“Your calendar and your chequebook will always tell you what you value in life. Time and money indicate values and priorities.” Yvonne Silver

A typical New years day for me used to be spending time with a new calendar. I would set out what I was going to accomplish over the year.  I would break it down to quarters, months and weeks.  I was very plan driven.  That was actually part of the disconnect and the universe sent me clear signs that it was time for me to step away from my play-it-safe routine.

When I first started running my own business six years ago, my brand was The Shattered Ceiling.  Most women would understand the reference to the glass ceiling that many of us in the corporate world come up against.  Over the course of four years I was working very hard to break through my own glass ceiling, and eventually, I burnt out. I burnt out because I found myself picking projects that were money based as opposed to choosing to work with women who had similar value to me.  It was all very masculine.

For women who find themselves where I was in the corporate world, if you feel you’ve hit the wall the first thing is to be aware.  If you know that where you are is not working for you and you want to make a change, that first step is always awareness.  The second is to step back and create some space because if you keep up the crazy jam-packed schedule nothing can change.   For me, the first thing was coming up with a process to drop things off my calendar like toxic people for example.  That created space to be able to think more clearly.  Your calendar and your chequebook will always tell you what you value in life.  Time and money indicate values and priorities.

With my new business, Flourish, I hired a coach who works in energetic resonance.  One key thing that’s really different is instead of beginning my year busy doing business planning, my coach challenged me to sit in silence and let the answers come to me.  That strategy was such a hard thing to do.  I felt completely lost because I didn’t have the training yet to tap into that kind of guidance. Plus, I didn’t have the comfort of my 12-month business plan either.

I was still resisting because I couldn’t see what would replace what I had already built.  It wasn’t until my husband and I went for a visit with his brother and I picked up a tick while visiting with a friend on their farm.  I was back home one evening watching tv when I scratched my head and when I put my hand down on the take there was this thing laying on it’s back with its legs kicking in the air.  There were a few other things that came through that day and in my meditation the next day searching for what all this means I got it.  It was time to let go of all the blood-sucking stuff in my life.  

So how do you go from complete fear and being in the corporate job?  How you break out of that is through awareness. Knowing that you want or must make a change.  The second thing is to understand that people have different risk tolerances.  For someone to completely quit their job without having a backup is perhaps not realistic, but maybe they can realize a few points where they can bring joy into their workday.  If their work is too confined in what their responsibilities are then maybe it’s what they do over lunchtime, go for a walk, look at the mountains, phone a friend, reconnect, create something.  If you’re writing a book then do some of that at lunchtime, why not?  Find little pockets in your day job to help enrich it and once you’ve got a little bit of that lightness and space and feel your energy rising maybe then take on more of the things that you truly want to be doing.

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