How to Deal When Things Don't Go According to Plan

“Comparison is the thief of joy.” It’s a fact we all know too well. But not all comparisons look like envy of others. The most subtle, yet equally challenging rivalry is the one we have with ourselves.

We’re in one place and we’d like to be in another. Or, we'd like to skip ahead to the point in time when we imagine everything to be amazing.

Maybe you've started a business and you’re frustrated that it isn’t successful yet.

Maybe you’re in a relationship and it’s not moving on your timeline.

Or maybe you’re exercising and you’re not seeing the results you’d like.

I get it. I’ve been there. When I first started Aligned Holistics, I was pretty naïve. I thought it would be an instantaneous “I’m living my life’s purpose so the cash will flow in.” And it did, but certainly not on my timeline and definitely not in the way I originally envisioned.

See, my concept of what the business would look like was based on my two very different notions: my spiritual beliefs and Facebook. I thought it would be all pictures of green juice and beach vacations. More often than not, it’s coffee and skyping clients while secretly wearing pajama pants.

I was beating myself up over what I thought things “should” look like. I started to panic, “If this were truly my purpose, wouldn’t I already be successful? Maybe I’m not cut out for this.”

The truth is that there isn’t a single entrepreneur I know who hasn’t, at one time or another, cried on the bathroom floor and questioned everything. Thankfully, I was willing to ask for help, work hard, and try new things.

Now, I’m in a completely different place:

I’m successful and happy.

I have incredible clients whom I love working with.

I sometimes wear non-pajama pants during sessions.

What I came to realize was that there wasn’t anything wrong with my faith in myself and my purpose. I needed to learn how to:

Reach out and ask for help.

Try things that scared the shit out of me.

To shut my ego up.

Embrace the beauty of uncertainty.

To have faith in a timeline that I couldn’t control.

It’s frustrating when you’re creating something and it isn’t where you want it to be. I went from being a perfectionist who’d get stuck and never execute to learning to say “it’s not perfect, but it’s good enough for now.”

The truth is that movement is the key to getting from one place to another. Sounds obvious, but if you want to get from where you are to the Oprah-like-equivalent of your field, that’s going to take action. It’s going to take ups, downs, wins, and fails. And eventually the gap between where you are and where you’d like to be will start to narrow.

When you’re creating something, you’re in a state of creating until it’s created.

THE TAKEAWAY:

The key to changing your relationship with time is to trust it. Stop comparing your beginning to someone else’s middle (or your ideal). It will all work out in its own beautiful and frustratingly non-linear way.