Aligning Your Business And Your Being

This is the third and final part of DesignGood's special series on alignment and why it's essential for your business's success. Today we're going to delve into the aspect of alignment that entrepreneurs most often overlook: your being.

Before we do, though, let's quickly recap why alignment is important and what we've already covered in this series.

Being in alignment simply means honoring the essential truths about yourself and sharing them with the world. When you are in alignment, everything just flows.
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In Part 1 of this series, we talked about what it looks like to have an aligned business:

• You are doing the work you truly love and excel at.
• You work only with people who give you joy and who see your value.
• Your work reflects your highest values.

In Part 2, we explored the qualities of an aligned brand:

• It communicates your passion and purpose.
• It makes clear why you are uniquely qualified to deliver the results you promise.
• It speaks directly to the highly targeted audience you want to work with.
• It demonstrates that your services speak specifically to their needs. 

The final part of alignment is being and self. We tend not to give this area enough attention. But when your business is so closely intertwined with who you are and what you want to create in the world, alignment between your work and your life is the key to happiness and fulfillment.What does this kind of alignment look like?

You Are Always Your Full Self

You have likely had a job at some point where your "work self" and your "real-life self" were very different. But you can't achieve the thriving business that you want with this kind of disconnect. Being in alignment means that you can be yourself at your business. At the same time, you effortlessly live your brand and its values outside of your work. Or you can think of it this way: Would someone who's close to you in your personal life say that your business and brand are "so you"? And would a client or customer who gets to know you personally say that you really "walk the talk"? Do you live the brand you’ve created, and is there plenty of YOU in your business?

Work AND Life Make You Happy

We've already talked about how your business must allow you to do the work you love. But it should also allow you to create a personal life that's full of what lights you up. If you find great joy in spending time with your dogs, but your business keeps you so busy that you barely have time to walk them, then you are out of alignment. If you need to regularly immerse yourself in nature, but your business keeps you tethered to a city, your alignment is off. Even if your business is going well right now, shortchanging your personal joy for work will eventually hurt the bottom line. Aligned businesses and brands are created intentionally to support the life you want to live. 

You Feed Your Inspiration and Energy

No matter how much you love getting things done both at work and in the rest of your life, you have to regularly recharge to stay at your best. Being in alignment means knowing what replenishes you and making space for those things. The ways you recharge will look different depending on what's going on in your life. If you've had a lot of Zoom calls lately, getting back into alignment might mean choosing a book that feeds your curiosity this evening instead of a Netflix binge. Or, if you're feeling stuck at work, maybe you need to take a day trip for a change of scenery. 

You're Always Growing

We entrepreneurs are restless. We thrive on new goals and challenges. We're at our best when we are learning. If your business and life look much the same now as they did a few years ago, you might be out of alignment with your need to evolve. What do your dreams look like now? What would move you toward them? Maybe it's time to evolve your business's service offerings or take a class that opens new opportunities. Or maybe you need a change on the personal front. Pursuing a passion that seems unrelated to your work can actually bring new energy to your business. So can connecting with new people who better reflect where you want your life to go.

Nurturing yourself in all areas of life keeps you sharp and makes you even more valuable to the people that hire you. 

Get Aligned With DesignGood

I hope you come away from our series on alignment with a fresh sense of confidence and possibility about your business. If you'd like to talk more about creating alignment in your business, brand and being, let's chat. Just fill out our Get Started form to schedule a call with me.