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Hi ,
I was out watering my garden this morning, thinking about the patience that summer asks of us.
While there are harvests that happen for sure -- the garlic is starting to come in, the tulsi is popping, and the zucchini are beginning to show off -- much of the work of this season is about tending.
Watering, weeding, fertilizing, watering, weeding, and so on... without much material reward.
Our gardens ask us to be patient with them. To keep showing up day after day, even when it seems pointless. Even when you're left wondering if there really are potatoes down there or if the peppers will ever start fruiting.
Our gardens ask for faith.
And so do our businesses.
As entrepreneurs, most of us are really good at spring. We love the fresh new ideas, the new growth, the possibility.
And many of us are also not so hot at summer. We become easily distracted or discouraged when the things we've dreamt up in our heads are taking "too long" to come to fruition.
We think we're doing something wrong when the money and the followers don't show up immediately. We get bored in between the planting and the harvest and come up with a million different reasons why we should actually be doing something else with our time. Something with a bigger payoff and dopamine hit.
If this is ringing true for you, I want you to know that this is not your fault. You've been raised in a culture that chases after instant gratification and overnight successes. We've been taught to want things fast, to want things easy, and to want things NOW.
But that's not how nature works. And it's not how business works, despite what the Facebook Biz Gurus will try to sell you.
True, sustainable growth takes TIME. It takes faith and patience. It takes being willing to show up day after day, watering and pruning the tomato plants, so that you can be swimming in tomatoes in a few months.
It takes showing up in your customers' inboxes and social media feeds even when nobody is buying, teaching classes to three people, and selling only a handful of things at the farmers market. It takes wading through the days when you wonder if it's going to be worth it in the end, and holding on the part of you that says YES. That believes in your ability to birth amazing things.
So here in high summer, I want to invite you to remember that just like pumpkins can't fruit in spring, that some things in your business are going to take time -- and this doesn't mean you're doing anything wrong.
To borrow a phrase from Thoreau, it just means you need to have faith in the seeds you're planting, and be willing to show up and tend them.
I'd love to know, -- do you struggle with the summer season as well, either in your garden or your business (or both?) What's the "tending" you have the hardest time with?
With the plants,
Stephanie
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