Hiding Out, Bailing Out, and When To Sit the Cuss Out

I saw The Fantastic Mr. Fox this weekend with my 3 year old and “cuss” may just be my favorite new word. I often feel compelled to use the f-word, or at least I say it a lot under my breath but with a 3yo running around I have had to clean up my act. Cuss sounds better – at least until it eventually finds it’s way onto the “do not say list”. So, cuss it is.

I don’t know about you but I had a far more fabulous holiday than I even imagined. I took 2 and a half weeks off. I didn’t work with clients, worry about emails, write posts, read work related books, compare myself to other people or give a care at all about anything related to money in or money out. It was pure bliss.

I needed it big time.

My ability to be the coach and support I had been for years had severely diminished at the end of the year. I was frustrated with the stories and excuses and the blaming I kept hearing from clients and was reading about on blogs and tweets and it was creating so much anxiety for me that I felt hyped up all of the time. The smallest things would irritate me. I didn’t even want to be around myself. All I wanted to do was bail out for good. That felt like the answer.

Around the second week of December I found myself wanting nothing more than to give up my entire business. I sat there with my cursor on the “Delete Facebook account” for a good 3 minutes before I decided I was in no place to make a decision that could conceivably create a boatload of work for me in the future. I deleted old lists in my shopping cart, deleted countless programs and memberships designed to help me run my business more efficiently or grow my business with less effort, I shredded old files, put away case notes, cleared my calendar, and put into motion a handful of things that would take me far away from the work I had been doing. It felt fabulous.

So, I sat the cuss out. I promised myself 2+ weeks off where the only work I was allowed to do was write down ideas or thoughts, if I had them, in my notebook. I couldn’t do anything with them.

Well, that was the plan.

Of course as I was tossing and turning in bed one night I had an idea that I thought would solve a problem. The next day with a bit of time on my hands I put the whole thing in place, mapped it out, and sent it off. Then, later the next night I got the most giant pit in my stomach thinking about it. I ran downstairs to my office and deleted the entire thing. I realized that while this was going to solve one tiny problem, it was going to create another gigantic one, not the least of which was the fact that it involved doing something I had less than zero desire to do. Does this ring any bells for you?

When Sunday January 3rd rolled around I felt myself getting more and more tense. I didn’t want to go back to work. I didn’t want to get back into the same things that made me crazy in 2009. At one point I actually found myself in the bathroom hiding from my daughter and crying. I was feeling ill-equipped to change things. Then it hit me like a ton of bricks. I wasn’t ready for the fresh start because I hadn’t cleared the way. I had not taken the time to get crystal clear and brutally honest about what was making me feel like I had a permanent pit in my stomach.

So, that’s what I did. And what I learned was actually quite shocking. The things that felt huge and impossible to shift were really things that I could easily change. I actually had a great year in 2009 and loved a lot of what I was doing. In fact, I had already written all of it down in my new e-book Mojo: Mastering the Art of Playing at Work and Life.

I just needed to go one step further. I needed to do one massive vinyasa.

So, I wrote down everything that made me feel a lot less me (working with less than ideal clients, maintaining systems and “shoulds” that served no obvious purpose, taking classes and programs I thought I was supposed to want to do instead of what I wanted to do, playing in spaces that were no fun for me at all, etc.) and then I wrote down everything I wanted more of in my life. Once I discovered what that was I was amazed at how much I was willing to give up and how good it felt to let some of the big things go so I could have more of what I wanted. By Sunday night I felt ready.

On Monday I began my day with the client that makes me love my work. I am at my best when I work with her, when I am looking at her business, when we are brainstorming ideas, and when we are creating the space for her to accomplish the big goals she has for herself. I realized during our conversation that the content was far less important to me than the dynamic of the relationship. I have a lot of stuff I do because I truly love every piece of it but I do the work of a marketing consultant simply because of the people I get to work with not because marketing is my deepest passion.

When I leave my sessions with clients feeling good and energized I know it’s where I am supposed to be at that moment. When I work with clients or even read materials or attend events that make me anxious, tense, and frustrated, I know I have made a wrong turn and if I don’t get back on track, or off the track all together, I’m really going to suffer.

Over the years I have become more and more selective about who I work with and what I expose myself to but I realized that by the end of 2009 I needed to get even more clear. The holidays were essentially like an allergy diet. I took out absolutely everything and now I am slowly re-introducing things to see how I react. Do I feel good? Anxious? Tense? Inspired? Excited? If I feel good then I find out how to create more of it. If it feels bad, then I leave it out.

It feels like the fog has been lifted and I am experiencing a peace I was desperately missing at the end of 2009.

I would love to hear your experience and how you have decided to start out 2010. What do you do to clear the way? Based on your reflections, what are you changing going forward?