Today, we’re going to talk about pivoting and how to do it gracefully. Have you ever felt stuck in life? Maybe it was a relationship, a location, a job, a particular company? I’m guessing that you’re nodding or saying yes. Well, how do you get unstuck when life is not what you imagined it to be so that you don’t end up somewhere or with someone miserable 10 years down the line? I hope that after sharing these four pieces of tried and true advice you feel much more empowered and equipped to take a pivot when you need to.
What a Pivot Is
Okay, let’s start by talking about what a pivot is. I wanna give you a visual. Let’s think back to that friends episode where Ross and Rachel are carrying a couch up the stairs saying pivot, pivot. There’s lots of ways to think about pivoting, but the actual definition of a pivot is turning or rotating on an access. In basketball, they say to keep one foot anchored and then pivot. The foot that’s the anchor remains still, but they pivot and shift around from that place.
Pivot From The Core
Now, I want you to think about you at your core and your authentic self is what is pivoting. You are staying anchored to your authentic self. Your authentic self is 99.999% likely not always going to be happy and thriving to the max in the same place forever and ever. So let’s talk about what is a pivot in business, because I’m gonna be talking about both life and business. They’re almost interchangeable. A pivot in business means fundamentally changing the direction of a business.
When you realize the current products or services aren’t meeting the needs of the market, the main goal of a pivot is to help a company or a brand such as yourself, improve revenue or survive in the market. The way that you pivot your business can make all the difference. We’ve all seen ungraceful pivots, where someone’s doing one thing one day, and another thing the next day with no transition. It just looks messy. That’s where pivoting gets a bad name, but there are ways to pivot that will leave you feeling confident and it’s less confusion for your audience. The more confident you are in your pivot the better.
1. Give Yourself Permission to Pivot
If what you are doing now is no longer serving you take the freaking pivot. I don’t care if the last pivot you took was yesterday. Since there are no rules to this, if you see an opportunity for personal or professional growth, go for it. Okay? Don’t feel like you need someone to give you permission. There’s always gonna be people that are disappointed. There’s always gonna be naysayers. If you need a permission slip, I’m giving it to you.
Sometimes we sit there with indecision and wondering what if. We end up making the pro and cons list for months, or years. Time is passing you by and life is way too short for that. So give yourself permission to put a seed with your pivot. That’d be a fun, little offer, proceed with the pivot. Hmm. My wheels are turning anyway. Okay.
2. Choose to stop being stressed and unhappy
If you listen to my last Maverick Momprenuer episode, we talked about my word of the year for 2019 was to reflect. We’re in relationships, jobs, communities, religions, or whatever and totally stressed and unhappy. Choose to stop that. You don’t have to keep yourself on that hamster wheel.
Are we gonna be happy all the, all the time? No, but you at your best is going to benefit everyone in your sphere of influence. It’s going to put you in a state of overflow to be able to serve and love others at a way higher capacity. So choose to get off the hamster wheel that’s not getting you anywhere.
If something is toxic to your soul and you’re stressed, you’re anxious, you’re unhappy and pivoting to a place where you can thrive and grow and flourish. There’s nothing wrong with that. So no more excuses for why you need to stay where you are, do what you do and be unhappy. It’s time to pivot your excuses to execution. Take that new path.
3. Let go of the need to justify and explain your pivot
You don’t have to explain or share anything behind your pivot if you don’t want to. It’s between you, God. I know it’s hard on social media and online in general, because things are so public. So, when we make a pivot in life or business, it’s like: “How am I gonna keep that under wraps?”. As long as you’re honest with the people who know who you are, they’re going to love you and support you no matter what, even if they don’t understand completely. So just let go.
I know this comes from people pleasing. Plus, over-explaining and justifying is also a trauma response. So if you have had any, you know, any trauma in your life, which hello, I feel like most of us have let you know over explaining. And justification is a response to that. And you don’t need to do that. You just need to make decisions and pivots that are in alignment with your integrity and who you authentically are. And I promise you, your life is going to absolutely change and magic starts to happen when you just continue to move through life in that way and give other people by your example, give other people the permission to do the same.
4. Set A Timeline For Your Pivot
So when you’re thinking about making a pivot of some type, set a timeline to explore your option, pray, trust, talk to trusted advisors or mentors, and give yourself time to let go of the past. Then just go start the next leg of your journey. Give yourself a deadline…an actual deadline for when you are going to make this happen and just do it. Do it scared. It’s like a muscle, right? Anytime we are trying to get stronger, we have to push past the point of discomfort. If you’re lifting weights in the gym and never really have to push past any discomfort, you’re never gonna grow. Whereas if you pick up a 20 pound dumbbell and you crank through as many as you can, and you almost almost go to failure, you’re gonna have muscle growth. Eventually you’re gonna be able to take on more and more. You’re kind of setting yourself up to increase your capacity. So set a timeline, do it scared, know that it’s gonna flex your pivot muscle.
Let’s Wrap It Up
All that to say, you owe it to yourself to course correct when necessary. I don’t care how long you’ve been in or done, whatever it is. When necessary, you are allowed to pursue happiness. You have permission to walk away from whatever or whoever no longer serves you. Especially if there’s harm involved, you have the rights and agency to change your mind as you evolve and grow through your beautiful life. It is your life and it’s way too short to not take the pivot and pursue what sets your soul on fire. I promise from that place, you are gonna be unstoppable.
Yearning to find out even more about how to make the pivot you’re in need of? Check out the full episode on the Maverick Momprenuer podcast HERE.
