For years, I’ve had a running joke with my friend Sarah that we share everything except her husband, Jonathan.  We have the same Business Manager, the same Personal Assistant, and our messages share a core belief: When you create a better life for yourself – living in alignment with your values and desires – whatever you’re out to do in the world flows with more ease.  We’re definitely on the same wavelength.

When Sarah had her baby this year and made some big plans in her business, I was thrilled for her.  Yet, because we share so much, I also started to wonder if the fact that my life and business weren’t unfolding in the same way at the same time meant that I was doing something wrong.  For a hot minute, part of me felt jealous of how her life was flowing…

This is part 2 of a 2-part post about creating what you want this year.  

Part 1: Clearing space for goodness to flow (find it here)

Part 2: How to find your unique flow this year

We can easily look at someone else’s life and think “my life should look like hers”, then start trying to mold ourselves into their reality, instead of first investigating what most works with our unique flow.  When we’re trying to force ourselves into someone else’s flow, we will always feel less-than, confused, frustrated and stuck.

What I had lost touch with was the fact that my life has its own, beautiful flow, and is unfolding in perfect alignment with my own soul’s timeline.  My job is to embrace my pace.  I simply needed to reconnect to my unique flow…

Right now for me, it’s just a few launches per year, supporting the 22 women in each 3-month Freedom Mastermind, and enjoying lots of time for adventure, rest, romance, and play.  Fall and Spring are my busier seasons, and the rest of the year is more mellow.  I travel a ton, mostly for pleasure, and spend lots of quality time with girlfriends.  This is MY flow – how I feel most alive and in-service – and I love it.

Before I found my flow, I was a firehose.  I felt like I was scrambling; constantly working and constantly feeling as if I could never get my head above water.  I was a wreck, and it was wrecking my marriage, my financial and emotional stability, my health and my confidence.  I had created a business to feel more free, and felt more shackled than ever.

When you finally find your flow, everything feels smoother.  This is the true artistry of life.  {tweet it}

HOW TO FIND YOUR UNIQUE FLOW:

1. Create a vision
How do you know where to take your next step if you don’t know where you’re going?  Usually when we’re caught up in mini dramas about why life isn’t working out, it’s because we lack clarity about what we actually want, and we lack dedication to that vision.

Take a minute and look at the different areas of your life – time, play, vitality, spirituality, money, creativity, and contribution – and ask yourself: If things were how I wanted them be in this area of my life, how would it feel and what’s my ideal?

2. Explore your optimal rhythm
As women, we are literally guided by tides.  Our hormones fluctuate with the lunar cycle, artfully linked with nature. Our physical bodies are not always in creation cycle, so our businesses shouldn’t be either.  We need quiet time for rest and reflection.  Using your body’s natural rhythm to chart the rhythm of your life and work is what my friend Alisa Vitti, author of WomanCode, calls this Embodied Time Management.

Begin by noticing your ideal flow over the year, months and each day at this time in your life, and trust that there’s nothing bad or wrong with your flow.

3. Map it out
So many of us get as far as exploring our ideals, but don’t ever make the changes needed to live into them.  What good is it to know what you want but not take the necessary steps to create it?  Especially if you keep saying “I don’t have time”, it’s time to map out what you want and make it happen, sister.

Start by mapping out your year, then your months, weeks, and ideal flow for each day.  It won’t be perfect, but it will be a fantastic start and you can adjust as you go along.    My former coach, Marie Forleo, used to say “If it’s not scheduled, it’s not real”.

4. Get support
If we could do all the things we want to on our own, we likely would’ve done them by now.  Empowered planning is vital, but if you’ve found yourself slip-sliding when it comes to working your plans and honoring your flow, it’s probably time to get some outside help.  Every highly effective person I know has a team of supporters to help them stay aligned and accountable.

Consider what you’d want from a support system, and give yourself (and those you help and serve) the gift of this consistent, solid foundation.