Leading with love requires you to move intentionally and with care. It's an act of gentleness, kindness, and well...love. What would your life, your business, your relationships look like if you allowed love to be your north star, your guiding force? If you're ready to fill your life with more love, grab your journal and get ready for another reflection filled episode of Inner Warmup.
Welcome back to Inner Warmup where your inner work begins. My name is Taylor Elyse Morrison, creator of Inner Workout and you as always are our expert guest. Thank you for being here today. The question that we're talking about is what if love was your guiding force? What if love was your guiding force? And for those of you who maybe skipped an episode here or there, this month, we're doing a back to basics on self-care, the way that Inner Workout talks about it - listening within, and responding in the most loving way possible. And I know that it is really easy to dismiss love in conversations about personal development and self improvement. It's much more popular to talk about growth and hustle, and working harder, and optimizing and being more efficient and effective. And it's not to say that you can't talk about those things at times. But for these next 10 minutes or so, I really want to bring love into the conversation.
I've been having this happen outside of the podcasts with one of the coaching clients that I'm working with.
She is in the process of building a business. And the question that we've been asking, as she's working through this is, what if love was a guiding metric in building your business? What would that look like? What would it look like to filter your business decisions, to drive your business actions towards there being more love for everyone involved? And some of you might already be thinking, oh, wow, that would be so cool. What would my job or what would my business look like if love was the guiding force? And some of you are probably rolling your eyes like, okay, why are we talking about this? Something that I've found to be more and more true, as I get to know this community better is that we tend to be over achievers and perfectionists. The people who are there for everyone else, and are caring a lot, but managed to make it look so easy that we've tricked ourselves and the people around us into thinking that
oh, everything's so easy for them, they should be able to handle more, they can do more, just give it to Taylor, or to *insert your name here*.
It actually makes me think of Encanto. The character Louisa, who is this really buff woman and literally can carry the weight of the world on her shoulders, but it starts to wear on her that this is the only thing that's true about her. All of that to say, if you're listening to this podcast, you're already doing enough. In fact, you are likely doing more than enough. And that is why I think you should consider this question, what if love was your guiding force? Because when you're doing this equation of self-care, this process of listening within and responding in the most loving way possible and you get to the point where you can listen, you can hear what you need.
You need to rest, you need more play, you need to consider what your next step is. You need to get more in touch with your creativity, whatever it is that's coming through in your listening, have conversation with your partner, your friend. You figure okay, here's the need, now how do I lovingly respond to that need, that want, that desire? There's a couple questions you can ask yourself. Can I do this with love? Whatever option it is that you're considering, can I do this with love? And if I can't do this with love, what can I do instead?
So sometimes I think about, if not these exact questions, similar questions when I'm thinking about adding a new product to the business or adding a new commitment to my plate. I asked myself, okay, can I do this with love and again, it's not always this exact question but I’m thinking, what does this mean for me?
If I say yes to this client, if I say yes to this opportunity, would I be able to show up in the way that I'm committed to showing up for myself and for the people that I care about? And if I run it through and realize, you know what, no, I wouldn't, I would be overbooked. I'd be stressed all the time, I wouldn't be present in my other commitments, or I'd be really stretched thin. Okay, I can't do it with love. What can I do instead?
So maybe I can't be on the associate board for this nonprofit but I can volunteer at their gala once a year or I can make sure to give an annual or a monthly donation. I can't have plans every night of the weekend as an introvert, but what I can do is make sure that I'm initiating plans with my friends. I'm just spitballing. These aren't necessarily personal to me but what it can look like to say, okay, I can't do this thing with love. I want to see everyone but I can't do it every night. I can't be out Friday and Saturday and Sunday. So what can I do instead?
I can host people in my home. I can make sure I'm initiating hangouts during the day. I can set up a monthly gathering with a specific friend group so I can make sure that we see each other…the second Saturday of every month, brunch at my place. That's what it can look like to allow love to be your guiding force as you're crafting these loving responses. So I want to give you some time to think about this. What if love was your guiding force? And it might be helpful for you to add a qualifier to that. What if love was your guiding force at work? If you've been feeling really drained or burned out, or any strong emotion around your work, ask yourself, what if love was your guiding force at work?
You could add the qualifier of “in my relationships” or maybe there's a specific relationship - in my relationship with my mom, in my relationship with my partner. What if love was my guiding force in my days or in my weekends or in my weekdays? It would be helpful for you to narrow in and think about love and loving responses as it relates to a specific relationship or area of your life or period of your life do that.
Remember, this is always your time to reflect. So add whatever qualifier is going to make it most useful for you. So again, that question is what if love was your guiding force? I'll turn it over to you.
Thanks so much for reflecting with me. You can always DM Inner Workout on Instagram if something came through that you want to share. Or if you want to be part of a larger group conversation, come join us in the group chat. We would love to have you! Thank you for your time and as always thanks for your expertise. Take care!