I did literally fail at ALL of my goals for 2019 and, upon reflection, this is a VERY GOOD THING.
I have a lot to say about how wholeheartedly and enthusiastically pursuing our goals can move us towards our dreams - regardless of it we reach the goals or not.
So.... as I shared yesterday, I failed at ALL my goals for 2019.
Last week I did a Circle of Reflection + Release in the Creative Dream Circle - we got together on Zoom to reflect on 2019, to explore and honour all the things we learned, all the ways we grew, and to release the things that we don't want to carry with us into 2020.
This call was difficult for me to do.
As a space-holder for this kind of work, my own practice becomes a part of the container... the call can't be a container for exploring things that I can't face myself. So i had to face some hard stuff...
All of my goals for this year crashed and burned by spring.
And as they crashed and burned they took some other things with them. My website was hacked multiple times and though I could recover the content from backups, by the end I couldn't re-build where I was, so I had to move everything AND my SEO was lost.
(SEO = Search Engine Optimization. 10 years of blogging and building my SEO meant that Google used to send me thousands of new people every month so I had new customers coming to me all the time without me working at finding them which is a total dream-come-true way to run a business. That's gone now.)
The company that I moved my website TO (Simplero) promised me that my SEO would improve in the move and instead it was completely trashed. For months I expected them to do the right thing and fix it while they just ignored it.
And then some other tech stuff went wrong and I was so focused on re-building while also continuing to do my work in the Creative Dream Circle - that I forgot all about my goals for 2019.
I had to sit with how painful and scary and embarrassing it was, to have ALL of my goals fail like this. But once I'd done that, and spent time grieving and offering love to the parts of me who felt wounded by this experience, I saw everything more clearly.
The crash, burn and destruction of so much of my work that happened this year was an opportunity to do things differently.
There are times when what you have needs to fall apart to make space for what you want.
Sometimes this is obvious. You've got to dump the crappy partner if you want to be able to find a good one.
Sometimes, like in this case, it's more subtle.
The day, last spring, when I saw that all this stuff I had spent so long building had all fallen apart, I was devastated. I still remember how that felt, feeling like it was all gone, and there was no more hope.
I felt like not only had I failed at my dreams but I'd failed every person I'd taught over the years
Because if I can't keep my dreams going then how is there any value in what I am teaching? Am I just leading people astray? It was very hard.
But I only stayed in that place for 1 day, because as I sat with those feelings and tried to bring light, comfort, love and safety to those parts of me who needed healing so badly - I saw that none of it was true.
It wasn't gone. I hadn't failed. There was still oodles of hope.
And then I found the biggest truth: I built all of this. I can re-build it all better now.
When that idea came to me, it felt different. It felt true. It felt like a doorway and as I went through the doorway I saw that I had built everything in my business without knowing what I was doing!
I was trial-and-erroring my way long. I was following inspiration and doing creative experiments. And the results of all of that turned into the business I built.
Ten years of trial and error and inspiration and experiments have actually taught me a lot.
I DO know what I'm doing now, in some ways anyway. I certainly know TONS more than I knew 10 years ago.
And then I knew that I could re-build SO MUCH BETTER.
Then I knew that the falling apart was a gift because it created space for me to re-build.
None of this was easy. Dreams aren't easy.
Oh course, I was in a good position to have some parts of my business fall apart because other parts did not fall apart. I still have long-term Creative Dream Circle members and I even had wonderful new people finding us and joining - just not as many new people as I usually get.
So yes I made less money this year.
But I'm a saver, and I am in this for the long term, so I have savings put aside especially for helping me through any lean times that may come up. I know that of course there will be ups and downs in business so it just makes sense to save for the down times... though it was hard to actually USE some of this savings because that made me feel like I was failing again.
But now that I am through that part, I feel so grateful to have had that space to focus on re-building. To really explore how to make all better.
I mean - my own experience in my business: my schedule and routines and how I show up for the work and how I am supported in that. And also my customer's experience with my business. We do DEEP transformational work so it is SO easy to get caught up in resistance or tangled up in fears and doubts and just give up. How do I build an even sturdier container for their process of growth and healing?
These explorations gave me a whole new way of relating to my work and I am SO EXCITED about the changes I have made as a result.
Where I am now feels LIGHT YEARS away from the goals I had set for myself at the end of 2018.
Had I accomplished my original goals for 2019, I don't think I'd be in such a rich place with my dreams right now. Working with your dreams means tapping into something bigger than yourself.
That part of me who set goals for 2019 was ready to GROW! I am so grateful for everything she did because it did lead me to here.
Are you ready for some year-end reflecting?
My Creative Journal Prompts for the New Year are on my blog right here.
It's a LONG series of prompts for reflection back on 2019 and looking ahead to what you want to create in 2020.