One Secret to Success: Listen to Your Heart

In her fabulous book, Fashion Secrets Mother Never Taught You, image consultant Ginger Burr lists 50 secrets to looking good. Fashion secret #48 (which really should be fashion secret #1) lists six tips for avoiding clothes buying “mistakes.”

The full six tips are too long to list here, but to summarize, you should only buy an item of clothing if you think it looks great, if you like what you see when you look down at yourself (i.e. look at your tummy, your legs, etc.), if the item you’re trying on feels comfortable to you, and if the color looks good on you.

Most important, however, you should purchase something “ONLY if it suits your personal style.” Ginger goes on to write:

“Anyone who has ever shopped with me knows that I’m a big believer in keeping an open mind, trying new things, breaking out of a rut, BUT if you don’t recognize yourself when you look in the mirror, you won’t ever wear it. If you’re going to try something new, start small.”

Suffice to say, the biggest fashion mistake you can make is to buy clothes based on someone else’s style or trends. (For example, one trend that’s been around for a few years is low-riding pants for women — pants that ride at the hip versus the waist. I look like hell in these pants, so I stick with the high-waisted kind, even though many women think they look “matronly.”)

Ginger’s advice is applicable to clothes shopping — and to your business and your life.

I know, because I’ve come face-to-face with the fact that a few years ago I got “off course” when I bought into someone else’s business plan. This plan sounded great on paper and it is a viable business plan for many successful people.

However, it didn’t fit me, my values, or my life — a realization that took me months of self-reflection to figure out (which is why I haven’t posted to this blog — for which I apologize). My period of self-reflection included finding answers to the following:

Who am I? What are my values? What do I like to do? What do I do NOT like to do? What are my goals? Why am I in the business I’m in? If I could start all over, what would I be doing instead? What are my dreams? What am I passionate about? If I could write my story for the rest of my life, how would it read? What do I want to accomplish with my life and why?

It takes a lot of time to find the answers to these questions. If you’re like me, you have to wade through years of gunk and “beliefs” that somehow attach themselves to you like barnacles. They’re hard to remove, too.

Self-reflection also takes a great deal of quiet time — and by quiet time, I mean you have to find that quiet place inside of yourself and start listening to it. What is the little voice inside of you saying?

After months of self-reflection, here’s what I’ve learned:

My family is my number one priority. For me, this means work – life balance is very important to me. I have to ensure that I have the time necessary to be involved in my son’s life — which includes everything from baking cookies to attending his events to just hanging around doing nothing.

I value my independence. I love being in business for myself, I love being free to make my own decisions and to decide my own destiny. This is one reason I don’t work for a corporation — I don’t like feeling boxed in.

And, lastly I value learning. I must have books, newspapers, and magazines to read. I consume them. I love working with clients and trying new marketing tactics to see what works and what doesn’t. I love new things like social media and figuring out how it all works. I love working with my hands and doing something huge, like learning how to refinish hardwood floors. If I’m not learning something new, I feel dead inside.

Once I figured out what I truly value, it was then pretty easy to plan my life and my business around these values (although that took some time, too).

And this is where the rubber met the road. One thing I realized (among many things) is that I really do not like being in the information products business — i.e. developing products to sell. Really. I hate it. I don’t like the time it takes to develop products, the expense, the commitment, and the fact that I have to constantly market and sell them.

I’m giving it up — even though lots of people will tell me it’s a great way to make passive income. Yes, yes, yes. I know that. However, when I look in the mirror, I don’t see me.

Once I gave myself permission to give up this side of my business, a tremendous weight lifted from my shoulders. What I really want is to pursue the one thing that resonates with me on a very deep level: helping my clients achieve business success through strategic, hands-on, get-in-under-the-hood, results-based marketing.

What it all boils down to is that to be successful, you have to listen to your heart — and do what is inside of you — versus what the rest of world tells you you should be doing.

Have you gone through a period of self-reflection? What did you learn and how did it impact your business? Please feel free to share your story.

(By the way, you can now download my email marketing mistakes e-book — Goof-Proof Email — for free. Enjoy.)