Follow your gut

There’s more than one way to skin a cat…

…and you need to be confident enough to figure out which way works best for you.

During the second year of my photography business, I started working with a couple coaches who specialized in building systems and processes that fostered productivity.

My first question to them?

“What the hell is building systems and processes?”

I was a little wet behind the ears in the beginning, as you can tell :) 

Regardless, they brought me up to speed, and we began our work together.

And boy, was it a lot of work. 

A lot of it was one-and-done changes, like creating a call link to minimize the amount of back and forths between prospects and myself to schedule a consultation call.

Never thought to do that, and it has worked wonders ever since it was implemented. 

But, alongside quick-fixes like that, also came a slew of other system and process suggestions that I couldn’t wrap my head around. 

For example, they insisted that I schedule every waking minute of my day in my calendar. 

EVERYTHING - including when I brushed my teeth!

Hmm, seems excessive, but, these are the pros, so rather than poo-poo it from the moment they suggested it, I gave it a go for a week. 

Sure enough, within the first hour of the first day, I found myself resenting the entire thing because it simply felt like I was wasting time in my calendar and not just doing the things I needed to do. I already was a big fan of the to-do list, why did I need to schedule time to do them? 

When I was asked for my thoughts of the experiment, I told them that this simply wasn’t for me. 

My response was met with heavy resistance, and they insisted that successful people all budget their time wisely and keep track, and if I want to grow my business, it’s important to follow in the footsteps of those who’ve shown us the way.

Even still, I wasn’t buying it, and not because I wasn’t willing to put in the work.

It’s because my intuition told me that there is a better way than this approach for me to manage my time. 

Regardless of their objections to my decision, I’ve never attempted to schedule my time in this way again. 

Despite sticking to my guns, I felt insecure and a bit anxious about ignoring their ideas because they were established business owners and I was some punk kid off the streets trying to figure shit out for the first time. 

Looking back in hindsight, I learned an extremely important lesson through that exchange:

I needed to get comfortable with not doing the things I was “supposed” to do. 

Why? 

Because there’s more than one way to skin a cat, and it’s ultimately up to me to determine which ways resonate most and adopt those into my approach.

And, this relates to way more than just productivity and time management.

It relates to everything in life. 

The key lies in being curious to see how others do their thing, give them a try, and be mindful to whether or not that way of going about it works or doesn’t work for you. 

And…

be confident enough to do it your way despite what others around you are doing. 

Not always an easy ask of yourself, but quite frankly, when you follow your gut, you’re generally going in the right direction. And ultimately, the juice becomes worth the squeeze :)

Over to you…

Have you run into a similar situation as the one I described above? You went against the grain despite the advice you were given and found a better solution that way?

Please share in the comment section below.