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As solopreneurs we can SO easily be distracted by shiny things. I don’t know about you, but my brain is constantly scanning for lots of lovely new things to create, or add into my business. It’s wired into us. Not a day goes by where I don’t hear one of my business besties getting excited about some new thing they’ve found that they want to test out!

It can sometimes be difficult to decide what is a good opportunity and what things are going to take us down the completely wrong path

When I work with clients, I often talk to them about working to a business model. If you have a clear vision for your business, as in why you’re running it, where you want it to be in 6 months, 1 year, 3 years down the line, it’s much easier then to create a business model that helps you to achieve those goals.

Once you have that business model, it makes decision making very simple because the opportunity you’re being offered either does or doesn’t fit into that business model. 

Now, this post isn’t really about the business model as such, but there’s lots of fab resources out there if you want to find out more about it.

What I want to share with you today is how listening to your intuition in your business can be really powerful, and it does link in with your business model.

Let me give you an example of where my intuition has served me recently.

You may recall that I applied to become a speaker at the European Training Conference in Amsterdam. I got chosen and it was all incredibly exciting. Speaking is something I’ve done before, but more by way of short motivational talks and I’ve also been a trainer. I really enjoy the energy in a room full of people where you can teach something to help them move forward. It energises me too. So, as I said, all very exciting.

The trouble was, as I got nearer to the event something in me felt really misaligned. Now, I’ve spent the past xxx number of years ignoring my intuition, (notice I didn’t give away my age there!) and have only really over the past couple of years started to listen to it.

What I’ve noticed is that when I don’t listen to my intuition that particular thing doesn’t work out, whether it’s working with someone, setting up a new project or making friends with someone. My intuition has always really served me, to the point my hubby even tells me to listen to my intuition over everything else now, because even he knows how accurate its been in the past.

So, I was feeling something was out of alignment with the talk, and I couldn’t put my finger on what it was. As you all know, I’m an introvert, so I wanted to be sure that I wasn’t just feeling nervous (which is quite normal for me with talks – despite having delivered 4 motivational talks a week to up to a room full of people for nearly 5 years!)

What I realised is that I need to stay true to my integrity regarding connections, and while some of the audience for the ETC might have been a good fit for what I planned to deliver, I didn’t believe my content would be completely relevant to them. Because of this, after much consideration, I decided to withdraw from the conference. And trust me it was much consideration. I went over and over it to make sure it was the right decision.

The thing is, it’s super duper important to me that I don’t let people down. I would have gone over to Amsterdam and delivered the talk, even if every fibre of my being was telling me not to, because of that.

In this instance though, I knew something was up. I talked about it with a few business friends and got a bit of coaching on it too, to find it whether it was just fear showing up or whether it was something else.

I then bravely wrote a note to the conference organiser, telling them exactly what I’ve just told you. So that I felt I’d done all I could to not leave them in the lurch, I got in touch with a well-respected business friend to ask if she would want to step in on my behalf, to which she agreed.

What happened next was a surprise. I didn’t hear back for a couple of days, and then when I did, I learned that the event had unfortunately had to be cancelled. I learned two big lessons from this experience.

Lesson One:

Listen to your intuition. You have this inner guiding system for a reason. What’s the worst that would happen if you took a moment to listen to it from time to time?

If something is telling you it’s not right, then absolutely check it out. Make sure that it’s not just fear showing up (because it can). Once you know for sure, then know that it doesn’t matter how uncomfortable it is to have to say you can no longer do something. It will work out better in the long run for you. I have to say, I now have countless pieces of ‘evidence’ to back up my theory on this one!

I’m not saying to pull out of things willy nilly, what I am saying is give it some serious consideration and then make your decision from that place. Even if the conference had gone ahead, I knew it was the right decision for me and my business.

Lesson Two: Stick to your business model

The bigger lesson that I learned, was that I hadn’t stuck to my business model. I should have really checked in first to make sure that the audience were absolutely ideal for me, that I would be able to provide them with something of real value. My talk was about content creation and can be adapted for any business. The thing is though, my passion lies with service-based solopreneurs. My dreamies (aka ideal clients) want to feel connected to their business, they want to be visible but lots of fears show up and they want to have a profitable business.

So, while it could have been adapted to that audience, it might not have been my best work. I want to do my best work at all times. Hey, I even missed out my fabulous trip to Amsterdam, but I know hand on heart, I made the right decision. There will be other times for Amsterdam, and I wish ETC a fabulously successful event next year, with some amazing speakers.

Call To Action This Week: Go back over some of the times when things haven’t gone so well in your business and you’ve known you were following the wrong path, but did it anyway. What can you learn about your own intuition.

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