By Jessica Miller

Since the school-yard days, you’ve been conditioned to look outside yourself for the ‘right’ answers. So it’s no surprise that as an entrepreneur, it can be easy to get swept up in giving away your power looking for the step-by-step process, cheat sheet, or strategy that will ‘guarantee’ your success… 

After more than a decade in business consulting, I’ve learned that true and lasting success is an inside job. 

And that rather than looking to your peers, your coach, or even your industry leaders for validation, you need to look within.

Because the truth is:

Business is all about relationships, and underpinning any successful relationship is the relationship you have with yourself.  

When you start with YOU, and who you are in business — without trying to fit into someone else’s mold of what business ‘should’ look like — you’ll tap into your innate wisdom and show up for business more authentically. 

And when you pair your uniqueness with an intention-fuelled strategy, that’s when you hit the sustainable sweet spot — building lasting momentum for a business with the kind of purpose, financial freedom, and energetic spaciousness you’ve been working towards. 

Before you decide on your next strategy, take time to explore each of these 4 fundamental relationships: 

Relationship #1 – Your relationship with YOURSELF 

The more you know yourself, the more you’ll be able to build a business that’s truly aligned with your strengths, your lifestyle, what it takes for you to feel nourished and rested, and what lights you up. By deepening your self-awareness, you’ll also be better positioned to preempt any potential roadblocks along the way. 

Since business doesn’t occur in a silo – consider the following across your entire life;

• What makes you ‘you’? (you may like to explore human design, astrology, strengthsfinder, MBTI, Enneagram & other personality tests to build out this profile)
• What is your soul calling for? (explore your future vision, values, dreams, and desires) 
• When are you in energetic harmony? (identify what energizes and drains you, how your cycles influence you, and when you do your best work) 
• What is your relationship with things like money, success, visibility, work, and receiving support? (being in business is guaranteed to trigger any beliefs and conditioning you’ve been holding onto, so knowing where you might be sabotaging yourself is the first step toward getting out of your own way) 

Relationship #2 – Your relationship with YOUR BUSINESS 

Regardless of whether you operate as a personal brand or collective, you are not your business. Your business has its own identity and soul that you get to be in a relationship with. 

Anchor into your business (you may like to meditate, visualize, pray or build an altar), and consider; 

• What is the energy of your business asking of you? (is there a certain feeling, size, model that wants to be expressed?) 
• How is your conditioning impacting your relationship with your business? (notice how the effects of existing in a patriarchal, capitalist society might be playing out in your business) 
• How much is ‘enough’ based on your current season of life? (knowing this will emancipate you from the constant pursuit of ‘more’)
• What does effective, sustainable, healthy growth look like for your business?

Relationship #3 – Your relationship with YOUR COMMUNITY 

Your clients and community are not commodities or metrics; they are people — cultivating deep, genuine relationships will not only support you to create the kinds of offers that magnetize your soulmate clients and then turn them into repeating, raving, and referring fans, it’ll also enrich your life in general.  

With your soulmate client in mind, consider;

• How can you be in a deep relationship with those you most want to serve? (the more tapped in you are with your community, the better positioned you will be to meet them with the ideal solutions to their problems)
• What do they most need? (and how does this align with your unique gifts?) 
• How do you want to lead your community? (what would it look like to lead in a way that’s safe, inclusive, and honors the innate intelligence and sovereignty of the people you support?)
• What does an exceptional customer experience look like for you? (how can you ensure you’re giving from the overflow of your grounded wholeness vs. over-delivering as a compensatory, people-pleasing strategy) 

Relationship #4 – Your relationship with YOUR WORK 

When you’re in business, it’s easy to become bogged down with all that being an ‘entrepreneur’ entails and lose sight of the creative spark that likely led you to start your business in the first place. By relating to your work as your own creative canvas — a place for you to follow your curiosity, expand your authentic expression, and experience the joy of sharing your craft, you’ll find your unique voice and open up the channels for your best work to flow through you. 

Get into a relationship with your work by considering;

• How are you showing up for your work? (‘how’ you do things is far more impactful than ‘what’ it is you’re actually doing – exploring things like attachment-style, any perfectionistic tendencies or boundary issues, and the interplay of masculine/feminine dynamics can help you understand the energy you are bringing to your work.)  
• How is your environment impacting your work? (are you working from home and blending the two? Is your space messy and cluttered or clean and inspiring? Pay attention to how your environment makes you feel.) 
• How can you honor all of the phases of your projects? (the Fertile Void is equally as crucial as the Visibility phase, which is equally as important as Culmination and Emergence — notice which phases you frequently skip over and explore your relationship with what that phase represents for you)  
• How do you show up when you confidently embody and embrace your expertise?

When you are in a deep relationship with who you are, your business, your community, and your work, that’s when EVERYTHING feels ON — your business, your life, your magnetism. 

And while it might feel slow to be in this process because you’ve been so conditioned to chase results, cultivating these relationships and focusing on alignment before taking action will ensure you’re heading in the right direction and taking the next right step for YOU. 

Your path won’t look like anyone else’s. It’s not meant to. 

But, there’s nothing more sustainable than intentionally creating a soul-nourishing business on your terms. 

Now we’d love to hear from you. Which of these relationships are you excited to connect with more deeply? Share with us in the comments below.

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Jessica Miller is a Business Strategist and founder of The Inspired Mark. Every month she leads virtual coaching sessions inside The Origin Membership for Empresses “down under” in Australia and surrounding areas.