By Nadine Nicholson, MCC of Ascend Leadership Co., a member of WPO Calgary III and proud sponsor of the 2024 WPO Entrepreneurial Excellence Forum
Powerhouse, I see you. I know you have the ability to create incredible results in business. You already have. You’re more successful than most.
But, success so far has come with a price.
Can you relate with any of this?
- you feel like there’s too much to do and never enough time
- you feel like you are behind all the time
- you feel like you need to work harder to catch up
- you feel like your time is out of your control
- you are accomplished but exhausted
- you rarely feel fully present with people around you
- you are sacrificing your health and sleep because you are ‘too busy’
- when you are with your family, you think about work
- you feel chained to your work and rarely stop thinking about it
- you regularly feel crunched for time, like you’re in a ‘pressure cooker’
- you worry your life is passing you by
- you feel guilty when taking care of yourself or doing something fun
- you’re living someone else’s version of success or trying to live up to societal expectations
- you don’t know how to take vacation or real time off without hurting business
- you have a feeling of being on ‘high alert’ or ‘fight or flight’ all the time
- you can’t relax, and if you try, you feel guilty you should be doing something else
This is what I call the ‘middle zone of success’. It’s when an entrepreneur knows how to make money and is mostly confident in business, but feels like she’s failing in life.
She finds it hard to step away from work and is haunted by time scarcity, time guilt, and feeling behind and spread too thin all at once. She compromises her health, sleep, family time and life experiences for business growth.
The ‘middle zone’ is a place of compromise, sacrifice, and uncertainty. It is ridden with guilt, frustration, anxiety, disappointment, and resentment.
If this sounds at all like you, I want you to know that you’re not alone. I see this all the time in the business coaching work that my husband Derek and I do with WPO members across the organization.
You can’t solve a busy-ness problem by working harder or more.
You can’t stay in the ‘middle zone’ forever.
No one can.
Your loved ones need you, you’re not getting any younger, and at the end of the day, you want to know that your life mattered – to your family, friends, community, and mostly to YOU.
It’s time to create ‘Impossible Freedom’.
This is where you learn how to stop sacrificing your deepest priorities, to take control of your time, and to courageously build your business around your ideal life – so you can make more time for what you love, while leading your business to even MORE revenue and growth.
To get to ‘Impossible Freedom’, you must learn the art and practice of Time Mastery™, where you build the skillset to create consistent and sustainable integrity between what you value the most and how you actually spend your time.
It means to unapologetically put what lights you up at the center of your calendar and experience more growth, wealth, and joy because of it.
(It all seems “Impossible” — but, it’s very possible).
How do you get into the ‘middle zone’ and more importantly, how do you get out?
The real culprit behind being in the ‘middle zone’ is the Say/Do Gap: the gap between what you SAY matters to you and how you actually spend your time – your DO.
What keeps you in the ‘middle zone’ is both not seeing your Say/Do Gaps and not closing them.
Working harder will not solve the problem. The strategies that got you here won’t get you any further. You will work harder to stay there.
The solution is to aim higher, to the top of the mountain where there’s more breathing room – to learn how to see and close your Say/Do Gaps so you can make your decisions from an ascended place of inspiration, possibility and self-trust.
Closing your Say/Do Gaps and living in fierce integrity with your values is precisely how you start to operate at a whole new altitude in both your business and your life.
It’s how you defy former limitations or “can’ts” and actually create what you truly want. It’s how you realize your “someday” dreams NOW and live a life that’s impossible to regret.
Closing the Say/Do Gaps in your business and life is something you will do over and over again. It is a skill and practice, not a one-time thing.
To help you see your Say/Do Gaps and learn this skill of closing them, I’ve created a step-by-step process for this called the Say/Do Gap Eradicator.
When you notice any signs of compromise, sacrifice, uncertainty, guilt, frustration, anxiety, disappointment, and resentment, journal on these questions so you can see what’s causing you to get stuck and the path to follow through on what matters most to you:
Step 1: The Say/Do Gap
What is your “say”? What do you say you want to be, do, or have?
What’s your current “do”? What are your current actions and choices?
What are the values that are not being honored by your current choices?
Step 2: True Desire
What would you be doing if you were honoring these values?
Who will you be when you make these choices instead?
Why is this important to you? Why bother? What’s your WHY?
Step 3: The Can’ts
What are the voices or stories that are coming up that stand in the way of you following through on these choices? Why will this be too hard? Why can’t you do this?
Step 4: Wild Wisdom
For each of the “can’ts” above, what does your wild wisdom (inner knowing) say? Are they true? How are they not true?
Step 5: Choose
What are you choosing? What inspired action(s) will you take?
How motivated and committed are you to this choice?
What do you need to know, do, or feel in order for this to be a 10?
What will you do if or when you catch yourself wavering on your commitment?
Your calendar says everything about what you’re actually choosing to value. Because in a year from now, your life can look wildly different. You can be a true Time Master, enjoying ‘Impossible Freedom’ – where you make more time for what you love, while leading your business to even more revenue and growth.
And, after helping many hundreds of clients to create more personal free time while simultaneously increasing their revenue – I know it’s 100% possible for you too.
If you’d like more CLARITY on exactly how to do this in your specific business, book a free Confident Clarity Call with me at: ascendleadership.com/call.
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About the Author
Nadine Nicholson, MCC
Time Mastery Expert & Master Certified Coach
Founder, Ascend Leadership Co.
Ascend Leadership Co. is a premier business coaching company that helps ambitious entrepreneurs to reimagine their time, team and sales – so they can have more freedom, make more money, and live their best life now. Nadine and Derek Nicholson show their clients how to create ‘Impossible Freedom’ where they stop sacrificing their deepest priorities, take control of their time, and courageously build their business around their ideal life. They make more time for what they love, while leading their business to even more revenue and growth. On average, Ascend’s clients free up 10 hours every week and double their business revenue in 12 months. Learn more at ascendleadership.com.