Welcome to Kate With Intention with Kate Addamo, a special series within Built to Last.
In these conversations, we’ll explore what it means to build a successful business without sacrificing your health, values, home life or yourself along the way.
Today, we’re talking about the ‘shoulds’, the conditioning and the stories we tell ourselves that are running the show in our businesses and our lives and how to become more intentional.
For someone who spent almost 15 years working for someone else before starting their own business, there’s a certain type of conditioning and expectation that comes with that kind of employment.
For me, that looked like a lot of hours in overtime. If you left on time, you basically left early. If you asked permission to do something simple like go to an appointment, you were looked at like you were the worst person in the world, even though you might have forgone lunch, not taken your RDOs and worked longer hours. There was always the expectation that you could have been doing more or that you should be doing more.
A lot of that, especially for women, plays into worthiness.
We wanted to feel worthy.
We wanted to appear like we were giving.
We wanted that validation and that self-worth by doing the work and getting the praise.
And what I’ve seen is that we’ve now taken all of that into the way we run our own businesses.
The need to overgive to feel like you’re of value. That’s conditioning, not intention. – Kate Addamo
Building Something Different
When I started my business, I knew it had to be different. I’d given my all to other people’s careers and businesses, which took me to complete burnout, exhaustion and a lot of health challenges along the way. Then my health got worse less than twelve months into starting my business, which forced me to look at things differently. I had to find the simplest, most effective way to move things forward. For me, that became implementing some really strong foundations in business and life.
I got clear early on my process, my pricing and my offerings. There was a lot of work around the foundations, around self-trust and around trying to heal my health.
The conditioning shows up in our businesses in sneaky ways.
The need to overgive to feel valued.
Not factoring in time off, because if we’re not working, we’re not making money, which really says we’re not across our cash flow.
Trying to keep hustling and use AI and ChatGPT and market our way to a good business.
When there’s no foundation behind it, we can bring more in, but if we can’t hold it, there will be cracks.
You’re Allowed to Choose What Works
I had a conversation with a client recently that really got me thinking about this. She’d built a great team and a great business, but there were other things she really wanted to work on, which meant spending more time working from home. She worried about how her team and her family would see it, because they perceive that Mum can just stay home, so why can’t I?
There’s still this idea that working from home isn’t really working and that you aren’t really doing much. But working from home isn’t just a cute little Etsy startup. There are SO many multimillion-dollar businesses run from home.
You’re allowed to make decisions that support you, no matter what anyone else thinks. – Kate Addamo
For me, being intentional is practical. I don’t start work before eleven on a Monday. Fridays are flexible. I have set days with clients and set time off in the calendar every year. I never go more than ten to twelve weeks without a week off to step back. In my role, there’s a lot of giving and a lot of heavy conversations, so I need to fill my own tank to be able to keep showing up for my clients.
It Comes Back to Self-Worth & Self-Trust
So, where are you sitting in the conditioning?
I need to work 9-5?
I need to work every week and keep pushing myself to get anywhere?
I can’t possibly work from home?
I can’t take time off?
So many of those stories aren’t even ours and they don’t support us at all.
There’s a new way of running businesses and getting really intentional. We’ve ridden the wave of the boss babe and the hustle culture. We’ve seen how much it hasn’t worked.
So often the reason these things aren’t being done is a lack of self-worth, self-love and self-trust. It becomes very clear how a person feels about themselves by how they run their business and their life. Is it all for someone else, to keep giving just to be of value?
Or is it from a place of genuinely saying, “No, I matter and I love myself, so I’m going to drop the conditioning, drop the stories and the shoulds and become really intentional with how I run my life and my business.”
I see that shift in the women I work with. They’re becoming happier and healthier. They’re trusting themselves more. They’re making the moves they’ve been stuck on for a long time, rebranding, hiring the staff, setting up the processes, taking better care of themselves and being more present at home.
For a long time, I’ve watched women decide, “Well, this is my lot, this is where I’m stuck.” I’m living proof that you don’t have to stay there. It’s not an overnight fix, but gosh, I hope it’s something people choose for themselves, because it gets to be so different!
So take this as your cue to get a little curious. To look at your health differently, at what you’re valuing, at where your time and energy are going. To ask, what small change could I make to bring a little more peace and joy back into my life, to be a little more intentional and to stop letting the conditioning of past bosses, partners, businesses and family stories keep me stuck in a life that doesn’t feel good or in alignment for me.
Reactive business is exhausting. Let’s build an intentional one that aligns with your life.
Listen to Episode 08, Kate With Intention: Choosing Intention Over Conditioning, on Apple Podcasts or Spotify.
Until next time,
