Are You Doing Your Best Work Right Now?

I’m going to ask you a question, but I want you to answer without thinking about it for more than a few seconds.

Ready?

Are you doing your best work right now?

1 second…

2 seconds…

3 seconds…

And the answer is…

If your instinctive answer was a resounding YES, you might as well go back to your day and keep doing that best work.

But if it was a no…

Or, an ‘it’s complicated’: you sometimes do it, but can’t get enough of it; you keep getting sidelined by non-ideal work; or you’re gripped by too much fear to put your best work out there…

Let’s dig into that.

There is a thing that happens when your expertise business is successful: you keep getting asked to do more of whatever it was that built your base.

Over time, that can turn into a gilded cage if you let demand become the primary guide to developing your craft.

At some point, you’ll look up and wonder why this business you’ve built so painstakingly isn’t delivering what you want for this stage of your life.

It might be throwing off plenty of cash, but you’re not getting the right new challenges and feeling vaguely uneasy.

Or your revenue has been more of a roller coaster and you’re just trying to figure out what’s next—you’re starting to wonder if how you’re spending your time now is how you want to continue.

Or maybe you’re seeing a life transition coming—the nest emptying, a semi-retirement or something intriguing that has captured your energy and imagination.

Adjusting our business and our lives to new dreams and realities is a challenge every entrepreneur faces at different inflection points—and we ignore it at our peril.

I’ll be writing more about this, but in the meantime, I’d love to hear about your transitions—the good, the bad and the ugly…