Destroy What You Like To Make Room For What You Love

There comes a time when you need to make a hard decision to let something go in favor of the future vision.

It could be time to end a relationship, retire a service or stop creating some recurring content.  It’s a challenging moment because you’re letting go of something that has worked for you in the past, for the unknown of the future.  One of my all time favorite metaphors is “you need to cut back the roses to encourage new growth.”

The other day, walking my dog through my neighborhood. My favorite rose grove had been hacked down to mere nubs.   I was so sad at the loss of these vibrant flowers greeting me on my daily walk.  And then I realized, this is that metaphor in real life action. This is actually cutting back the roses to encourage new growth.

Although this is a metaphor I’ve been using for ages, in my own life and with my clients, it was that moment that it struck me just how challenging that moment is, to cut back something already so beautiful, to create something more beautiful.

Especially when you’ve worked so hard for something, it’s easy to want to freeze time at the moment the roses bloom and things start to be successful and work together.   It’s easy to get stuck in ‘good enough’ when ‘freaking fantastic’ is not quite in sight yet.   And yet, if you want your business to be the thriving empire you know it’s capable of, it’s time to cut the dead weight, cut back the roses and prepare for deeper levels of growth.

Winter is the perfect time to do this, things are a bit quieter and you’re in seasonal alignment.  The winter is a time of going to ground, being inside and planning + plotting for what to do with Spring.  There are seeds underground that have not poked above ground yet, but they are developing.   I’m starting to mix metaphors here, but the point is, what do you need to cut back to make way for bigger growth?

Here are a few questions that will help you answer that question.

• When you think about your business in 5 years, what are you doing?  Do all of your services point you in that direction, or is one of them a detour?
• Is there a bigger offering, service or collaboration you’ve been wanting to create, but feel like there’s no time and space in your business right now?
• Are you spending time on something that’s not converting to sales or audience engagement?
• Is there a service, offering or creation that you feel is outdated and not the most up to date version of you + your business focus?

How this is showing up in my business, is I want to have deeper one on one relationships with my clients.  In service of my big vision, I’m closing down my Red Hot Clarity Sessions in February.  They are aimed at helping people figure out WHAT business to do, and where I want to focus my energy + strategy is helping current business owners level up and increase their business profitability.   I’m going to leave the important work of figuring out WHAT your business is to other experts, and dive deeper into creating powerful offerings + support to my clients.

Which, reminds me of another red hot piece of business advice I quote all the time:

Just because we can, doesn’t mean we should.

So what are you cutting back, and more importantly, what are you creating space for? I’d love to hear in the comments!