Sometimes we look for the best revenue growth plan in all the wrong places when really, it was within us all the time.

Let me back up before we dive into what I mean and what this has to do with you growing your business’s revenue in unconventional or unexpected ways.

Historically I’ve been the kind of person who tried to fit as much into my days as possible. If I could see 3 friends, write a bunch of emails, do a few calls, and get a workout in I thought I was living my best life.

But this pattern of jamming things into every available nook and cranny of my schedule left me rushing a lot.

And what I realized is that the constant feeling of being slightly behind created a low-grade stress that I was using as a stimulant to feel alive.

I didn’t want to fuel my life and business from stress and pressure anymore. I wanted to find a way to feel alive that wasn’t dependent on taking too much on in a too tight timeline.

I got my bloodwork done around that time and my doctor told me that on a physiological level basically my gas pedal was broken and so were my breaks.

My body was asking for something new.

So what did I do and how did that lead to a revenue growth plan?

I leaned into the places where leaving open space and time in my life still felt unsafe for me.

I let my body experience the feelings that it hadn’t been allowed to complete yet.

I made healing my nervous system my primary focus. I gave myself permission to not make as much money because I knew that I could either tend to the deficit in my body or tend to the financial deficit and the latter is far more forgiving and more easily healed.

(Nervous system healing is so critical to our sustainable business success. That’s why it’s a monthly part of the Origin Membership.)

So I chose my body.

Here’s the miracle:

18 months later I now find myself often leaving more than enough time to do things.

A couple of weeks ago I was leaving on a trip away from my family leading an Origin Mastermind retreat and I gave myself more than enough time to prepare.

I was ready to go a full 20 hours before I needed to leave for the airport.

My supplements were even doled out in my little organizers.

I even got to watch a movie and bake cookies with my kids the afternoon before I left so I could anchor in some connection time before leaving.

As a recovering rusher, this state of calm before travel felt new, yet delicious.

And here’s the wild part: If I’d tried to start a new habit of leaving myself more time to pack and prepare, it wouldn’t have worked.

Why?

Because I would have been trying to override a pattern embedded in my body with my mind. And that’s not the way we heal.

So how did I create this new behavior?

Through expanding my capacity to feel alive without needing stress and pressure as a stimulant.

How?

Healing my nervous system, like I said before.

And you know what else is amazing?

By the end of May we’d brought in nearly as much revenue as we had in all of 2021.

The first quarter of 2021 was our highest revenue quarter of all time…and then we made more money in April than we did in all of Q1.

It’s tempting to want to pick apart exactly how we did that from a strategic perspective but here’s what I know:

There’s no revenue growth plan on earth that will work over and over again in a way that’s healthy for you if you’re layering it on top of a nervous system that hasn’t yet learned to expand its capacity.

The most important shift I made in the last 18 months was focusing on expanding my capacity to feel and therefore, expanding my capacity to let life and abundance flow through me and my company.

When we tend to our nervous systems and expand our capacity, the habits change themselves and we don’t need to be vigilant with ourselves or use motivation or discipline to push ourselves into new ways of being.

The new ways of being happen automatically because by tending to our nervous systems, we’re aligning ourselves with wellness and we can’t help but behave in ways that support it.

If I can heal my toxic habit of rushing and overstuffing my schedule, you can heal whatever you’ve got going on that’s not supporting your wellness and abundance.

Our bodies want to be well. All we need to do is support them and witness the miracles that unfold in our lives and businesses as a result.

OVER TO YOU:

What habits do you have around work that aren’t serving you? Does my story resonate? Let me know in the comments.

Kate Northrup is an entrepreneur, bestselling author, mother, and founder and CEO of The Origin Company, which reaches hundreds of thousands globally. Kate is committed to supporting ambitious women to light up the world without burning themselves out. She’s the author of Do Less, the Do Less Planner System creator, and runs The Origin Membership, which helps business owners grow their business while doing less.