Summer is in the air. For those of you, who like my clients, are committed to evolving your career, in a way that feels joyful and fulfilling, the summer can be both beautiful and yes, lets face it, challenging.
The challenge comes because the routine is different. For those of you who are mothers summer often means kids are home, or involved in various summer activities that you have to chauffeur (or oversee the chauffeuring of). Even without kids, summer can involve extra family gatherings, or home repairs, or travel, that again, gets you out of your routine.
In the past, summer brought me a combination of elation and dread. I love so much of what the summer brings–nature, family bonding, fun travel. But in the past the summer so easily got me off track.
Left to my own devices in the summer I slowly but surely pulled back on self-care, put pause on my creative projects, and somewhere along the line felt resentful because I had put everyone else’s needs before mine. Fortunately, I have learned how to shift this pattern.
Over the years, I have seen my client’s go through these same difficulties. They’ve been committed to their growth in the fall and spring. They have momentum. Their Soul is giving them guidance on how to keep stepping out of their comfort zone so they can evolve their Soul’s medicine (and as a result their career). Then the summer comes and progress comes to a halt.
Now to be clear, it is perfectly fine to adjust your career plans in the summer. For instance, you might decide that you will spend more time with family so you will shift some creative projects around, allowing for more space in your schedule to be with loved ones.
That is not a problem if you are intentional. The overwhelm sets in when you allow yourself to become passive about what you want to create in the summer. When you just let life happen to you.
So what can you do to ensure that you enjoy the summer AND keep making steady progress with your career?
Below are a two steps that can help.
- Meditate with your Soul and set intentions for what growth you want to create in your career this summer. This step is essential. It really is the foundation for everything else. Remember your Soul wants to share its medicine, its light through you AND does not want to add fear or complication to your life. So your Soul is the best coach you can have. In the next few days take some time alone and ask your Soul for its wisdom and guidance on what it wants you to create this summer.
For example, after doing this, my client, Karina, realized her Soul wanted to make sure she kept writing her blog in the summer. This was completely doable for her, but she realized that if she hadn’t asked her Soul for guidance she most likely would have put her blog in the back burner until the fall.
At first this might not have seemed like a big deal, but eventually Karina knows she would have regretted not staying consistent with her blog. She would have missed the deep insights she receives as she writes, and her readers would have missed her wisdom as well. Equally important she would miss out on possible connections with people that could further her career.
2. Be honest with yourself and reflect on what could get in the way of you achieving your intentions. This is not about judging yourself in anyway. In fact, this is to be done with great compassion because remember your Soul is compassionate. The point is we all have sabotaging parts. It’s normal, which is why so many people struggle with staying committed to their Soul. So rather than waiting until the self-sabotage happens, take some time now and reflect on what are the common things that can get you derailed. Write them down and make a plan to ensure they don’t get you off track.
So, for example, back to my client Karina. When she reflected on what could keep her from staying consistent with her blog she came up with the following:
Not letting her family know about her needs.
Karina realized that a big part of the struggle for her was that she wanted to be available for her family whenever they needed her. She thought she could just fit in her blog whenever she had time. But once she was clear that her Soul was guiding her to keep up with her blog, she saw how important it was to actually share with her family that a few mornings a week she would be writing. This required Karina to work through some guilt that came up as she thought about claiming this time for herself. As we did this together, she realized that setting this time aside for herself actually allowed her to be more present with her family and this made it easier to move forward and have these little talks with her family.
Fear that her writing wouldn’t be as good in the summer.
Karina loved writing, at the same time she had perfectionist parts that put a lot of pressure on herself to make each blog amazing. She knew that in the summer she would have less time, so in order to stay consistent with her blog she would need to be more relaxed about her writing (something we’d been trying to work on anyway) but this scared her. She worried that her writing wouldn’t be as good, that she would be judged, and that she’d lose many of her subscribers. Again, once she faced this fear Karina saw that this would be wonderful opportunity to relax and be more authentic in her writing, and she saw that staying consistent with her blog in the summer would actually ensure that she kept her subscribers.
Parts of her that felt fear of success.
Yes, underneath the angst of failing Karina had what most of us have, fear of success. Karina was surprised that she actually worried that too many people would read her blog, that this would bring her too much business, that she wouldn’t be able to keep up. As she shared this fear out loud with me, Karina saw that she was making steady, consistent progress in her career, and this felt good. It wasn’t overwhelming. She was ready. And if suddenly there was a sudden surge of new business (something she actually wanted) she knew she had the experience and support to handle it. She could breathe a sigh of relief.
So know as she saw these three ways that she could sabotage herself she could make a plan. She was prepared.
Alright my dears. These are two steps that you can implement now. One, meditate with your Soul and ask your Soul about your career intentions for summer. And two, brainstorm and reflect on what could sabotage you from achieving these intentions and make a plan based on that.
I have more steps that I will be sharing with you in the coming weeks. It’s your turn now. It is possible to enjoy your summer and keep making steady, consistent progress with your career. The world needs what only you can offer. You can’t really afford to take the summer completely off, and what’s more you wouldn’t really enjoy that.
Below I share a short meditation you can use to connect with your Soul and ask it for guidance on your summer.
Also, if you feel ready to receive private help with your career know that my Breakthrough Sessions are free for applicants who qualify. Just go to my website here and follow the simple instructions.
Many blessings!
Lisa
Listen to audio version of blog:
Listen to follow-up meditation