Accounts: Being Accountable For My Choices

accountsIt’s always a balance running a spiritual business. My passion might be for my mediumship, teaching or sharing healing energy. But every now and then I have to come down to Earth and prepare my accounts. There is a financial bottom line to what I do. Sort of.

Prior to working for myself I worked in  a corporate world. Most things were tied to a financial bottom line. There was a great pressure to be accountable for under and over spend. Financial budgets and targets were the focus of most of the attention when measuring if something had been a success. I have to say there weren’t many freebies or give aways. Interestingly, this generated a great air of competition. The belief was that I had to compete for scarce resources. And I also had to be accountable for them by making sure they produced the greatest return for the investment. Year or project end accounts were the focus of very much time, effort and attention.

When I moved into working for myself I though for a while I had left all of that accounts work behind me. Until I started to recognise that I had to have some sort of focus on the bottom line. Otherwise I would end up going out of business fairly rapidly. Yet it felt uncomfortable. There was an implication that if I was helping someone – not apparently applying my abilities – then I had to give that assistance free. It took me a long time to work out that I was seeing my work as less valuable because it was coming from my spiritual beliefs. And my genuine desire to support anyone I could. Of course I also had to work my way through the assumptions people make about what I offer. It’s surprising how many people expect that I can give them what they want for free.

I find I have to account more for what I do than many other occupations would. So it’s not helpful to me when even I actually feel I should be doing things for free.

That’s another implication of being an energy worker, medium or therapy practitioner. I have a part of me that wants to rush around tending to everyone who might need a boost. That inner force, added to the external assumptions, held me back from assessing my abilities in a meaningful way until I started to recognise that I had a business to run. If I wanted extra training, to extend my services wider or to have an internet service I would have to have an income. My passion is my spiritual work so it was clear the spiritual work would have to be the source of my income. To account for my choice to focus on the spiritual work I also had to acknowledge that it was what I was good at.

Meaning that I eventually started to value my work better. Keeping an eye on the ways the money came in also let me make informed choices. My accounts showed me which of my services was most in demand. That gave me choices. I took control of what I invested my time and energy in so that people got what they wanted. I also found that by paying attention to my accounts I had the choice to do things for free anyway. The choice to charge or not was up to me. So my business has evolved into a balance. I balance what I gift with what I require a payment for. And I am the only one who chooses when I will offer something at a discount, for free or for full charge. Those decisions help me manage the competing demands on my time and energy.

Like any other business I review my accounts to help me make better decisions. It’s not all that different than the corporate world I used to work in. But my decisions can also flow with my spiritual principles. Cash flow, profit, competition with other suppliers can be set aside. The bottom line has shifted. I do run my business to cover my life expenses and so that it pays it’s way. And I also run my business to give as much as I can. I’m delighted to say that somehow this year it has all balanced out again.

Day 886 of my blogging challenge