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Strategy Hour | Online Marketing for Business Growth
998: When What Used to Matter… Doesn’t Anymore
00:25:00
I used to think values were something you discovered once and then lived by forever, like a moral compass that stayed fixed.
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If freedom was a value in the past, you may have viewed that as having more flexibility, having more time freedom, having more space to choose how you spend your time. What if freedom now means emotional peace?
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Welcome to the Strategy Hour podcast brought to you by Boss Project. I'm your host Abigail Pumphrey and I'm dedicated to supporting online businesses. I don't believe in one right way.
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To build a business.
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I'm here to help you build business your way. One that supports not only the life you have, but the life you want. I'm on a personal mission to help you become financially free. I'm taking all the lessons learned as I turned a layoff into a seven figure online business. I'm here to help you prioritize your life every step of the way. Whether you're creating your first digital product, growing an email list, or scaling an already profitable business. Settle in. It's time to talk strategy.
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Were something that you discovered once and then lived by forever, like a moral compass that was set in stone. But I'm wondering if values are a little more like constellations. They slightly shift as you move through seasons of life. I used to treat values a lot like a checklist, like these are the things that are important to me. Family, creativity, freedom. And while that's not untrue, I certainly felt incredibly disoriented when those no longer felt aligned. And not to say it was those three specifically, but when things that clearly used to matter don't anymore. And I want to be clear, this doesn't happen because you changed your morals. It's because your priorities matured or changed or your life went on a new course. Life transitions like naturally, give us a forced reevaluation of what we have going on in our life and the things that are forced to be a priority and also the things we want to be a priority. But I do think sometimes it can be incredibly strange when you've always thought of yourself one way and then suddenly that doesn't feel right. I don't want to sit here and have you thinking that your values have just been like Disappearing that you no longer care. But they could just be rearranging themselves to make space for who you're becoming. For me, this sort of happened all at once and I didn't know what to do. And that's why I've waited this long to talk about it. But back in August, I went on a trip that I thought would just be an opportunity to grow my faith and deepen some of my friendships. And it completely changed the entire pattern of my life. Now, I don't want to downplay the trip wasn't special because it was. It was a great opportunity to grow and learn about things I had never learned before. But I don't necessarily think it was so much the experience itself as it was the break from routine and the opportunity to slow down and really reflect. Like forced space. I had to completely walk away from everything. I'd even planned to do more while I was there. Like I was going to post every day on Social while I was gone. Lol. No, I did not have time for that. And that was okay. I did have access to WI FI way more than I expected to, despite having no cell phone service intentionally. I could have bought Foreign pass, but I didn't need anyone to get ahold of me. If I wanted to get ahold of someone, I had ways to do that. But to just say I was distraught when I came home would be an understatement. Now, it didn't happen on the trip. It happened within a couple weeks of being home. But it was like I woke up from my life, as if my life were a dream or something and the things that were once important to me did not matter anymore, like at all. And at first, as I imagine many of you are probably thinking in your own heads, girl, you probably had some sort of psychotic break and you needed psychological help or you're depressed or whatever. But no, that's not what happened. I was very grounded. I was very sane. I was actually quite the opposite of depressed. I was doing very well. I still am. But it was earth shattering to have some of the things that I cared so deeply about no longer matter to me. It wasn't apathy. It wasn't like I was giving up on something. It wasn't like I was even walking away. It was just that something else had become more important. The weird part about this experience and the thing that I've noticed in sharing with other friends and kind of asking about their own kind of times in their lives when this has happened to them is it doesn't really fall into place all at once. It's sort of like doing a thousand piece puzzle. Or like you kind of sort things into piles that make a little sense and you make a little progress, but you're not doing it one step at a time, from left to right, top to bottom. That's not how puzzles work, and that's definitely not how your life works. Like, things will reveal itself, but it takes time and space and reflection and prayer. Like it is just going to take more and than you just like magically sitting down and doing some sort of online test to reassess who you are as a person, Reassess your values, reassess the things that are important to you. I'm not sure if you're familiar with the term liminal space, but that is absolutely where I was. Liminal space is a place of transition. It's literally a threshold that exists between one destination or state and the next. There are things like physical places, like hallways or airports, but it's also used as a psychological term of being betwixt and between during major life changes. For some people, that's between relationships or starting or ending a new career. It can be a very bizarre place because the feelings that often come up in a liminal space are unease, surrealism, and sometimes nostalgia. Nostalgia. Think of it as like a deserted shopping mall or a waiting room. It's just awkward and weird and frustrating to be there. But that's where I was. And I think when values no longer feel important, you don't automatically just get to go to the other side where you know what they are now. I think often you're in a liminal space and not to like, put a religious spin on it, because this isn't. But I just want to be clear that this isn't purgatory. Like, that is not what I'm talking about. It's so very different. It's very lonely and isolating and strange and awkward and also relaxing, but oddly so. You know when you're like sitting in a waiting room and you like actually sit down and read a magazine and you're like, I do not remember the last time I had enough time to sit down and read a magazine? It's that you slow down. Now, I'm not going to sit here and tell you what values are no longer important to me or what new ones I'm focused on. Because I don't think that's relevant to the story today. Because I know if you're listening to this, you're in the middle of this. You're probably in that same liminal space and you're wondering what to do other than just sit there and wait and look around awkwardly. I don't necessarily think there's a prescriptive way to get out of this place, but I do think there's some things that we can do to start to begin to understand. Because our values are really just a reflection of how we spend our time, energy or money. And when we're in the midst of a shift, sometimes we'll already start to make those changes and where we're spending our time, our energy or money. But in doing so, there are occasionally, in my experience, things that don't quite fit. Like you find yourself feeling forced to spend time on something you'd rather not, or doing something that drains you when you know there are better options because it feels like a residual obligation that you have to satisfy. So where are you giving hours too? You may look at your old values or your old schedule as things you previously defined as productive or successful. I know for me for many years it was how full can I make my days? Not necessarily in meetings, but like how can I be the most productive or accomplish the most things or post the most content or provide the most value? It was always about making the most of every second of every day. But in this gap in this space, I encourage you to spend your time trusting the process, as hard as that may be. Giving yourself space, letting your curiosity drive how you decide to spend your time. If someone followed you around for a week, what would they say you truly value? Or if you were spending your time the way you want to, not the way you feel like you have to, how would you be spending it and what would that say about what you value? Paying attention to your energy is really going to matter here. You need to know what drains and fuels you. Your old self may have kept saying yes because it aligned with your sense of ambition or you trying to prove yourself or get validation. But I encourage you now, in your current self choosing projects and people that give back energy, what would you do then?
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Think a good example here is often in these like harebrained ideas that come to us like, oh, I could do that. I recently was a part of several virtual summits and they went well. You know, they got in front of a lot of people and had a lot of great speakers and I know I got lots hundreds and hundreds of leads. Love that for me. And there was a part of me that was like, well you've done summits before. Not just spoke at them, but let them plan the whole thing. Had all of the speakers, did all of the work, put it all out there and that worked for you. Why don't you do that again? And I immediately wanted to vomit. And not because I can't. Not because they don't know how, not because they don't have the skills. Not because they don't have the resources. Not because I'm incapable. I just have no interest in doing that. And I'm sure some of you are going to feel the same way about something else entirely, but you need to pay attention to those things. Because if you keep choosing things that immediately give you the ick because you know how it's gonna make you feel, why do you keep choosing that? Why? Like, it kind of reminds me of high school when you date the guy who is so wishy washy and, like, doesn't really know what he wants because he's also a child just like you. And you just keep going back, hoping for a different outcome, even though it's very clear that neither of you really know what you want. Don't spend your time there. Spend your time on things that bring things to you. Like, you deserve to spend more time with people that energize you. I didn't even used to think this was possible because I'm an introvert. I assumed that every interaction that involved other people meant I would come home feeling worse than when I went. Like, I would be more physically tired, more mentally drained. I just thought that's how life was. No, I was in the wrong rooms. I was spending time with the wrong people. I was trying to be some version of myself that was likable. But when you're spending time on people and projects, the give back. Yes, even if you're an introvert, you're gonna feel great, perhaps even better than you realized was possible. I also want you to look at how you're spending your money. And maybe that hasn't changed just yet. But if you are actually, actually investing in the things that matter to you, how would that be different? I know for me, it was strange because it was like, well, I've, you know, paid for this, that, and the other thing for ages. Why would I not? Because it's not as important. What's important? Where do you want to spend your time? Where do you want to spend your energy? Where do you want to spend your money? The things that used to be important to you from an investment standpoint may have changed. You may want to outsource differently. You may want to, like, refuel and rest differently. You may need different therapy or more therapy. Instead of focusing on things that give you a certain status or make you more productive, maybe you're spending more money on community and the people around you and the actual city you live in. Money is an expression of your values. And when that's misaligned, it's gonna Feel weird. When it's aligned, it's going to feel great. I used to think that if you were in some kind of transition, the goal was always to get through the transition phase as quickly as possible. But the pause will reveal everything. It's not the act of slowing down that's gonna create a new set of values. It is going to allow you to reveal them. When we have space and that noise quiets down and we don't constantly have other people and other things in social media giving us feedback on who we're supposed to be, who do you want to be? Or perhaps the more important question is, who are you and who are you becoming? I have absolutely slowed down in this season, both by choice and by force. I've done a lot less. I've said yes to a lot less. But I also tried to power through, and when I tried to power through, I put myself in the hospital following a surgery that I had. So rest is important. Giving yourself time is important. You don't need to push yourself past your physical limits. Sitting in that ambiguity instead of, like, rushing back into a structure and a routine and all this stuff that is going to help you see the path. It's so good for you. It's hard to imagine that it's good for you when everything swirling around you is telling you to act a certain way, be a certain way, spend money a certain way. But, like, whatever you got to do to cut off the influences. I know for me, it absolutely meant reducing consumption of social media. I had to stop watching. Not completely. I still scroll, don't get me wrong. But I spend more time reading, I spend more time doing puzzles, I spend more time trying new recipes. And these aren't like, new things. I've always done those things. But I put myself back there so I wouldn't continue to be influenced, because I am very easily influenced, and I imagine a lot of you are, too, whether you want to admit it or not. Now, my goal here is not to have you rush to the other side, like I said. But I do want to give you an opportunity, a reframe that may really resonate with you. Because I don't always think that when you have a value shift that, like, that value has completely gone away. I just think how it is played out may change. So I think some of your values will likely still be the same. It's just how it shows up is different. Like, for example, if freedom was a value in the past, you may have viewed that as having more flexibility, having more time, freedom, having more space. To choose how you spend your time. What if freedom now means emotional peace so you're automatically choosing the less stressful option, even if that's choosing something that'll bring you less money? I'm obviously elaborating that out. But peace versus flexibility as a result of freedom or if we're thinking about something like creativity, what if that now means slow intentional creation and not this high volume output? For me, that's played out as spending more time working on writing my book than, you know, producing a ton of social content. And it's not to say it won't switch back when I'm ready to promote the book, but in the meantime I feel good about my expression of creativity, even if very select few people are seeing it at the moment. This value shift is really just an opportunity to reframe what success means to you. Because before when your values looked a certain way, if you did XYZ thing and you accomplished that, even if the feeling was fleeting, you had defined success in that manner. But what does success mean to you without influence? With you fully focused on the things and the priorities and the people and the projects and the time that matter to you, is there something that you've been continuing to do out of habit but no longer feels like a fit for you? That's okay. It's okay to change. It's okay to evolve. Values aren't permanent declarations. They're living agreements between who you were and who you're becoming. And the only way to hear clearly again is to slow down long enough to listen.
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Hey, a few quick favors before you leave. I'd love if you'd share today's episode, send it to a friend who needs to hear it, and post on social. You can show us where you're listening from, your favorite takeaway, or why someone else should listen. Be sure to tag me, Abigail says, and ossproject so we can share it. Okay. Second favor to get podcast updates and all the behind the scenes news from bossproject. I'd love if you join my VIP list. Just head to bossproject.com signup to make sure I have all your contact details. Really love this show. It would mean so much to me.
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If you'd leave a rating and review.
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It not only helps more listeners find the show, but allows us to bring on quality sponsors so we can keep bringing you this valuable content for free. Thanks so much for listening.
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Until next time, thanks for watching.