Take the pressure off: Stop drinking the “have to” poison

A friend messaged me the other day. “I need to pick your brain.” I wasn’t doing anything, so I told them to call.

This friend has an MLM business. And she’s been off social media since February. “I hate it,” she told me.  “But I feel like I have to do it.” She wanted my insight into hiring someone to create the content and manage her accounts. The accounts that she hasn’t logged into since February…

I could have easily handed that information over. There are several people in my network who would happily take on that project. And they’d rock it. But instead, I asked her a question.

“Since you’ve been off socials, how is your business doing?”

She went on to tell me that things are going well. Slow and steady but consistent. So I asked her exactly why she felt like she needed to be on socials.

“Because my network is only so big. I need to expand my reach.”

I could hear the disappointment in her voice. She felt such pressure to do something she really, really didn’t want to do.

Here’s the thing. We all do this. With one thing or another, we all force ourselves to do things we don’t want to do because we feel like we have to. Maybe it’s the easiest thing to do. Or the most traditional. Or my favorite: because everyone else is doing it.

You guys, you started your business to design your life. To design your day-to-day. Yes, every business has aspects that no one likes. And the typical advice, in that case, is to simply suffer through it until you can afford to hire it out. But we add things to the miserable “have to” list that don’t actually need to be there because we forget to employ creativity. Somewhere along the way, we stopped giving ourselves permission to think outside the box.

Don’t just accept the misery. Get creative. Think. Explore.

MLMs have been around forever. I remember attending Tupperware parties with my mom and I rubbed Skin So Soft all over in the summers like every other kid of the 90s. Social media is young. A baby! It is not the end all be all of success for a creative business. Can it help? Sure. Can it have a massive impact? Of course. But social media also has the power to consume you. It requires constant attention like a needly little toddler. And if you simply cannot stand it or worse, you see that it’s negatively impacting your well-being, don’t force yourself to do it.

I asked my friend to pretend it’s 2002. Social media doesn’t exist, and you’re determined to grow your business. What do you do? I encouraged her to find an in-person networking group in her area. (I’ve been a member of WIN which is a great one. BNI is also a really powerful group.) I told her to start attending events like Creative Mornings. Make deep and meaningful connections with the people around you in your regular day-to-day life. Find vendor events. Pop up shops. You get the picture.

The thing I love about this friend and how she runs her business is she doesn’t spam people. IRL or online. She understands the power of connecting not selling. When she did post to her socials, she offered true value.

“So take it offline,” I told her.

By the end of the call, she felt energized. A heavy, wet blanket lifted. Her perspective shifted, she was reinvigorated to tackle this next stage of growth.

So I’m going to ask you–what’s weighing you down? Holding you back? Paralyzing you and stunting your growth? What do you feel like you have to do but you’re repulsed to actually do? How can you shift your perspective? Brainstorm some out-of-the-box solutions. Stop reaching for the simplest or easiest and get intentional about designing your life and business to operate in a way that brings you joy.