Why life is not a “DIY (do-it-yourself)” project. The PB&J metaphor.

A common problem that I’ve noticed with many of my clients who are working towards achieving a big goal like building a successful business, achieving their next career milestone or even creating the relationship they desire is that they think it’s all on them to make it happen.

They take the entire weight of responsibility for the success or failure of their project and put it squarely on their shoulders.

While this sounds sensible and admirable, it’s often the very thing that keeps them stuck.

When you approach life in this way, you experience certain symptoms, mindsets and habits;

• You need a lot of motivation to keep up your drive and effort
• You develop an attitude of “it’s meant to be it’s up to me”
• You measure yourself against really high expectations and put pressure on yourself to constantly make progress
• You develop a strong desire for control to feel safe
• You carry a lot of anxiety and stress, which often leads to burning out

While this approach might yield some results some of the time. It isn’t consistent and it requires a lot of effort to keep pushing yourself forward.

Is there a better way? A way that will give you better results with less stress and less pressure?

One of the most helpful things that I have seen for myself is the deep knowing and realization that I am not alone in the things I do. It’s the knowing that I’m supported in all of my endeavors. There is a deeper, innate, divine intelligence I can rely on moment to moment.

This isn’t an affirmation, it’s a Truth. What do you mean?

I would like to introduce you to the “PB&J (Peanut Butter & Jelly / Strawberry Jam) metaphor.

This metaphor was first introduced to me by my mentor and coach Michael Neill.

I was in an online class and a business owner had shared that he felt stuck in the pursuit of his BIG financial goal in his business. He felt like it was all on him to make it happen, and nothing he was doing was working. He felt defeated. He asked Michael for his thoughts.

Michael listened quietly. He smiled softly.

“How many people does it take to make a PB&J sandwich?”, Michael asked.

“Um… just me?” The gentleman answered.

“Well… someone had to grow the wheat, someone had to grow the strawberries, someone had to make the jam, someone had to make the bread, someone had to deliver the bread to the supermarket…” Michael explained.

“Nothing is ever entirely on us to ‘make it happen’ on our own. The more we learn to rely on and tune into our deeper wisdom, the easier it is to navigate life, including growing a business. When we don’t align with the way life naturally works, we suffer”. Michael continued.

As I listened, I had a flash of insight.

The insight I got in that moment is that it is never ever solely on us to create things in the world. Ever. And things appear much more stressful than they need to be when I think it’s up to me to make things happen. When we can see this, we take the weight of the world off of our shoulders and we recognize that it is okay to go within for answers and it is okay to ask for a helping hand.

In fact, when I first saw this for myself, I realized how wound up I was about the progress of my own businesses. I also saw how I too was trying to ‘make it happen’ all on my own. I was trying to prove that I was strong, capable, smart and good enough. I saw how I didn’t need to prove any of those things to anyone, especially myself, and neither do you.

I let go of this unhelpful thinking. And I started to ask for support for everything that I was afraid to ask for before. The result? I experienced faster business growth with more ease and grace than I thought was possible. Amazing opportunities seemingly fell into my lap. It was as if I had gotten out of the way of life’s natural flow of good fortune.

When you are not busy telling the universe to fuck off because you think you have to do this on your own, you invite serendipity, happy coincidences, and chance meetings that will support you in ways you can’t even begin to imagine.

This is not a tool or a technique.

It’s a simple noticing of how things naturally work. And when you align yourself with how things naturally work, you tend to do better, far better with less effort and more ease.