning. Ouch.

Solution: Spend time on the pricing aspect of your business. (Top tip: People aren’t paying for the hour or two you spend with them but for the years and effort you’ve invested in developing what you offer). Again, this is an inside job: address your relationship with money and have a conversation or two with the part of you which doesn’t believe you’re allowed to earn good money doing good work.

5. You Weren’t Born With Built-In Business Know-How

Your passion comes naturally, your talents are innate. So you might assume that the business side should come easily too. But business has to be learnt: the general solid principles and aspects, as well as what will work specifically with your venture.

Solution: Just as you trained as an acupuncturist or personal trainer or [fill in the blank], invest in developing yourself as an entrepreneur. Take courses, hire a mentor, subscribe to newsletters, pay attention to what those you admire do.

Leave a comment below on this blog post and start/join the discussion. Although your passion is the perfect starting place, do you find it’s a problem? What challenges do you encounter, which of the above most ring true for you? And how do you find ways to channel your passion effectively? What helps you have impact and earn income?

Want Support?

If you want business guidance specific to a one-woman business plus feedback and support from a community of like-minded female entrepreneurs, then do check out the ‘Turn Your Passion To Profit’ programme. There’s also an individual coaching programme, if you would prefer the one-to-one format.

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I’m giving up speed for Lent. It’s losing its appeal. More and more, I’m experiencing the benefits of slowing down and creating space for breath, for inspiration.

I came back to my emails after a gloriously relaxing and nurturing week away with a commitment to process them fully. I am allowing myself time to engage fully with the person and ideas behind the words, instead of feeling I have to frantically catch up.

Then my pace changed. In the last couple of days, I’ve received three HUGE and fantastic pieces of news (I’ll reveal all soon!) and the latest, this morning, just sent me buzzing with excitement. After a good amount of running around and squealing with joy, I sat down to write this blog post. Adrenalin was rushing round and my mind created ten possible drafts in as many minutes and promptly discarded them all. My pace was too hectic; it wasn’t comfortable.

Later, as I walked in the beautiful Botanic Gardens, I realised that one of my Saboteur’s most cunning strategies is to wind me up so fast that I start stumbling and no longer hear that quiet, still, secure inner voice – that part of me which breathes in excitement, which basks, floats and savours.

This week, I’ve also received emails from several of my clients sharing their big news. Outer achievements such as an album launch and a TV interview, inner shifts such as relationship breakthroughs and realisations about their evolving Contribution Footprint™. It’s been a total pleasure to really ‘meet’ each one – to slow down, sink deeply into that encounter and respond from my heart.

My speedy Saboteur loves to tell me that life is a race and the faster I go, the safer I am. In calmness and steadiness, I can see that my inner voice is continually wanting to lead me and I feel so much more secure listening to and following that. I am making a resolution to go a new way. Old Saboteur with his rollercoastering and brake screeching can’t compete when I remember I get to choose my pace.

The World Needs Your Passion, so…

1) Right in this moment, what pace are you moving at – internally and externally? Speed up 10% for a few minutes and then slow down 10% for another few minutes to get a sense of where you are on the full spectrum of possibilities. Which animal, vehicle or aspect of nature is your pace like? How does this current pace serve you? What does it make possible and what does it hinder?

2) Let us know whether you’re someone who could do with a jump-start and acceleration or whether you need to take a breather and move slower. I’d love to get a sense from these blog comments of what the most common challenges are – and what speed settings YOU might like to give up for Lent! And if you’re craving more slow, take the opportunity of this moment to do that right now: re-read this blog post at a languid tortoise pace and notice what’s different.

3) Resolving to pursue a new way is often a process of forward-movement and slip-backs, rather than a done-and-dusted one-off event. Let my New Way Resolution e-course support you through that process for a whole month for just £7.50. Visit the E-Products section of this website for full information.

© Corrina Gordon-Barnes, 2009

* Workshop: Fail Is NOT A Four Letter Word *

If you know that fear of failure blocks YOU from moving forward, commit to change that today. Book on to the next Fail Is NOT A Four Letter Word workshop - full details here

I popped it up on a blog, then Permaculture Magazine picked it up and published it back in July 08, and that led to a Canadian textbook buying reprint rights, as well as an extract being featured in Earth Pathways Diary 2010 and it being requested by an on-line magazine called Celsias.

So many people have said it has inspired them to find work that fulfils them, or it was the wake-up call they were waiting for. I write about finding and making our Contribution Footprint, our way of making a difference in the world.

Now a friend has suggested I enter the Oofoo Laureate competition – which I have! I haven’t read the other entries yet – my guess is there could be some other fantastic ones in there – so make yourself a cuppa, have a browse, get inspired – and perhaps even vote for mine? It’s called The World Needs Your Passion and you vote simply with a tick.

Happy reading!

The World Needs Your Passion, So…

I decided to make today’s blog super easy for me. I’ve recycled a note I wrote on Facebook and have done without a photo. I’m continually learning that there’s only so much I’m in charge of – I don’t have to make everything perfect, triple-checked, all-singing all-dancing for it have impact. Let me know the impact of this easy approach for you by posting a comment on this blog.

An inquiry for you: Where could you make life WAY easier for yourself today? And what will you do with all that extra time and energy?!

This is Global Entrepreneurship Week and to mark its start, I volunteered at the first day of Chain Reaction, an event which saw 700 people gather to explore how entrepreneurship can be a source of social good.

There was a variety of inspirational speakers including Tim Smit of the Eden Project, Sophi Tranchell of Divine Chocolate, and Eugenie Harvey of We Are What We Do. My greatest surprise of the day was the closing remarks made by Prime Minister Gordon Brown. His focus was on the economy but not the all-too-familiar message of “this is just a downturn, we’ll be back to big, strong, lean and mean again soon” of which many politicians and business people are trying to persuade us. Instead, he acknowledged the economic crisis as one and the same as our resource crisis, emphasised the ‘climate change imperative’ and urged the importance of investing in renewable energy and agriculture. He described these times as experiencing the birth pangs intrinsic to us becoming a global community and as such that they alert us to the need for transition phases.

In many ways, the general thrust of the day was similar to the approach taken by Rob Hopkins, instigator of the Transition Town Movement – that we are entering transition years and that the innovation, ingenuity and entrepreneurial spirit which got us in to this situation can now be re-harnessed and directed towards finding solutions to the world’s needs.

As I left the conference and spotted in the newspaper that more City jobs are being cut, I had a vision of those thousands of people moving not from employment to unemployment, but to enterprise. A move away from complacent expectation that someone else will employ us as a cog in some wheel…. to a belief that we can have great ideas, gather with others to turn them into reality, and effect social change through doing so.

It feels like time to get excited. There’s the sense of a new model of business emerging. It’s not the old way where business is set up purely for the sake of profit with the directors perhaps developing a conscience later in life, creating philanthropic foundations to offset the damage their enterprise has done. The new model is that enterprise itself is a vehicle for answering society’s needs.

The win-win-win nature of this transaction continually inspires me. I spoke to two women at the conference who were feeling increasingly frustrated as the day went on. They were hearing about all these inspirational projects yet feeling that their own gifts were being wasted, their potential not fulfilled. I hear this so frequently when interviewing women for my Inspirational 100 project – the pain of that gap between what you could be doing, and what you are doing. One of the women started crying as she told me that in her previous decade of working life she felt that she had added no value. She knew that she could give, and that she WAS, more than that. It reiterated to me this great human need for personal fulfilment through fulfilling our own potential – and that one way of doing this is by fulfilling a need in the world through enterprise.

The World Needs Your Passion, So…

1) Inquiry: What is the most entrepreneurial thing I have ever done? What was it like to match my strengths/interests with a need in the world?

2) Inquiry: If starting a business were the only way to effect social change, what need would I want to meet and how could a business model serve that need?

3) If there were no time to waste and you were really needed right now, what would be your next action step? Get whatever support you need to make it.

© Corrina Gordon-Barnes, 2008

** You – The Entrepreneur **

This is the very exciting launch of a new workshop designed for anyone who is considering starting their own entrepreneurial venture. This is a FANTASTIC opportunity to attend a super-affordable, high-impact workshop and get you moving on that entrepreneurial path. For more information, click here.

I’m delighted to be showcasing one of my favourite ever ventures: Morsbags. The story is – an inspirational young woman named Claire Morsman realised the devastating impact of plastic bags on marine animals. Rather than starting a campaign to stop people using plastic bags, she decided to create an alternative and came up with ‘social guerilla bagging’. This involves groups of people getting together with a few sewing machines to turn recycled material into beautiful, useful bags and then distributing these outside supermarkets etc. Not only has she created a proactive solution to a problem, she’s inspired people to connect and get creative – and ultimately become more alive and involved in their world.

I first made a bag at an event several months ago where Claire was guiding people through the process. I can’t tell you how proud I am of that bag – if you see me in person, ask me to show it to you as I carry it everywhere I go. Apparently that one bag will save me using about 80 plastic bags and it’s immensely satisfying to refuse a bag and put shopping in my home-made one instead. We managed to acquire a sewing machine via my father-in-law’s colleague, my grandma visited to teach me how to use the machine, and then a friend and I got together to start a little creative pod here in Cambridge.

On her website, Claire has paired up a Sad Fact (over 1 million plastic bags are consumed per minute globally) with a Happy Fact (making morsbags will help immediately). We can see this problem/solution match being true for so many aspects of this venture:

Sad fact: Old sewing machines are sitting around gathering dust
Happy fact: This project is inspiring new generations to learn old skills and perhaps reconnect with our society’s elders

Sad fact: People feel isolated
Happy fact: This is an excuse to get together with existing friends, make new friends and feel part of a community

Sad fact: People feel bored and sit in front of the TV all evening
Happy fact: Here’s a way of spending time creatively, doing something enjoyable and unusual

Sad fact: People feel useless and unimportant
Happy fact: We can start seeing ourselves as needed, useful, able to make a difference

With this kind of inspirational project, we are powerfully matching up needs and solutions. This is what any business venture is meant to be about – using our genius to come up with win-win ways forward. Rather than simply ‘what does the world need?’ and ‘how do we NEED to solve it?’ – let’s ask: What does the world need and how would I LOVE to offer a solution?

The World Needs Your Passion, So…

Make a list of what you feel most sad/angry/frustrated about in the world. Now list activities you would LOVE doing which would offer solutions. Then: What’s the first step? What could you do right NOW – literally, in the next five minutes? Notice what it’s like to be the solution. I invite you to share your thoughts as comments on this blog – to inspire others and create some momentum for yourself to get into action.

©  Corrina Gordon-Barnes, 2008

* Focus On You*

The idea of the world needing our passion is at the heart of the work I do with each coaching client – helping her connect with that passion and get in to sustained action to create an inspirational venture. To book a consultation to explore how you might benefit from this support, simply click here.