One thing I love about gardening and business is the feeling that you’re making stuff happen.
You might be setting things into motion and working hard at it…
Making plans, taking action, and being in charge of it all.
But at the end of the day, this feeling of control over things is an illusion.
Just because I put a seed in the ground or put an offer out there, doesn’t mean I’m responsible for what happens after.
I need to keep showing up and doing the work to see the results of my efforts.
Watering the seed or making sure that our cats don’t scratch the seedling out.
If someone is interested in my product or service, I need to answer their questions along the way and deliver on what I promised.
But the results aren’t things that I alone create.
The plant has its own life force, just like your business has its own momentum and direction.
It sure feels good to bring a basket of homegrown veggies in for dinner.
Just like it feels good to hear about a client’s success with your product or service.
But it’s a co-creation process.
Ultimately, a customer might walk away or a plant might not grow where you plant it.
There’s also a whole lot of luck involved…. because pests could come in and ruin your lettuce. Bugs could sneak into your product’s codebase, or your email might land in the spam folder.
So how do we handle the need for control?
We want to feel like we have agency over the work we do.
Reminding ourselves that we should do the best we can in the realm where we have control is key.
Then if we can learn to let go of our expectations about how everything will turn out, we’ll be in a much better place.
The best part?
If something doesn’t work, we can always try again or experiment with another approach.
There’s always another growing season.
