Drama Queens – Do you attract drama into your life or business?

One of my amazing mentors posed an interesting question on a teleclass this week: Do you attract drama in your life or business?

Your first impulse might be to deny it. But what is theater really?

The dictionary definition of “drama” is a state, situation, or series of events involving an interesting or intense conflict of forces, or excessively emotional performances or reactions.

Well, I don’t know about you, but if that’s how you define drama, I certainly can’t say I haven’t experienced my fair share.

And if you’re starting or running your own business, chances are you have, too.

What does the theater do to us? Well, drama creates stress. And unless you’ve been living under a rock for the past few years, you’ve probably heard about what stress can do to your body. A quick refresher:

“The body does not distinguish between physical and psychological threats. When you are stressed by a busy schedule, an argument with a friend, a traffic jam or a mountain of bills, your body reacts as strongly as if you were facing a life and death situation. If you have a lot of responsibilities and worries, your emergency stress response may be “on” most of the time. The more your body’s stress system kicks in, the easier it is to trip and the harder it is to turn off.

Long-term exposure to stress can lead to serious health problems. Chronic stress disrupts almost every system in your body. It can raise blood pressure, suppress the immune system, increase the risk of heart attack and stroke, contribute to infertility, and speed up the aging process. Long-term stress can even rewire the brain, leaving it more vulnerable to anxiety and depression.”

Yuck, right? I know that none of us wants to face these physical and emotional risks.

So how do we prevent ourselves from becoming another stress-related statistic? The answer lies in the simple question: Do you create drama, attract it, seek it out… are you a drama addict?

This requires a true examination of conscience to arrive at the answer.

The first place to look is your past to see if there are any patterns you can see in your life: patterns in your relationships, your work experiences, your family, your financial situation, etc… Most of us continue in the same types of cycles in life until we become aware of those cycles and make a firm decision to change their experiences and the results of those experiences.

Do you remember Albert Einstein’s famous quote about cycles? He said: “Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.”

I’m here to say that drama is the most destructive cycle you can get caught up in as a business owner. In addition to the terrible physical and emotional havoc it can wreak on you, it can also undo all your hard work, make progress difficult, if not impossible, and can even ruin valued relationships.

Any way you look at it, drama can hurt you, your business, and your bottom line.

So where is YOUR drama?

In your environment? Is your office a mess? Do you have clutter in your workspace? Are you months behind in your submission?

In your wallet? Are you up to date on your accounting? Do you have a box, a file or a stack of receipts that you always forget to do something with? Do you have unpaid bills or an unbalanced bank account?

in your relationships? Do you have someone in your life who absorbs all your energy? Someone actively discouraging or criticizing you? Do you have a relationship plagued by arguments, resentment or weighty expectations?

Can you see where I’m going with this? I think if we’re all honest with each other, we all have some area or areas where there is drama. In fact, many of us have probably learned to live with it day in and day out, its weight pushing us down. We have learned to ignore the warning bells, the adrenaline rush, the frustration and just live with the drama as if it were an inevitable part of our lives.

Drama shouldn’t be an inevitable part of our lives on a regular basis. True, life always changes and always sends us obstacles and tragedies. We all have our crosses to carry at one time or another.

But accepting daily drama and pain is unhealthy and will prevent you from true success, true happiness, and living your truth.

If you’re on this blog, you probably want success, happiness, and the chance to be your true self, so it’s time to address the sources of drama in your life.

Some of them are easier to deal with than others, but you can really deal with any type of drama.

If your office is a mess, you can spend an afternoon cleaning it up and getting organized. Better yet, pay someone to do it for you on a regular basis, and spend your time doing activities that help you move forward. It’s also much easier to quickly eliminate chaos and drama when you bring in someone who isn’t emotionally connected to your drama. She may be unemotional and efficient at cleaning up the mess, while you may be stuck in emotional connection with the things you need to clean up.

If you are facing money drama, it can be overwhelming, but it can be removed. To get started, hire a good bookkeeper to manage your books and record receipts weekly or monthly. It can also balance your accounts for you and keep you on top of bills that need to be paid. Pay him to do his job and focus his time on what he does well, which in turn will lead to more income and less financial drama. However, that does NOT mean ignoring your finances. Make sure you stay connected with what’s going on and have your accountant educate you weekly on all your accounts.

If you are dealing with drama in your relationships, that can be more difficult to deal with, especially if the person bringing the drama into your life is a spouse, parent, child, or best friend. This is a very complicated topic for a blog post, but I urge you to think of ways to take the drama out of those relationships. It may require counseling or creating space for yourself each week, or it may ultimately require you (unfortunately) to end the relationship. If you have people in your life who are toxic, that will always undermine your attempts to achieve the life of your dreams. You need to surround yourself with people who believe in you, who are your fans and champions, and who give you honest feedback that will strengthen you and help you progress (honesty is NOT the same as criticism or harsh words).

I know a lot of this is easier said than done, but all you have to do is START. You just need to take baby steps and make sure you renew your commitment daily to eliminate drama in your life and business. Taking the first baby step is a move to break the cycle of madness. It will open your horizons, free you to a new future and you will find that you have renewed energy, enthusiasm and strength, everything you need to find the brilliance of your business!

Good luck and let me know how each of you do!

ps If you need any direction, you might want to consider my programs. My clients who want more support and a tribe of their own often look to my training programs and bootcamps, which provide the tools, support, and encouragement that accelerates them to success and accelerates their journey to happiness and entrepreneurial brilliance. http://www.jessicaeavesmathews.com