As I reflect on my own life, going through a breakup a few years ago in my personal life and recent “breakups” in my business, I’m compelled to write about Love and Money, the topic I hosting a weekend retreat in June 2012. So let me ask you: what the heck does our mindset around money have to do with our love life and then in turn our businesses??
Well let me tell you…everything! Reflecting back so quickly after this has all happened is a feat in itself I must say, thank goodness for me doing my own continuous work on myself, my love for myself, my money issues and my business development. Otherwise I might still be wallowing in a deep, dark depression about ‘what is wrong with me’. You see, I have a sneaking suspicion that my breakups could have been avoided if it were for a few key things around money mindset – mine and his.
Read on and I’ll explain how this realization has gotten me through one of the toughest times in
my life and how it also is affecting my business for the positive.
In doing a little ‘relationship homework’, reading a few books that sat collecting dust on my
shelf I realized I had the tools right in front of me to be able to better manage the situation. You know the book, Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus, by John Gray (if you don’t know it, oh my goodness, read it quick). Well in picking up that book and reading back over chapters 3, 6 and 13 again gave me some insight I wished I’d remembered just 3 months prior.
First of all that men and women handle and manage stress quite differently, especially stress about money. Men retreat into their caves to think about how to solve the problem at hand
and women want to talk all about their problems (men don’t want to talk about it).
So in my blind faith that it would all work out in the end of course I talked about it in my situation. Boy that didn’t go over well because he was retreating and guess how that made me feel. I don’t have to tell you, you get it. So, especially in this economy, times are tough for all kinds of business owners and individuals and there’s probably a lot of money stress in your life or relationships right now I’m guessing.
The question to make sure you think about is how that’s affecting your relationships, your love life and then how is all of that then is affecting the success of your business? Because if your relationship is strained and you lose love in your life or you lose self confidence in yourself. And that could affect who or what you’re attracting in your business (or the lack of what you may be attracting).
What I can tell you is that you want to be proactive about managing your stress and mindset around money or your relationship could get into trouble like mine did (and although I see the issue now, he does not see it or care to resolve it regardless it seems). What does being proactive mean? What can you do now before something bad does happen?
Well there are many examples in the book by John Gray. But one thing to remember is that you and they will respond in different ways. It’s important to interact and have conversations I think but you have to be careful when and how those conversations happen. I’m not a psychologist nor do I pretend to be one but I do work with hundreds of women who aren’t quite satisfied one way or another in their personal lives, their love lives or with themselves most often and so I do see often how this affects their success in their own businesses which is why I’m writing about it today.
It’s also important to remember that you’ve got to focus on your personal life just as much as if not more than your business if you truly want to enjoy a successful, passionate love relationship with your significant other (or yourself for that matter) because by being in a successful relationship will bring you more happiness and more happiness will come more clarity and more clarity will bring more of the right kinds of clients–plain and simple.
Now that doesn’t mean if you’re not in a successful relationship you can’t be happy, clear or attract many of the right kinds of clients; what I’m referring to are those of you who aren’t happy where you are.
ACTION STEPS:
1. So take a step back and take a look at your own personal life and see how whatever is going
on for you is affecting the success of your business. I hope this reminder was helpful for many of you who might be faced with a similar situation as mine. Please be true to who you are and what you want and try not to settle for anything less than perfect because I still believe it exists.
2. For more information on how on Love & Money in your small business (and your LIFE), join me next Thursday, May 10th, for a teleclass where I share my passion for this topic along with specific steps you can take to create more happiness in your life! Get registered now (yes, the recording will be available after) at http://katrinasawa.com/love.
