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So let me ask you something… when you are speaking to your audience, or posting about, or sharing your work, in any way shape or form that you do… are you speaking to people who WANT you and your work, or are you speaking to people who NEED you and your work? And even if you don’t directly post about your business, just bring up that image in your mind, and bring up that way that you are relating to the people who you want to be your clients and customers.
And if you are speaking to people who NEED your work, is that even the kind of people that you would MOST enjoy to work with?
And are you listening to YOUR own needs and wants here? And are you listening to your own needs and wants on this subject??
Or are you just following prescriptive advice on “what works best” or what you “have to” do or “who you have to be” and “how you have to do it”?
Because if you are someone who is looking to feel like your work is WANTED, and in good hands, and is going to be really appreciated, and put to best and most powerful use… then you need to be talking to those people. To people who are empowered and who choose from a place of inner resonance and authority with themselves, with peace about their own choices. That’s what people who are in touch-with and in service to their wanting DO.
And likewise, if it is your preference to want to work with and serve those who NEED your work, that’s going to be a very different experience, and a very kind of different person, with different motivations, and you will need to be talking to those people. To people who are in a state of need, and need their problem solved, and their needs met, and base their buying decisions on what solves their need. Because that is what people who are in touch with and in service to their needs do.
But what YOU need and want to get clear on is, do I want to work wtih people who NEED me/my work, or do I want to work with people who WANT me/my work?
It seems so subtle, but it is absolutely HUGE.
Because, for example, if you are an introvert who loves their creative free time, there is going to be part of you who is energetically running for the hills from anyone who NEEDS you or your work to solve or fix their problems. Because that would eat up all of your freedom and sense of freedom to have people needing you.
And even if you are an extrovert who loves being with people, there is a big difference between the energy of ‘want’ and the energy of ‘need’.
If you have grown up deriving your value from being needed, you may feel the only way you can be loved and be successful is by being needed… but maybe what is happening in your life right now is evidence that you are ready to have your own needs met and to be wanted by people who have their own needs met, and are choosing based on pure desire.
If so, you are going to be motivated by desire, and by the feeling of you and your work being WANTED from someone who is making their own empowered choice for THEM. And you are going to want to be in touch with the fact that them choosing your work has nothing to do with you, and is all about them choosing what they WANT FOR THEM. Just as you are choosing what you want for YOU by knowing the ways you want to work and who you enjoy to work with and allowing that. And allowing that choice for yourself.
That way you get to still feel free, and so do they, nobody “needs” the other to be okay, and the whole thing feels a thousand times lighter. win win.
OR… if you are someone who LOVES to work with people, and who is filled up by working with people who are more in a state of need and to help solve problems, and heal, and to remedy things, and to turn things around, to comfort people, or even to ‘save’ in some way (this gets villianized these days in our modern-therapeutic culture but everyone has a hero complex of some size, don’t beat yourself up for it, it’s everywhere in our stories and media and history so it’s very human to want to do that and want to help eachother) just be aware that if that is what you enjoy.
And P.S. that’s not the only way to help, there are many ways to help, there are ways to help from empowered places, from disempowered places, help is all around in all the flavors, okay. So just be aware of that, and IF this is your flavor and what you enjoy, then LIKE a hero, you will also need to accept the responsibility that comes with that, which in this case is taking on responsibility for other people’s state of being, needs, feelings, and/or pulling someone out of a mess.
Of course you are NOT responsible for others feelings etc. but you choose to take on certain responsibilities and will feel like you are if you are in that ‘they need me’ state of mind.
Because just like with people who choose based on wanting/desire, these people also choose based on what they NEED FOR THEM. You can serve people’s needs without taking on responsibility for them and their feelings but it requires a great deal of clarity on that and a decision that that is not going to be the case and you’re going to have the necessary boundaries or whatever is the case for you.
But my point is that BOTH ways exist. Both ways are needed in this world at different points and times. This is just a matter of you getting clear about what YOU really want and need for YOU. Because you will NOT let yourself proceed if you are in inner conflict about this.
If I am being honest my guess is that you are here because you are probably ready to be chosen from a place of empowered choice and wanting, or from a place of pure desire now, maybe in the past you have been chosen and derived your value from being needed, but now you’re probably feeling the shift happen where you’re wanting to be chosen from a different place, rather than from the belief that you will fix something or fill a hole in someone else’s life, but like I said, there’s always going to be both.
There’s always going to be both needed and available, some for some of you that will be your resonant YES, that is your big WHY, and that is your heart and souls calling, and if so, then honor that. So whatever your answers are here, just be honest with yourself about that, and honor that choice.
For me, as I’ve shared with you in the past, at a certain point I started noticing how the things that always worked out the best for me were the places I was being honest with myself about what I really wanted and not trying to defend it or make me into a “good girl” around it, I noticed the people who got the most benefit and biggest change from the work that I do was from the people who felt empowered enough to work it…
To take that work (be it courses or design or art direction or consulting or books or oracles) and believe in themselves, and run with it, and back themselves the same way I do. And that freed me up to have ample time for the things I love the most, like creating! And in turn freed up my clients and students to do more of the things they love the most too. To bolster in times of doubt, but to trust and KNOW, deeply know, that they have got this, to see and hold that knowing of their incredible power, and my own, even when all outward evidence suggests otherwise and the doubt creeps in.
I have chosen, and choose, to keep centering myself in that rooted connection to my knowing despite whatever storms may arise, committing myself to seeing the flowers burst into bloom out of those rains, speaking only to the empowered part of myself and my clients, and giving the scared part whatever it needs to get through the storm… the truth is wants and needs are always walking hand in hand, but when it comes to your business you can decide the direction you want to lean into more, you can decide your speciality and who you best benefit, and who benefits most from your work, and your owning of that truth will be the biggest service you could possibly give.
So many business owners I see think that the version of them who is out there having the MOST fun and feeling the MOST free and trusting themselves the MOST is NOT the most wanted, needed, loved or SUCCESSFUL part of them, in fact most of them fear they will be punished for this in some way. But I take great joy in reminding them that ALL OF THEIR SUCCESS has been built on them trusting themselves and following their passion and their joy!!
There are just areas of that, that evolve over time and come more into a place of freedom and empowerment over time. Yes, they may have felt their worth is derived from making things better for others, and not themselves, and yes, they may have believed their success came from that, but their success always came out of what they decided to be and believed they could do. It came from them first, and then the world responded to that.
So if that is you, and you needed to hear that today, here’s your sign. 😉
And if you’d like to play with that, you can head on over to sunnichapman.com/work-with-me I suggest using this page like an oracle, go to the page, see what thing pops out at you the most and speaks to your heart and soul the most, or lights up for you the most, and that’s probably the one for you. 😉✨
xo,
Sunni
