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Shortly after my realization that I wasn’t broken, I found myself contemplating what I’ve been taught and believed about pricing.

The successful business coaches that I’ve worked with all say “Raise your prices! You’re probably here because you’re not charging enough for the great work you do!”

That’s the message that seems to be hammered home over and over again.

And I believe it’s true—if you’ve had some success and momentum.

Yet, the message I keep hearing is: Play a bigger game and the momentum will follow!

What if for some of us it works better the other way? What if you build momentum and bigger success follows?

I’m not letting myself off the hook here. I’m not saying that this is always the message. I am saying that this is what I heard.

And sometimes you need to build momentum before you raise your prices or set a HUGE goal.

Don’t get me wrong, raising prices and setting HUGE goals are good and necessary things.

And momentum is a necessary part of it.

When you run a marathon, you train for months in advance. Building your muscles and momentum so on that day you can run 26.2 miles, even if you’ve never done it before. You’ve spent the time training and building yourself up—gaining momentum.

Business isn’t that different. You do the shorter runs to build your business muscle and gain that momentum. You stretch yourself and learn what does and doesn’t work for you and adjust.

Extremely few people successfully run a marathon without training.

So where are you right now? Are you in a building momentum phase or it’s time to raise my prices and play bigger phase?

The story starts with a very frustrated solopreneur.

A group program that didn’t fill the way I wanted it to (and I really thought it would fill!) and was frustrated and deflated.

I spent some time healing my ego and one thought kept surfacing: What would happen if you did what scares you the most?

Which lead to the question: What scares me the most?

The answer: let everyone know that things aren’t going as wonderfully as I project.

Yep, that scared me. What would people think? What would they do? And would they try to fix me? I didn’t want to be fixed.

So, on a Friday afternoon I found myself in my kitchen contemplating this. And I wondered what I would say.

I stood up, set a timer and started talking.

Nope, too long – it needs to be shorter. After all, I’m not giving a presentation.

What I ended up with was this: My name is Evie Burke. I am not broken. I am perfect just the way I am and I do NOT need to be fixed.

As I repeated that over and over again I started to sob. And I kept saying it.

Slowly, the sobbing subsided and I was saying it with conviction.

It was powerful.

And it’s true.

It’s true for you too.

You are not broken.
You are perfect just the way you are.
You do NOT need to be fixed.

Yet, we have that desire sometimes don’t we?

The desire that someone will come in and fix things for us. Tell us exactly what to do to get through (or around) whatever situation we’re in.

And yet that’s all it really is—a situation.

It’s not that we’re broken or need fixing, it’s just a situation that we’re in right now.

And the situation isn’t good or bad, it just is.

And we might not have the tools or skills to move through the situation the way we want.

But all we see is that gap, the gaping void between where we are and where we want to be. And we assume there’s something wrong with us because we can’t figure out how to cross it on our own.

You are not broken.
You are perfect just the way you are.
You do NOT need to be fixed.

When you find yourself in the middle of something, when your frustrated and a bit lost, remember: it doesn’t mean you’re broken or need fixing. You’re just in a situation that you haven’t found or asked for the tools you need to move through it yet.

April and May were rather interesting months for me.

I spent a lot of time being frustrated and annoyed. I wondered what could have been done differently.

At one point I wanted to lay everything bare to the world—here are ALL my frustrations internet! Who’s feeling the same?!

I’m thankful for good friends that I ran the idea by and instantly got on a call with me to talk it through and encouraged me to wait.

We all need friends like that.

I spent some time avoiding tasks and thoughts, diving deep into other thoughts, and to some extent, just let myself BE.

Here are some of my conclusions:

• I do not function well without sleep. I probably need an average of 7.5+ hours each night.
  But I was averaging just under 6.5.
• Downtime is extremely important to me and my motivation. I wasn’t getting any quality downtime and what I did get was a “cheating” break when I felt I should be working (hello guilt cycle!).
• I also need time just to think, to be with myself. Not meditation (although that’s good too), but time to play with thoughts like a 5 year old might play with play-doh. Yep, it might be messy, but it’s also satisfying (and doesn’t happen without the first two in place).

I wish I could tell you that I’m now get 8 hours of sleep every night, that I schedule (and take!) downtime and that I leave myself “think play-time” and will now share the 5 easy steps so you too can have these things.

Alas, I’m a work in progress. And that’s actually a really good thing.

What I do have to share with you over the next several weeks are some of the results of my “think play-time.”

They are personal mindset breakthroughs, frustrations (and my realizations about them) and general aha’s.

I hope they spark something for you.