The business lessons that come from dissonance
Curious to see how I process my own business lesson? What about when actions don’t align with values or purpose and I feel off track, off kilter, or just off. Psychology calls this dissonance. I call it my lived experience for the past 3 months. Longer than a few weeks, shorter than a year. Awkward enough for me to reconsider a lot.
The reality check you can’t ignore
What started it was a reality check with our financial planner.
“You’ve got 8.5 years until retirement. I recommend that you pay off your mortgage before or when you retire. If you do it when you retire, you will have enough to live on until Kara reaches 93 (and still have money left over). If you pay off your mortgage before you retire, you will be able to have a higher income through retirement and your nest egg will grow rather than be run down.”
When the numbers force clarity
Who wouldn’t like more money in retirement! Talk about a reality check.
1. I am less than 10 years from retirement. (When did that happen?)
2. I need to increase my income so that we can pay off our 2-year-old mortgage in 8 years.
When business can’t meet the income reality
I had to take a realistic look at my business.
Could it produce the income I needed?
Had it been able to produce the income I needed?
Did I want to do what was necessary for my business to create that income?
The answers were clear: maybe, no, and no.
I had ongoing clients from my general coaching work, but I hadn’t had a consulting client in almost 2 years.
I had spent January 2025 refocusing my business on why my consulting clients came to me, but they didn’t.
I rejigged my social media, my website, my funnels. Nada.
I had honed my avatar, done speaking events, and optimised my blogs. Nada.
Serving a struggling audience in a struggling economy
That’s when I realised. I wasn’t alone. I was serving an audience who was struggling to stay afloat in an economy that was picking off small businesses like they were targets in an arcade parlour.
The reality was that while my services were needed, and probably more than ever, the disposable income wasn’t.
How did I know that they were still needed?
My website was still getting traffic, I was still getting opt ins, but it was all on my free stuff.
I even tried the “lipstick marketing” approach and tested a low cost small offer, it got some traffic but not a lot.
I looked to others in small business, they were all saying similar things.
“Free sells but there’s not a lot of people buying.”
I swear that was the catch-cry of 2025.
Why marketing suffers when alignment is lost
I tried, I tested, I focused on a single offer at a time. I joined social media challenges. Crickets.
There’s only so much of that you can do before marketing becomes a chore.
Here’s what I know from being involved in social media marketing since 2012, once a task becomes a chore in your business, it’s a sign you’ve lost your alignment with it.
At that point you can look to outsource or revitalise.
I tried through challenges and automation, but when I looked back, I realised that I never really liked marketing on Meta. I joined Instagram as a “should” do and Facebook had become a place of trolls and rage. TikTok was another should.
It’s hard to be promote when it’s a loveless should.
When a business no longer meets your needs
What I had to realise was harder than had I lost alignment with my values or my purpose.
I realised that providing non-essential services to small businesses in a shrinking economy was not going to pay off the mortgage.
I also realised that the reason why I started my business no longer existed.
Finally, my business no longer met my needs.
Choosing to stop marketing — and why
Something had to give. It’s hard to market a service to people who don’t see it as vital. It’s also hard to market
a business when it’s no longer meeting your needs.
So, I’m not.
Marketing that is. On Meta.
I know that’s a risk. But so is forcing something that no longer fits.
Put your oxygen mask on first
I can’t show up authentically and in a way that best represents my services and meets the needs of my clients if my needs aren’t met.
Call it the “put your oxygen mask on first” for business.
Marketing has to meet the needs of the clients. Services have to meet the needs of the clients. But the business also has to meet the needs of the person running it.
Keep the work, change the container
There will always be a need to overcome imposter syndrome, understand the psychology of business, understand the psychology of social media, and variations of these.
That’s why I’m keeping my blog. I am still passionate about this work.
But through my work on passion, I know that it’s not the only way I fulfill my purpose of keeping the psychology at the centre of business. I know I can do that in the Public Sector.
So, it’s goodbye to feeling the need to post regularly across Meta Platforms. Toodles to TikTok and your need for constant chatter.
A call to reassess how your business is serving you
I’m reclaiming time so that I can focus on what drives me. Because, I deserve this in my life. I deserve to have my needs met by my business, just as I meet the needs of my clients.
Are you still building for a phase you’ve outgrown?
And if any of this sounds familiar, I give you permission to evaluate how your business is serving you and your needs, helping you achieve the life you want now and into the future.
Or are you still working at something for a phase you’re no longer in and it’s time to evaluate if that’s the best way to serve you and your clients.