How Can You Build A Business When Your Whole Life Is Falling Apart?

I’ve been coaching many people lately who are making the transition, re-inventing their work and creating a coaching business.

They aren’t sure exactly what their business does or what it looks like, but they are moving towards a clearer vision and making the identity shift from employee to Life Coach Entrepreneur.

And then a major life event happens.

This is a typical conversation:

Client:  I can’t really focus on my business right now because I’ve got some huge family situation that is getting in the way (problems with my ex, major issues in the family business, dealing with the repercussions of the loss of a parent, difficulties with children, major health problems, etc.).

More often than not the client will say, “How can I build a business when my whole life is falling apart?  I can’t focus on creating something.  I’m just trying to survive. How do people do this? ”

It’s tough.  When you are creating a soul-inspired business, it’s not like you can compartmentalize and put on your work-mask at work and take it off at home.

How many of you have been through a break-up or painful situation at work and held on until you got home so you could cry and wail?

I have.

But what do you do when you’re building a business…..and you’re at home?

You CAN cry and wail on the couch.  You CAN watch sad movies and listen to sad music so that you can cry.  No one is telling you to go and work on your business.

Your only obligation is to you.  So the business building might take a back seat.  That’s when my clients show up panicked that they aren’t doing anything, that they’re stuck, that life circumstances have derailed them.

But is that true?  I don’t think so.  Here’s my take:

1.  Your Soul puts the situation that you need to deal with in front of you. 

This doesn’t take you away from your business, it informs your business.

I asked my client who was dealing with problems in the family business, what she needed to learn to get through the conflict.  She said that she needed to speak her truth, let her voice be heard and create firm boundaries.

This is exactly what she helps her coaching clients to do, and exactly what she needs to start doing to get her work out in the world as a Teacher/Coach.

This situation and many more made me think that these so called “problems” are God-winks.  They aren’t obstacles, they are sign-posts to the next step you need to take to work on your Self – which is ultra important if you guide, coach or heal others.

The work you do on yourself is also the work that your clients need from you.  When you do your own work on your own problem situations, it doesn’t take you away from your business, it leads you directly towards it.

2.  Your Soul does not have a business building time-clock.

You might think it’s urgent to get going on your business when you are slammed by a personal situation.  Your soul is telling you that THIS problem situation; right in front of you IS the priority.  Your ego has the business-building time-clock, not your soul.

The good news is that working through this personal situation will catapult you into your soul-inspired business, so it is not an obstacle for you, it is the step that is right in front of you.

3.  The hellish situation that you are dealing with might not be your niche.

Many people think that the niche that they pick for their business needs to be their hell and back story – if you survived a hellish divorce, then you become a relationship coach; if you lost 80 pounds from creating a new relationship with yourself and with food, you become a weight loss coach – for example.

I think that’s too simplistic.  There might be a theme in your hellish situation that really speaks to your soul, rather than a direct line.  Surviving the hellish divorce might mean that you learned to stop hiding your truth and to stop pleasing others and not yourself. THAT is a problem that you can help people fix.  THAT is what you are passionate about, not necessarily working with people through divorce.

Then all you need to do is find people who have the problem that you love fixing.  That’ll be your niche.

4.  Becoming a soul-inspired life coach entrepreneur requires an inner reorganization as much as, or more than marketing advice.

Some people think that building a coaching business is all about finding your market, marketing and then selling your stuff.  I think that an inner re-organization is even more necessary.  You’ve got to stop following your ego-based rules and start following your soul’s direction.  You need to understand your own soul’s purpose, and create a service that people need that’s aligned with that and is fun for you!  You’ve got to take action, shift and tweak and constantly get out of your own way.

This involves a great deal of self-knowledge that most business building courses don’t help you to discover.