What can you clear from your business this month?
- Business, Cyclical & Seasonal Living, Mindset & Self-Trust, Personal Growth, Planning & Strategy
- Written by Denise Oliver
There is something about September that makes me want to clear things out.
Perhaps it is the return to routine, especially if you have children going back to school and knowing that the pace of Summer is about to change to the one of Autumn. Whatever the reason, I have often found myself doing an Autumn Clean, a sort out between Summer and Winter, not just around the house and garden, but in my business too.
Somewhere between January’s plans, Spring’s fresh ideas and Summer’s interruptions, I notice that things have a habit of accumulating – a commitment here, a subscription there, an offer you no longer feel excited about, a social media account you keep meaning to use or a project that seemed like a good idea six months ago.
Before you know it, your business is carrying a lot of things simply because you have never stopped to ask whether they still belong there.
I find that September is a good time to ask, “What am I carrying that I no longer need?”
Not because you have been doing business badly, or because everything needs to be streamlined, optimised or made more productive, but simply because things change.
Since the beginning of the year you have changed, your business has changed and what made sense then may not make sense now… and you know what, that’s alright.
Where to start?
First, take a look at everything you have said “Yes” to..
Clients, memberships, networking groups, regular meetings, collaborations, content commitments, projects – and ask yourself: “Does this still deserve my time, energy or attention?”
Because your energy levels matter, as does your enjoyment, capacity, and whether something still feels meaningful to you.
A business can look perfectly successful on paper while quietly draining the person running it… and this is not the kind of “success” we are interested in here in the Enrichment Collective.
Now look at your business clutter...
And remember, you might find that your business has accumulated more than physical things.
There can be mental clutter too – too many ideas (this is me and an endless list of ongoing ideas), too many unfinished projects, too many people telling you what they think you should be doing, too many strategies saved in folders and all leading to too many tabs open in your brain.
For an introverted woman in business, this can become particularly exhausting because quiet thinking time is a precious commodity.
You don’t necessarily need another strategy but you might simply need some space to hear yourself think more clearly.
The try an Autumn Clean
You don’t need to spend an entire week or even a weekend reorganising your business. Choose one area as a focused start to this season.
Here are some suggestions based on things I will be looking at cleaning up… my diary, business offers, any related subscriptions, social media commitments, projects, inbox, that list of things you are “supposed” to be doing.
Then simply sort what you find into three categories:
- Keep: This still matters
- Change: This matters, but it needs to work differently
- Release: This no longer belongs
A quiet moment
Before you move on to the next thing, pause for a moment and look at what you have chosen to keep, change and release – What do you notice?
Perhaps there is relief. Perhaps there is resistance. Perhaps you are suddenly aware of just how much you have been carrying.
You don’t need to do anything with that feeling just yet. Simply give yourself a quiet moment to notice what has changed now that you have given yourself permission to look.
That space can give you room to notice what you actually want… whether that be room to follow an idea, or room to rest as the season changes and you adjust, or perhaps you want room to create, or is it room to connect, or simply the space to be present in your own life.
All are valid and perhaps this is where a different kind of business growth takes a deep breath and then begins, not with adding another thing, but instead with making room for the things that genuinely are enriching for you.
The quiet shift
Perhaps the shift isn’t in what you are doing, perhaps it is in what you are no longer carrying.
When you stop automatically filling every available space, you create the opportunity to notice what you actually want and that can change the way you make decisions about your business – not from urgency, not from what you think you should be doing, but from a little more clarity about what matters to you.
That is a quiet shift, but it can change a lot.
Feeling isolated in business?
You may have just found the space where you belong...
The Enrichment Collective is a community and business growth space for introverted, quietly ambitious women who want to build successful businesses without sacrificing their wellbeing, their values, or the life they actually want to live.
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