This is really one of my favorite times of year. I just love the holidays and have always loved the energy and spirit of Christmastime and the transition from one calendar year into the next.

One reason is becasue its time to start thinking about the year to come. It’s time to start planning, setting goals, getting those Core Desired Feelings all in check. It’s time to think about what you want to manifest next. It’s time to break out the workbooks and the planners and start honing in on your new year intentions.

Earlier this year my business changed dramatically. Around September I realized that I’d been hiding myself and my business on the fuzzy spiritual internet edges. I was dancing around here and there trying to figure out, from a business perspective, what would work for me.

Am I a life coach? Am I a new age woo-woo “life doula”? Am I a witch with a soft spot for Buddhism?

What is my deal? And how do I express that to make money in my business?

When I say that it’s not in the “BAWAHAHAHA I’m going to take your money” kind of why. It’s in the spiritual entrepreneur way. It’s “how can I best serve those that need what I have to offer while making a full time income so I can actually put my all into what I do” kind of thinking.

By the end of the summer I realized I had been trying too hard to package myself in a way that would make money more than in a way that would have me in a position to serve as best I could. When I started to shift that, money came without trying.

As I was suddenly having an influx of new clients and customers I did a run through of my finances and made a huge and horrible discovery. I had wasted close to $20,000 this year alone on training programs, workshops, and resources for running my business, a chunk of which I hardly touched.

Here’s the real reason this was a horrible find: none of this stuff had made a difference in my business. What did was finally getting over some of my fears and simply putting myself out there more. And guess what!?! That was free!

I wasn’t investing in growing my business by spending that money, I was investing in learning how to run a business which is something else entirely.

Investing in your business is when you spend money in a way that will actually bring you more customers, clients and exposure. Investing in learning how to run a business is when you spend tons of money on programs that teach you to do business tasks that you have no interest in learning to do but know they need to be done. The problem is that pulls you away from doing your actual work.

I don’t need to know how to run a Facebook ad campaign. I don’t need to know how to write stellar sales copy. I don’t need to know how to use LeadPages to generate leads or how to run a series of marketing emails for a product launch.

I don’t need to know how to do these things because I’m not in the business of running a business. I’m in the business of helping people learn to use magic and spirituality in practical ways to heal and improve their lives.

That said, that doesn’t mean that Facebook ads or email marketing doesn’t play a role in that. That’s part of how people find me and learn about me and what I do. However it’s a total waste of time and money on my part to do that stuff.

So I’m giving up on my business.

I’m giving up running a business and instead just focusing on my work. Instead of spending any more money on learning how to run my I’m planing to invest in a much more effective way and hire people to do these business tasks for me when they need to be done.

These are some of the best and biggest business upleveling realizations I think anyone can have. It’s also one of the biggest and hardest learned lessons you can have in your business. You don’t have to do it all yourself and you don’t have to be a business expert to have a successful online {or offline} business.

You can choose to spend the money you’d spend on a program to teach you more business skills on hiring someone that knows how to do those things already and let them handle it for you. This way the time you’d spend both going through the training and doing the business task itself can be spent on doing your actual work you’re here to do.

I know someone reading this who is also working their own business is saying: But how are you ever going to grow a six or seven figure business if you don’t know how to run your own business?

Would it surprise you to know that this isn’t a high priority of mine? I’m not in the business of making money, I’m in the business of helping people. As long as I can pay the bills and live comfortably, I’m more concerned with doing something I love every day and having time for myself than hustling 24/7 for a big pay check.

My plan for 2016, which is really my plan from this moment forward, is to focus on my work itself. Not writing sales copy, not hustling to make sales and book clients, and not learning the latest marketing strategy.

Instead I’m going to create and share and trust, because I know now from experience, that when I’m out there doing my thing and sharing from the heart the clients and the money come. And if a time comes that I desperately need a Facebook ad done, I’ll pay someone else to do it for me.

Maybe that makes it sound more like a hobby than a business but I like to think of it as truly living my purpose without distraction and without apology.

---