Reinventing yourself in a good way can be as difficult to wrap your mind around as starting over because of difficult circumstances. The subconscious mind can view a drastic life change as a loss, even if the change is for the better.

It seems rather ungrateful for me to admit, because I’m living out my dreams right now, but I’ve been struggling a bit. I’m married to a wonderful man who gets me. We’re living on a beautiful piece of property and working toward making it self-sustainable. We’ll be doing a Creative Expression retreat here in June, and I’m excited about that.

But I’m really struggling to feel a sense of accomplishment. I sometimes feel like someone changed my operating system and didn’t give me any instructions on how the new one works.

For the first time in 28 years I don’t have to worry about making money. And there’s the rub… after so many years of needing to earn money, something feels “off” by not having “earning a living” as an ongoing objective. You might say, “Well, just keep on working and earning money. Who doesn’t have a use for more money?”

That’s true, but here’s the deal. For some time now, even before my husband came along, I felt that God has something different in mind for me than entrepreneurial endeavors. It’s not that He’s telling me not to make money, or that I can’t. But making money isn’t supposed to be my modis operandi anymore.

As a result, I have consciously downshifted. I have a few clients who I enjoy doing Amazon ads / Facebook ads for. I do a couple support groups twice a month. But I haven’t been aggressively marketing anything for a while now. I’ve been focusing on creative pursuits – expanding my musical skills, dabbling with art, working in the garden, traveling, writing, documenting, and doing a little family history research.

Anyone looking at my life would say, “Girl! You’ve got it made!” And I do.

Yet, I miss the feeling of accomplishment I get from coming up with a business project or idea, following through, launching it, and seeing the sales come in. I hadn’t realized how much my sense of accomplishment came from my work until recently.

Most people would say, “Well, then, work. Work is a good thing.” Yes, work is a good thing. I do work. I write, I work in the garden, I work on my family history or creating music or a piece of art. But none of that is tied to making money. After years of entrepreneurship, I wired my brain to believe that only a project that generates money has value.

Sure, logically, I know that isn’t true. My value is not tied to my ability to make money. I understand this on a logical level, but my habit patterns are hardwired to think I must make money. My auto-pilot is to figure out how to make money out of anything and everything.

Perhaps it is because I felt like I had to justify the things that I wanted to pursue … my interests, the things that brought me joy… by monetizing them. I couldn’t justify exploring creativity or doing something fun for the sheer joy of it. I had six children to raise and provide for. What right did I have to do something for the fun of it? How was that justifiable? For me it wasn’t, so everything got monetized. I am the queen of monetization. I do it without even thinking about it.

So here I am trying to re-wire my brain and my habit patterns. I’m even trying to rewire my body’s chemical makeup. Creating a new product, a successful product launch or a sale gives me a dopamine hit that can be very addictive.

I’m almost like an addict trying to break a hard-core habit. I’m struggling to find alternative ways to find a sense of accomplishment, acknowledgment, value and joy without it being associated with revenue generation.

Here’s my game plan:

To Do List

I know I enjoy checking things off a list. That gives me a sense of accomplishment. So each evening I’m going to prayerfully decide what I will do the next day. I will write those things down and then work on them. This list is most likely to include a lot of the creative things I’m already doing. But having written them down and crossed them off, I will actually take the time to celebrate the fact that I did them.

Report to God

Each evening I will report back to God on what I accomplished and seek His approval on my day – allowing Him to give me acknowledgment.

Serve Others

I’ve been feeling very strongly that I need to be working with people more. I’m good at helping people get past their mental blocks, old stories, overcome losses, believe in themselves, find their purpose and have the hope and faith they need to take action toward their dreams. I love doing that. I’m good at it. And, frankly, whether I make a dime doing it, I absolutely love it. I get more satisfaction from doing that than I do hearing the kaching of a sale.

Each day I will prayerful ask God to lead the right people to me that I can help. I have also restructured my energy therapy / mentoring services to a “pay what you will” exchange.

My hope in doing this is that I can embrace a sense of accomplishment in everything I do and reap more of the joy from exploring a life of freedom and creativity.