A really big mistake keeps haunting me.
A few years ago I decided to finally follow my heart and start my own business. After awhile I decided that I knew a great deal about my work but very little about “business” or how to spread the word about what I was offering.
I was super passionate about sharing the tools and teachings and being of service but I couldn’t share with anyone, or be of service to anyone, if nobody knew what I was doing or had to offer.
My solution to this problem was to learn as much about business creation and marketing as I possibly could. I found in-person resources and online resources. I studied everything that I could get my hands on, watched hundreds of videos and listened to countless podcasts.
They all said the same thing: find a niche.
So, I did. I started to focus on sharing my story of changing my life from one centered around having an eating disorder and recovering from it to living a life that is not determined by the past and is lived on purpose.
After all, my personal experience was what had inspired me to pursue my training in Integrated Movement Therapy, Yoga, and holistic life coaching.
I thought that I needed to focus on where I’d come from to give context to where I’d evolved to.
However, when I started this conversation an unfortunate thing happened. Most of the people that heard my message focused more on the “eating disorder” part and less on the “a life that is not determined by the past and is lived on purpose” part.
Here’s the thing: I am not an eating disorder coach. I don’t want to be. I never truly wanted to be.
My work being defined by or focused on eating disorders is in direct conflict with what I believe in my whole being to be true: Our lives do not have to be defined by our pasts.
And mine hadn’t been for over a decade until I started focusing on it in my copywriting.
So why did this misunderstanding and miscommunication happen?
It happened because I made it happen. I kept talking about and writing about eating disorders or related topics! I started the dialogue to explain where I had come from and how I found the tools and teachings that I am now sharing.
People view us as we teach them to. People treat us as we teach them to.
If we want to be seen and treated differently we must first clearly see our part in the creation of the situation.
Then we must create the change that we want to see in our lives by creating the change in our thoughts, words, and actions.
This is one of the reasons that I wrote Living Life on Purpose, to share my whole story and create a container for the teachings that I have to offer. In the book only one chapter is about my experience with Anorexia the rest of the book is filled with equally important lessons and teachings that have come my way over the years.
This example is business related, but this principle applies across the board.
We have the power to rewrite our story and to shift the dialogue around who we are, what we do, and how we show up in the world by getting clear within ourselves and then showing up out in the world using that clarity as our guiding light.
Resistance and habitual patterning will likely flare up. Hold true and carry on. Be brave.
The key to changing your life and experience is changing and changing is often uncomfortable.
If you fall in to old patterns of thoughts, words or actions or shiver in the face of fear, forgive yourself and move on. Get back up and get moving in the right direction again. Eventually you’ll fall less.
You’ll strengthen your grace.
Now I want to hear from you: How has miscommunication and misunderstanding been showing up in your life?
Leave a comment below. I’d love to hold space for your highest vision of who you are and how you want to show up in the world.
If you have a friend who could benefit from this essay, please share.
Much love,
Katie