The Client Letter
July 10, 2012
Sedona, Arizona
Cloudy 103 degrees
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Want some of my best advice for growing your service business? You’ll find it here.
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I have a ton of deadlines. Yes, I often stretch myself in terms of what I commit to, but hey, that’s my prerogative. Some people might call it crazy. I call it a human growth strategy.
As my business grows, the pressure increases. I can either deal with it or I can let it crush me.
Right now, I’m staring at a major product launch tomorrow, copy for another product launch due as well, an email series to write, 3 prospect calls to return, a whitepaper to write… and the list goes on. Oh, and that doesn’t include my own projects, like the daily letter you’re reading right now.
Here’s what I know: While the work will never end, my life (this time around anyway) certainly will end. So I have to be smart about how I navigate this life, otherwise I’ll waste it for no reason.
The thing I’ve learned over the past few months is that there are two ways to navigate the constant pressure that deadlines bring.
The first is to work towards meeting them in a frenzy. This is how most people function. They work like mad and are fueled by an underlying fight or flight type of feeling.
If you’ve ever done this, you know it sucks as a way of life.
The other way is to work towards the deadlines in a state of calm.
This path requires that you look at a deadline and then let whatever feelings or stories you make up about it simply dissolve into nothingness. Then, all you have left is the work. So you do it. One step at a time. One calm step at a time.
It took me a while, but I finally understand that whichever path I choose, it is in fact a conscious choice I have to make.
Deadlines don’t create pressure. You create the pressure. You create the stories. You create the “what ifs” and the doomsday scenarios.
There’s a better way. It’s called freedom and you have the power to grant it to yourself.