One of my incredible mentors raised an interesting question in a teleclass this week: Do you attract drama in your life or business?
Your first impulse might be to deny it. But what is drama really?
The dictionary definition of “drama” is a state, situation, or series of events involving interesting or intense conflict of forces, or excessively emotional performances or reactions.
Well, I don’t know about you, but if that is how drama is defined, I certainly can’t say that I haven’t experienced my fair share of it.
And if you are launching or running your own business, it is likely you have too.
What does drama do to us? Well, drama creates stress. And unless you have been living under a rock for the past few years, chances are that you have heard about what stress can do to your body. A quick refresher:
“The body doesn’t distinguish between physical and psychological threats. When you’re stressed over a busy schedule, an argument with a friend, a traffic jam, or a mountain of bills, your body reacts just as strongly as if you were facing a life-or-death situation. If you have a lot of responsibilities and worries, your emergency stress response may be “on” most of the time. The more your body’s stress system is activated, the easier it is to trip and the harder it is to shut off.
Long-term exposure to stress can lead to serious health problems. Chronic stress disrupts nearly every system in your body. It can raise blood pressure, suppress the immune system, increase the risk of heart attack and stroke, contribute to infertility, and speed up the aging process. Long-term stress can even rewire the brain, leaving you more vulnerable to anxiety and depression.”
Yuck, right? I know that none of us want to face these physical and emotional risks.
So, how do we prevent ourselves from becoming another stress-related statistic? The answer lies in the simple question: Do you create drama, attract it, seek it out…Are you a drama junkie?
This takes some real soul-searching to get to the answer.
The first place to look is your past to see if there are patterns that you can see in your life – patterns in your relationships, your work experiences, your family, your money situation, etc…. Most of us continue in the same kind of cycles in life until we become aware of those cycles and make a firm decision to change their experiences and the results of those experiences.
Remember that famous quote by Albert Einstein about cycles? He said, “Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.”
I am here to say that drama is just about the most destructive cycle you can get caught in as a business owner. Besides the awful physical and emotional havoc it can wreck on you, it can also undo all of your hard work, make forward progress difficult if not impossible, and can even ruin valued relationships.
Any way you look at it, drama can hurt you, your business and your bottom line.
So, where is YOUR drama?
In your environment? Is your office a mess? Do you have clutter in your workspace? Are you months behind on your filing?
In your wallet? Are you up to date on your bookkeeping? Do you have a box, file or pile of receipts building up that you keep forgetting to do something with? Do you have unpaid bills or an unbalanced bank account?
In your relationships? Do you have someone in your life who sucks up all of your energy? Someone who discourages you or actively criticizes you? Do you have a relationship that is riddled with arguments, resentment or weighty expectations?
Can you see where I am going with this? I think if we are all honest with each other, we all have some area or areas where there is drama. In fact, many of us have likely learned to live with it day-in and day-out, the weight of it pushing down on us. We have learned to tune out the warning bells, the adrenaline rush, the frustration and to just live with the drama like it is an inevitable part of our lives.
Drama should not be an inevitable part of our lives on a regular basis. True, life always changes and always sends us curve-balls and tragedy. We all have our crosses to bear at one time or another.
But accepting daily drama and pain isn’t healthy and it will keep you from true success, true happiness and living your truth.
If you are on this blog, chances are you want success, happiness and the chance to be your true self, so it is time to address the sources of drama in your life.
Some of them are easier to deal with than others, but you really can deal with any kind of drama.
If your office is a mess, you can devote an afternoon to clearing it out and getting organized. Better yet, pay someone to do it for you on a regular basis and devote your time to activities that move you forward. It is also much easier to quickly eliminate the chaos and drama when you bring someone in who isn’t emotionally connected to your drama. She can be unemotional and efficient about clearing the clutter, whereas you might be bogged down in the emotional connection to the things you need cleared out.
If you face money drama, that can be overwhelming, but it can be eliminated. For starters, hire a good bookkeeper to handle your books and to enter receipts on a weekly or monthly basis. She can also balance your accounts for you and keep you on top of bills that need to be paid. Pay her to do her job, and focus your time on what you do well, which will in turn result in more revenue and less money drama. That does NOT mean ignore your finances, though. Make sure you stay connected to what is happening and that your bookkeeper educates you weekly on all of your accounts.
If you face drama in your relationships, that one can be harder to deal with, especially if the person who brings drama into your life is a spouse, parent, child or best friend. This is a very complicated subject for a blog post, but I urge you to think about ways to eliminate the drama in those relationships. It might require counseling, or carving out space for yourself each week, or it might ultimately require that you (sadly) end the relationship. If you have people in your life who are toxic, that is always going to undermine your attempts to achieve your dream life. You need to surround yourself with people who believe in you, who are your fans and champions, and who give you honest feedback that builds you up and helps you progress (honesty is NOT the same as criticism or harsh words).
I know a lot of this is easier said than done, but all you have to do is just START. You just need to take baby steps and make sure you renew your commitment on a daily basis to eliminating drama in your life and business. Taking the first baby step is a movement towards breaking the cycle of insanity. It will open up your horizons, free you to a new future and you will find that you have renewed energy, enthusiasm and strength, all of which you need in order to find your business brilliance!
Good luck and let me know how it is going for each of you!
p.s. If you need some direction, you might want to consider my programs. My clients who want greater support and a tribe of their own often seek out my coaching programs and bootcamps, which provide the tools, support and encouragement that accelerates them towards success and turbo-charges their journey towards bliss and business brilliance. http://www.jessicaeavesmathews.com