If you're looking for the 'right' way...

Spoiler alert: There isn't one. There's only 'your way.'

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The ‘right way’ 

Standing on the green court, racquet in hand, wearing my sparkling clean white sneakers and skirt as required by my coach, I studied her moves as she showed me again how to serve. She must’ve shown me at least five times. Add in my other coaches, and that move was probably taught to me dozens of times before my tenth birthday. Ditto for ballet: pirouettes, jeté, assemblé. And for piano: the hand placement for chord progressions in C-major. And, in high school, for fencing: parry, lunge, and riposte.

I was a student. And I remember how focused I was, studying my teacher’s moves, and how intent I was to mimic them until my own moves became the same or ‘right’ as theirs. "Practice makes perfect,” they said. That’s what I thought I was ‘supposed’ to do, so I was off practicing and perfecting my moves until they were completely in line with theirs was the goal.

I now know that my goal should’ve been to view their moves as a sample and mirror them as one part of the process of finding my own moves, but no one ever told me that.

Yet, as you look across sports and music, it’s clear that while in every domain there are some critical foundational ‘moves’ - principles, ways of doing things - the true art lies in finding your expression of those moves. 

In fact, what we value most in society are those athletes and musicians who have taken those baseline ‘moves’ and adapted them, rejected them, mixed them up, or, even better, done all that and created their own signature moves.

Finding our own moves and creating our signature moves is gold; it’s what makes us each unique. It’s what makes one business different from another, one piece of music from the same genre distinctive from another; it’s the spice of life, isn't it?

Yet, just as when I was a child learning tennis, piano, ballet and fencing, most of us crave instructions to help us find ‘the way’ and, especially, ‘the right way.’’ For example, the ‘right way’ to be the ideal candidate for a job or save for a big purchase. And, even deeper, the ‘way’ to recover from burnout or trauma or to reimagine an aspect of their life, career or business, as my Substack is about.

Women and the search for the ‘right’ way

I find this deep desire to know ‘the right way’ to accomplish or achieve something particularly present in women. This is because school, family and society have often conditioned and encouraged us over and over throughout our lives to do the ‘right thing’, get the ‘right’ grades, do ‘right’ by our parents, find the ‘right’ partner, raise our children ‘right’ and more. 

Further, we are usually taught to look outside ourselves for that ‘right way’ rather than inside. It is as if the best answers and that ‘right way’ are held by others until that one magical day when we finally hold those ‘right’ answers, having learned them by mimicking the ‘right’ steps that others took until ours are the same. Writing this down makes me angry about ever allowing myself to buy this b.s.!

As

Elin Petronella

says in her recent article, which, when I read it this morning, fit perfectly with my writing intentions for the day: 

Maybe we all try too hard to find the one thing, the perfect recipe, the ideal strategy, the best therapy. Everything and anything external in the hopes that it will solve an internal struggle or in this particular example, the inherent struggle to succeed at something (whether to succeed at getting better, reach more balance, work-related success you name it).

I don’t know about you, but my experiences of pursuing the ‘right’ way to achieve my dreams by looking externally have often left me feeling less than. Less ready, less confident, less able, and more stuck. The pursuit of a ‘right’ way can, in my experience, kill momentum and wreck your dreams. And, the pursuit itself is “unbearable.”

Maybe what makes it unbearable is the belief that it has to be done in a certain way, by following certain experts, rather than just roam wild and free and explore the arena? (Or maybe the thought to be wild and free is just as unbearable to some!?)

I’m working with a group of early-stage female entrepreneurs right now. These women are experts in their respective fields who are new to entrepreneurship or who are intentionally managing their careers with an eye to creating their own ventures. They don’t want to grow their careers in the traditional sense; they want to do it on their own terms, exceptionally, and ensure it delivers impact and income. And they’re committed to being healthy high achievers–no more being led by overwork, tolerating toxic people or demands, and putting themselves last.

The program is called Project Opus, and, over ten weeks, we take the long view and build towards our Opus, our life’s work. (I’ve written a different article about why you should think about your purpose, business, and career in the long term, as your life’s work can be beneficial, especially amidst the unpredictability of today’s world.) 

We’re using a four-stage process I’ve developed to support us in moving from here to ‘there,’ the future state they desire for their life, career, or business. 

My process is informed by evidence-based research and ancient wisdom on the mindsets, habits, behaviours, energy, and more that can support people in moving from ‘here’ to ‘there. ' It is also informed by my lived experiences and what has worked as I’ve supported others in their journeys. Of course, my process is just that—a process; of course, there are other processes out in the world.

I’m intimately acquainted with the upsides and downsides of being an early-stage entrepreneur who either looks for the ‘right way’ to build a business or completely roams free. To be honest, neither is great. Both approaches can challenge your sense of self and self-confidence, make you second-guess your intuition, impact your energy and mindset, and interrupt or inhibit momentum.

That’s why I’m inspired to support others with a process, frameworks, and structures to help set the scene for their freedom and learning.  

Connect

This week, we’ve started the first stage of the process, which I call Connect. The purpose of this stage is for each person to move towards clarity—not necessarily to gain full clarity just yet, but to move towards their desire for clarity and to connect with that desire regularly, to get curious about it, to be present with it, and, if possible, to cultivate that connection regularly.

The suggestion is that they each begin to carve out some time, each day and each week, to go inward and slowly adopt new habits, mindsets and/or behaviors, which means they are also taking some small steps. 

Modern research and ancient wisdom support the idea that clarity is best achieved by going inward, reflecting, adopting new habits, stepping in, and taking action, beginning with small steps.

Of course, the ‘way’ each person might best ‘connect’ with themselves is different: journaling, meditation, time in nature, gratitude practices, and exercise, to name a few. We’ve even crowdsourced some habits to share what supports each of us. Likewise, the small steps will differ.

As

Eliza Butler

put it in her recent article (thank you

Elin Petronella

for referencing Eliza’s work):

There’s no cure for our human experiences. There is only curiosity. Only acceptance. Only presence. There is only moment to moment recognition of where we are on the scale from openness to closedness.

Being curious and present allows us to work towards clarity. And clarity is paramount because when we have it, we know what we want.

Self-care, including sleep, nutrition, play, mindfulness, movement, and community, also plays a role because clarity is difficult to find if we are not well.

Yet, how one moves from a state of not knowing or a state of confusion to a state of clarity can be radically different for each person; there is no ‘right’ way except the ‘right’ way for you.

Many factors will influence how you best ‘go inward’, including your starting point, for example, your experiences to date, your willingness to connect, and which mindsets, habits, and behaviours are already in place, as well as which might need to change, and which new ones might best support your unique self.

So I guide, model, and encourage the sharing of tools and best practices; after all, there’s so much power in learning from one another. And, then, people “roam free” to experiment and find what works best for them. As they do, I provide differentiated support for each person 1:1 and in the group context as they reflect, process, and find ‘their way.’

For some, experimenting is an uncomfortable process, which makes sense because new habits feel strange when you try them on for size. 

Just like learning to play tennis or piano, it can be challenging to learn what helps you achieve clarity or to figure out what first steps to take. Perhaps what’s worked in the past no longer does.

Examining your mindsets, habits, and behaviors isn’t easy. Getting rid of old habits is downright difficult. Trying out new ones can be equally uncomfortable because new habits feel strange when you’re first trying them on for size. All of this is more evidence that there couldn’t possibly be one ‘right way.’

Still, already in our group, folks have wondered, ' Am I going after it ‘the right way?’

I like to think of a cooking metaphor: mise en place, which is the term for laying out ingredients before cooking.

I bring to our kitchen many of the ingredients critical for, at least in this phase, gaining clarity; likewise, each participant contributes their own. Although we may begin with a similar set of ingredients all laid out before us, the real wonder is the dish we will each create and the internal or creative process that will enable each of us to create that dish.

From experience, I know that each of our final creations will look different, even if similar ingredients underpin each. This is the magic of finding our own way, of creating our own moves.

What I love about this approach, which I consider to be quite feminist, is that there is absolutely no ‘right way.’

I am a guide; I do not have the answers. Instead, I bring suggestions drawn from research, best practices, personal experience, and expertise, and I aim to create the conditions by which each person has the space and support and cultivates the audacity to find the answers within, to find their ‘way.’ 

From finding ‘the way’ to finding ‘your way’

You might think that all programs take this approach. But that’s not the case for most programs supporting female entrepreneurs; I developed this approach based on my experience.

When I began my first business, I sought a lot of advice, and, as such, I was also given a lot of unsolicited advice. Given the consistency of advice, I definitely bought the idea that there was a ‘right way’ to build a business. 

I read The Lean StartUp and several other books on entrepreneurship and business-building. Given my work in gender equity, I noticed throughout that women’s stories were few and far between in these books; nevertheless, I persisted.

I learned about all the different business areas that I ‘had’ to attend to, resources I ‘should’ use, which activities could scale, and how to position myself and my business in a pitch and pitch deck to raise investment.

Over time, I realized that the mainstream ‘way’ of ‘building a successful business’ is based on a male paradigm stemming from the startup space.

The books, articles, and programs mean well - but they fail to acknowledge that they are built on this male model, which has been the primary model in recent history for documenting and defining entrepreneurship and ‘successful businesses.’ But just because it is the primary model does not mean it is the ‘right way.’

When I speak with female founders - or women who might want to start their own business - their words, their plans, their ‘way’ tell me that many of them (depending on their product and business ideas) will reject that male model - and this is not because the odds of obtaining investment are stacked against them or because they’re worried they won’t succeed within that paradigm. 

Women are recognizing that the mainstream male model doesn’t align with who they are, with the multiple elements of their identity that they are juggling in addition to being business owners, with how they envision engaging with their customers, and, more fundamentally, with how they want to build their business.

Women have always improvised their lives and composed them in ways that are alien to men. So, as we continue to see more women reject and exit the traditional workforce to build their own businesses, I am genuinely excited by the opportunity we have as a society to witness, learn, and embrace the many ‘ways’ that truly exist to build our success. 

I look forward to the day when women widely accept that whether you choose to roam free or adopt tools to gain clarity on your life or business, there is no ‘right way;’ there is only ‘your way.’