What to do when business growth starts to feel icky

Here’s what I do these days. I ask myself, “What would Buddha do?”

I used to compartmentalize my spiritual path and my business goals because it felt like I wasn’t being a real entrepreneur if I didn’t have all the typical business goals. Entrepreneurs are supposed to think big and focus on money and work really, really hard.

That can start to feel really icky especially when you’ve worked hard to be mindful, self-aware and make choices that feel good.

Feeling good is important and so is the focus it takes to get to that place. You know this. You’ve worked hard to get to where you are now and that mindset has helped you to start a business. It felt like the right thing to do and you thought you were prepared to stay focused on making it work. That is, until it felt too icky driving towards things that don’t ultimately motivate you.

If this is happening to you don’t quit! Come up with a new approach that brings all your personal goodness into every step of your business.

It’s time to integrate your values, Buddha mindset and desire to serve in order to create a thriving enterprise. Do things your way!

Buddha worked night and day to reach enlightenment. It wasn’t luck or timing and there wasn’t anything easy about his quest. He was driven by passion not by feeling obligated. He worked for 6 years trying every technique known to him to reach inner peace. When he finally got super, focused and accepted his nature, he reached it.

This is a platform for success of any kind, especially your business. Integrating your focused vision, values and objectivity is exactly the way you’ve approached your life and it’s how you need to grow your business. Here are some specific ways you need to apply it:

Put the time into the things that you love.

You are good at doing the stuff you love doing. That’s what your business needs to be about but you still need to excel at it. Put the time into that and you’ll get results. Committing to placing one foot in front of the other no matter how scary or uncomfortable that next step might feel is what it takes. It’s time to put self-sabotaging thoughts aside and practice, practice, practice.

Anchor your business with your soul.

Use everything you’ve learned to grow as a person in your business. Integrity, honesty and love are examples of core values that serve as the baseline of business growth. When you serve others and provide them with real value that they are so happy to receive you do so well when you offer up your best. Anchor to those values in everything your do, at every meeting, in every blog post and in every hour you spend with your clients.

Dig into the concept of service.

You are talented. How do you serve others needs with that talent? How to they perceive your talent to help them move forward in what they most want to accomplish today? The number one thing entrepreneurs miss is how to evaluate and understand value and ultimately provide it in the way customers want to receive it. You need to really be driven by giving value to others. That’s business.

Objectivity and non-attachment are core business tools.

You need to look at what your market needs and how your unique skills, gifts and experience can add value to people’s lives. It’s a simple matter of where it all fits. Success isn’t matter of being good at everything, it requires an objective vantage point. Buddha’s journey to enlightenment wasn’t easy and neither is business growth. Not taking things personally, being able to let go of the way you thought things might turn out as quickly as possible opens up your energy to new paths. It’s a big experiment.

The sooner you realize you are not your business the more fun you’ll have and the more others will want to be part of your world and help it expand.