Business building in uncertain times

You want to grow your business but it feels like a very uncertain time for you, your business, your industry, the world….[insert whatever you’re worrying about right now].

Uncertainty can happy for any of us at anytime.

I’m 16 weeks pregnant, and although this was a planned pregnancy when I found out I really started to worry about what that would mean for my business and my income.

I’ve worked hard to build my business and reputation over the past 4 years as a coach and impact strategist helping social entrepreneurs, and the reality of wanting to slow down at the end of my pregnancy and take real time off, away from my business once baby arrives is really important to me, but equally important is maintaining my business.

I had, and have, big goals for my business this year. I have been focussing inwards on my mindset and working with amazing mentors, coaches and strategists to help me plan and implement the changes I need to achieve these goals.

It would be easy to let those goals go and say, oh well, I’m pregnant so I can do as much as I can for the next 4 / 5 months but then just have to “take a break”.

That’s not being a CEO and that’s not creating systems change.

When you’re a business owner and self-employed, and still business building the prospect of maternity leave is quite overwhelming. What will I do? How much time off should I have? Will I have enough income? How am I going to generate the income I want and need? What should I do with the business?

Right now my business is just me and my amazing VA (check her out on Instagram @theecohelper). I am the business, in terms of generating income and delivering services. Without me, what is there?

All these doubts?

But hey, I’m a coach and I love to reframe things.

So, instead of worrying and doubting, I asked myself two more empowering questions, focused on my needs and desires.

…Because what we desire and focus on, we can create!

I asked myself: “What do I want my maternity leave to be like and how do I create that? AND What do I want my business to do whilst I’m on maternity leave and what would we need to put in place to make that happen?”

So I had a think and I wrote it all out.

I want to have at least 3 months off without having to think about work and my business, but knowing it is still functioning, growing my audience and engaging with them, as well as making some sales is really important to me. And really I don’t want to feel any pressure to come back before 6 months, I want to have freedom and flexibility to see what happens with this pregnancy, birth & baby.

So acknowledging this was helpful and then exploring, ok so that’s what I want how do I create or enable it?

We can create whatever we can envision!

In all this uncertainty I get to decide what kind of maternity leave I want to have; how I want my business to function during that time; what I want to come back to and how I can enable all that.

We do have choice in uncertainty if we decide not to let the fear and doubt consume us.

So how can you reframe what you’re worried about?

How could you ask more empowering questions?

• What is it that you really want? (if you allowed yourself to believe it might be possible)

• What are all the different ways you could make that happen?

You don’t have to be pregnant.

We all have things that create uncertainty for us.