Society is super fast-paced and has a huge hard-on for achievement.
(US society at least, and I am willing to bet that there are others too.)

This puts a lot of pressure on us to perform, produce, and profit. To achieve our goals quickly so we can move onto the next one.

In terms of money and entrepreneurship that looks like – Hit $5-10k in your first couple of months, then $100k by the end of your first year, and a million dollars by the end of your second.

I can tell you my journey looked nothing like this.
And I know a lot of people who this was not how it happened for either.

Even the entrepreneurs that I know a bit about and that have big brands and businesses now, they didn’t have this kind of progression either.

Don’t get me wrong.

Some pressure can be good. It can be motivating. Sometimes even exciting. But the amount of pressure that gets put on us, by us and other people and society as a whole, is not healthy.

It leads to burnout, to stress disorders, to harm of ourselves and the people around us too.

So, let’s work on letting some of that go.

In my journal, on the very first day, I wrote – “You do what you can with what you’ve got because you have to survive, first and foremost.”

During beta sessions with a client, the same idea came up, but it was phrased a bit differently – “Do what you can with where you are at and build on it when you can.”

See, this client was comparing how they wanted their launch to go to that of a big celebrity (whose name starts with the letter B and has a whole hive of fans). When this celebrity launches things, there is mass excitement and things sell out quickly.

But this celebrity has a whole team of people, and probably a large team that maybe even consists of hundreds of people.

They also have a large following that they’ve built up since they were a child.

My client, does not have those things. This isn’t to say that they can’t have a super amazing launch, because they can. But they don’t have the time nor the energy to do the job of a HUGE team.

They have to do what they can with where they are at and build on it when they can. Because they have to survive. And they can’t survive if they are running themselves into the ground trying to do all of that.

Same goes for me.
And same goes for you.

First and foremost, you have to survive. And to do things like prevent burnout, we start with what we’ve got and with where we are at. And as resources become available to us, we can build on it.

So don’t beat yourself up. The pressure you are feeling is likely not solely coming from you. You are feeling the weight of society.

Give yourself permission to live outside that box, or step outside those lines. Give yourself permission to be a human being not a production factory.

Plus, you’ll get there a lot faster if you aren’t stopping every couple of months because you are burnt out. Trust me. I’ve done that.

All of that is to say, again, Do what you can with what you’ve got and build on it when you can, because first and foremost, you have to survive.

If you like this kind of content, get on my email list! Sign up for The Weekly Shift Newsletter and get updates on new episodes, peeks into my journal, opportunities for further growth, and more goodies!

Sign up at shelbymelissa.com/the-weekly-shift-newsletter or click the link in the show notes!