The Tipping Point.

I am noticing as a Coach how I can become affected by the impatience of my clients. In this turn can trigger my own impatience with my own business progress. This is an unwelcome piece of parallel process and frankly a hinderance to my own professional development and that of my coachee’s if I even dare to engage with it. 
Instead my job is to hold the faith. It is a harsh reality that most businesses do not turn a profit in their first year. This is not because no work is done, it is because business start up is costly, initial outgoings are high, lessons learned take the long route and because it takes time to establish your reputation of being an authority in your field.
In choosing to change your professional direction, you will have inevitably factored in your survival budget and ways to financially sustain your start up. What you may find is that you have neglected to invest in your emotional support around your professional transition.
It takes time to reach the tipping point. It takes time for word of mouth to take effect. It takes time for recommendations to begin to ping back to you. It takes time to build the network of colleagues who can cross-refer work to you and it certainly takes time for people to respond to marketing emails. And then when you finally win some work, you have to do that as well,  on top of everything else……
In list above I see there is a lot of ‘give’ and very little ‘gain’. That is not only financially and perhaps physically draining, it is also really emotionally draining too.
So my first question of my coachee’s has to be “what are you doing to nourish yourself?”. It does not feel like a priority to invest in yourself when your turnover is low, but, this is EXACTLY when it is essential to do so. Undernourished, you will have no way of sustaining the output and certainly little enthusiasm to bring to completing the work you worked so hard to win.
Where is your business mentor? Where is your supervisor? Where is your coach that you worked so hard with in order to dream your dream? Where is your business plan? Might you revisit it and remember what sparked you in the beginning. When was the last time, on your impoverished wage, that you did something just for you? Not for your family or for your business, but for yourself? 
I had real resistance to investing in myself, yet recently, stubbornly and even somewhat sulkily, I invested in some Coaching. So added to my business mentor, my supervisor, my friends, family and colleagues that support me in so many diverse ways, I now have a ‘creative coach’. Frankly, it felt like getting in touch with my creative muse was the last thing I have the time, money or enthusiasm to do right now. And yet, even in the committing to do it, in the answering of the preparatory questionnaire, I can feel a stirring of the core inspiration that will carry me through times of drought.   
If I’m ten years time, you are not turning a profit, then something has truly gone amiss, but in the short term it’s essential to keep your support network close. Pull in more support than you ever anticipated needing and remember to keep drawing on it until you reach the tipping point. 
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