A Lesson in Stillness - Something Every Hustler Struggles With
Recently, I was reminded of the importance of one of my favorite bible verses:
“Be still, and know that I am God.”
Now, if you are the type that gets uncomfortable with faith-talk, I know you’re tempted to stop reading right now BUT I encourage you to stick around. Even though I credit my blessings to the man upstairs and maybe that’s just not your vibe, there’s still wisdom to be gained from the story that I’m about to share.
Go-getter, Entrepreneur, Hustler - these are all terms that name the same kind of person - someone who goes after what they want and doesn’t wait for anything to land in their lap. If that resonates with you, then you, my love, are my people. You know what you want, you go after it, and you wait for no one. As a result, you make sh*t happen.
But what do you do when you put in all your best work and you aren’t seeing any results? What then?
Well, it’s confusing AF, for one thing. But what I’ve learned over and over again (and clearly still need to be reminded of because I keep running into this same lesson) is that if we’re working super hard to make things happen and they don’t, it’s because they weren’t meant to.
Let me tell y’all a quick story
After 7 years of teaching, I decided to take a step back and take a break. This wasn’t a decision I made because I no longer have a love for education. Never that. I was just so burnt out and didn’t want to turn into one of those people who hates her job and takes it out on everyone around her.
Truthfully, I knew I was ready for something else around year 4, but life circumstances - and a little bit of fear, to be honest - kept me doing what was comfortable and safe.
At the start of what I knew just had to be my last year, we were still in the thick of the pandemic and I was teaching a class of third graders virtually. That gave me the opportunity to build up what would eventually become my new full-time gig - my writing business. Everything lined up perfectly and I was going to be able to replace my teacher salary doing what I always felt called to do - being creative and working for myself.
Quick question - y’all ever notice that whenever you start something new, you’re immediately hit with a challenge that has you questioning your ability to make good decisions? Yeah? Well, that’s exactly what happened here
After just a couple of months of working on my own, I lost a couple of clients back to back, and that was going to slash my income nearly in half. I had exactly one month to figure out what I was going to do - either land some new clients, or get a full-time job. What I definitely wasn’t going to do was wait around and end up without enough money to pay my bills.
So I did what any person in my position would do - I applied for every job under the sun.
I must’ve sent my resume to at least 30 companies just in the first day of my search. I took meetings, sent emails, messaged recruiters on LinkedIn, and guess what? I got absolutely nothing. Nada. My inquiries were either met with silence or responses that basically said “you’re really great but you’re just not right for us so we’re going with someone else.”
(Obviously, they didn’t actually say those words, but that’s how I took them).
This went on for weeks, and to be honest, I was OK with not getting a lot of these jobs, because I was applying out of desperation, and not necessarily because they were a good fit for me. Each rejection felt like reassurance that I wasn’t supposed to get that particular job and I took that as a good thing.
But then I took a meeting with a recruiter from a company that I couldn’t have been more excited to work with. They were looking for a content writer to help them engage their community of people who were trying to break unhealthy habits and replace them with new, healthy ones. Talk about a perfect fit!
I help people create healthy habits for free and now I’m going to get paid for it? Yaaassss, Universe!
They didn’t want me either.
It was a sign
The process of looking for a job is exhausting, and that final rejection really did me in. I couldn’t understand why I wasn’t getting anywhere when I’m usually SO good at making things happen.
But that’s the point here, and the thing I realized after I read that email and calmed myself down - I’m not supposed to try this hard. Not now.
I know what you’re thinking - Well, what were you supposed to do then? You gotta eat!
The thing is, I wasn’t hurting financially. Yes, losing those clients meant I was making less, but it didn’t mean we were going to starve - not even close. And truthfully, I was hesitant about taking on a full-time, salaried role because, while that would’ve given me the security of a regular, steady paycheck, it would’ve also meant losing the freedom to set my schedule and do the work I want, when I want. Once you get a taste of that, it’s REALLY hard to give up.
This is where stillness and faith come in
I always have exactly what I need, exactly when I need it. Always. It may not be what I want, or what I envisioned for myself, but I’ve never been in a position that was too much for me to handle, because that’s just not how the man upstairs works. God, The Universe - whatever you believe in - won’t ever leave you hanging. Even when you feel like things are too hard, they’re not. You’re just getting an opportunity to discover how much you can actually take on and still be OK.
What I was supposed to do was be still, and know that everything was going to be OK.
I’d already put in the work and made the connections I needed to make, and put myself and my family in a position where we could be OK, even if work was slow for a while.
Don’t get me wrong, that doesn’t mean that I had - or will ever have - permission to just sit around and wait for opportunity to come knocking. I always have a responsibility to show up and be the best version of myself, but then I have to trust that what’s meant for me will find me. Why? Because it always does.
Leaning in to where I was
Whenever we’re in a situation that makes us uncomfortable, our first instinct, especially as go-getters, is to change it. We try to fix it because we don’t like that uncomfortable feeling. But when you’ve tried everything you can, like I did, and nothing is working, then you have to recognize that you are where you’re meant to be and make the most of it.
For me, that meant rearranging some of the work I was doing to make it more meaningful, and accepting opportunities as they arose. Without me having to do anything extra, things just started turning around:
-A recruiter reached out to me on LinkedIn and had the perfect opportunity for me as a content writer for a company that works in school nutrition.
-The consulting agency I work with offered to give me more of the kind of work I prefer (content writing) and less of the work that I’d rather not do (all things social media).
-The magazine I regularly contribute to ALSO offered to take me off of social media and give me more content writing assignments.
Moving into an Abundance Mindset
When we make a million moves in desperation, we are in chasing-mode. But when we accept where we are and show up as the best version of ourselves, we are in attraction-mode. THAT is the mode I need us to stay in.
If you spend all of your energy chasing what you want, you’ll run yourself into the ground. The truth is that we don’t have to chase the things that are meant for us - they will find us when we’re in the right state of mind to accept them.
I know I just hit y’all with a WHOLE BUNCH of information, but I hope that you found it helpful. And if you ever want to talk more about it, you can always reach out to me. I love nothing more than supporting people who are on this journey right along with me <3
