Creative Success vs. “Life Is a Struggle” — The Inner Conflict That Derailed A Business

This was certainly the case for a new client I worked with recently. She’d lost the capacity to make lemonade out of lemons and was seeking guidance on where to from here.

With a beloved business just folded, employees let go, home lost and carrying business debt, she wanted guidance on why life was so tough.

Her stated belief that “life happens for you not to you” and that “failures are learning opportunities” were a huge help even while being sorely tested, yet contradicted with innate family of origin values that fundamentally influenced who she was and how she showed up.

Exploring her motivations revealed conflict within her. As if different systems within her were tuned to different frequencies.

Her survival instinct was based on a premise that life is hard, resources are scarce, others are out for themselves so you're on your own. Her family linage was based on trauma, not fitting in, frequent moving, nothing being constant apart from hardship. It was as if her Being needed hardship and scarcity to find purpose in life.

Interestingly it was when her business started doing well that her motivation wanned, sabotaging ideas of not wanted to do it crept in, she started isolating herself from previously supportive friends, lost interest in her customers and her spark for quality and creativity dimmed.

It was as if her body didn’t know how to evolve from a place of success, as if it needed scarcity and hardship to motivate herself.

Her big why showed a passion for creativity and loving relationships with herself and others, yet the way she showed up in life was more aligned with her families way of being.  Her Why enticing her into business, her family pattern eventually releasing her from it.

Becoming aware of these patterns and realigning her survival view of life to her Why was a huge process for her. It gave her permission to align to her why, how to listen and show up in life with it. Alongside opening space for resources supporting these to land.

While confidentially limits what's shared here, some of these concepts may relate to you or people you lead/support. Perhaps what's showing up on the surface might look to tick all the boxes yet they find themselves sabotaging their (and their teams) success. Or underlying values may contradict team goals. Being aware of these is a step towards supporting people to uncover more alignment and choice towards their authentic self.