Aligned, Not Hustling: The Energetics of Building a Business You Actually Love
What if growing your business didn’t mean constantly doing more?
What if there was another way—one that felt more easeful, more aligned, and moved at a pace that supports the life you’re creating?
Lately, a lot of entrepreneurs I know have been craving more space. Not space to check out, but space to think clearly, get intentional, and move forward in a way that actually supports their life and energy.
At Sattva Creative, we believe that meaningful growth comes from clarity, alignment, and intentional action, not nonstop effort.
In this post, we’re exploring how you can approach growth differently: through energy, mindset, and grounded structure. We’ll look at how yogic principles like Ishvara Pranidhana and Sankalpa can support your business, and how simple shifts in how you plan, work, and show up can help you build something you actually love being in.
The Call for a New Kind of Growth
If you’re running a business today, you’ve probably been told, either directly or indirectly, that success comes from doing more. More content, more offers, more emails, more launches. And for a while, you may have followed that path. You’ve shown up, stayed consistent, and tried to keep pace with what you thought growth was supposed to look like. But at some point, that cycle can start to feel more draining than energizing.
It’s not that you’re afraid of hard work. You’re committed, passionate, and capable. But something about the constant pressure to do more starts to lose its appeal when it no longer feels connected to a clear purpose or the life you want to live.
Lately, we’ve seen a shift. Many of the entrepreneurs we spend time with aren’t asking, “How can I keep up?” anymore. Instead, they’re asking, “What’s actually worth showing up for? Where should I put my focus?”
They’re thinking less about how to pack more into their schedules and more about how to make space for what matters. It’s not about doing less for the sake of slowing down; it’s about choosing what feels aligned and sustainable. It’s about moving with intention instead of defaulting to urgency.
Growth doesn’t always mean doing more. Sometimes, it means simplifying. Getting honest about what’s working. Creating space to recalibrate. That’s where energetic alignment becomes practical—not just a nice idea, but a way to work, decide, and lead with clarity.
Your Business Is Energy Work
There’s a lot of talk in the business world about strategy, and yes, strategy matters. I say that not just as someone who appreciates a good plan, but as a strategist myself. I wholeheartedly believe in the power of thoughtful, intentional strategy to move a business forward.
But the truth is, even the best strategy won’t get you far if your energy is off.
When you’re stretched thin, second-guessing your decisions, or feeling disconnected from your work, it shows. You might be doing all the “right” things on paper, but still wondering why things aren’t flowing the way you hoped.
The energy behind your business—the way you feel when you show up, the clarity you bring to your work, the intention behind your choices—shapes everything. When your energy is aligned and steady, your actions tend to feel more focused and purposeful. You can sense what’s essential and what can wait. You move with clarity instead of pressure. And when something isn’t quite right, you’re more likely to notice and adjust before it leads to burnout.
This doesn’t mean everything will always feel light or effortless. Business asks a lot of us. But noticing how your energy responds to certain tasks, decisions, or even client dynamics can offer real insight. It helps you see what’s truly supporting you—and what might need to shift.
If something has been feeling off lately, try asking yourself:
What drains me, even when it looks productive?
What fills me back up?
Sometimes the answers are subtle. But they’re always worth listening to.
Start with Sankalpa: A Rooted Intention for Your Business
In my yoga teacher training, I was introduced to the concept of Sankalpa—a Sanskrit word meaning a heartfelt, soul-aligned intention. In traditional yogic philosophy, a Sankalpa isn’t a goal in the way we think of goals in modern business. It’s not about striving, fixing, or forcing change. It’s about remembering. Reconnecting with a truth that already lives within you, and letting that truth shape how you show up in the world.
This practice has stayed with me far beyond the yoga mat. In fact, it’s become one of the quiet foundations of how I approach business.
Lately, I’ve been trying to be more mindful of not just what I’m building, but how I’m building it. There’s a lot of noise out there about growth, visibility, and performance. It’s easy to get pulled into chasing more—more content, more offers, more traction—without pausing to ask: is this aligned with the kind of business and life I actually want?
That’s where Sankalpa comes in. When I sit with it, I’m not asking what I want to achieve. I’m asking what wants to be honored. What wants to be lived through my work. It’s a way of anchoring into what really matters, so I can move forward with more clarity and less noise.
This isn’t about adding one more thing to your to-do list. It’s about giving yourself a touchpoint. A steady place to return to when things get loud or overwhelming.
If you’re feeling pulled in too many directions, consider this a gentle invitation to pause and reconnect. Your deeper intention—your Sankalpa—is already within you, waiting to be remembered.
Then, Surrender: Letting Go with Ishvara Pranidhana
If Sankalpa is the quiet truth that lives in your heart, Ishvara Pranidhana is the art of trusting how that truth unfolds. It’s the practice of surrender, not in a passive or defeated sense, but as an active, intentional release of control. In yoga, Ishvara Pranidhana is one of the niyamas, or observances, that guide how we live and move in the world. It invites us to soften our grip, trust in something greater, and allow life to unfold with wisdom we may not yet understand.
For me, this has been one of the hardest, and most necessary, practices to bring into business. As someone who believes deeply in strategy, I love a good plan. But I’ve also had to learn that no matter how thoughtful or intentional my plans are, I can’t control the outcome. And I’m not meant to. There are seasons where effort doesn’t equal results right away. Projects evolve in unexpected ways. People take longer to respond than we’d hoped. And sometimes, what we thought we wanted shifts mid-process.
Ishvara Pranidhana asks us to keep showing up with care and clarity, but without trying to micromanage every result. It reminds us that aligned action and surrender can co-exist. That we can be rooted in intention without needing to force a particular timeline or outcome.
In business, this might look like giving a launch room to breathe instead of constantly tweaking it behind the scenes. It might look like trusting your messaging even if engagement is slower than you’d like. Or knowing that a pause or pivot doesn’t mean failure, it might just be alignment taking shape in a new form.
Surrender doesn’t mean inaction. It means releasing the illusion that we can control every piece of the process. It’s a practice of trust, timing, and letting your business unfold as it’s meant to, not just as you originally imagined it.
✨ Reflection Prompt:
What is one intention you want to root into more deeply in your business right now?
And what’s one place where you can soften your grip and trust how it’s unfolding?
Rituals, Rhythms, and Realignment
It’s one thing to set a meaningful intention or reconnect with what matters, it’s another to hold onto that clarity as you move through the realities of daily business life. Emails, client needs, social content, tech issues, planning, pivoting—it’s easy to slip back into reactive mode, even with the best of intentions.
That’s where rhythm and ritual come in.
Lately, I’ve been approaching my business in a very different way than I ever have before. For years, I thought structure had to look a certain way: calendars, color-coded blocks, batch days, big plans. I thought if I could just get more organized, I’d feel more grounded. But what I’ve realized is that alignment doesn’t always come from a more flushed out plan. Sometimes it comes from a softer approach. From building in space to listen to myself. From checking in before checking off.
Now, I’m experimenting with smaller rituals. Weekly intention setting. Energy check-ins before big decisions. Creating space between client work and creative work. None of it’s perfect, but it’s helping me stay connected to the business I want to be building, not just the one I feel pressured to maintain.
Creating supportive structure doesn’t mean rigid routines or productivity hacks. It means building in small touchpoints that help you stay connected to your energy, your vision, and your intention—especially when things feel noisy.
You don’t need to overhaul your workflow. Even one small ritual, done consistently and with care, can help you make decisions with more ease, shift your energy when needed, and stay connected to the deeper why behind it all.
Your rhythm doesn’t have to look like anyone else’s. The goal isn’t perfect consistency—it’s conscious connection.
And because I know how helpful it can be to have a place to start, here are a few of the simple, supportive rituals that have been anchoring me lately:
Weekly CEO check-ins to reflect on what felt aligned and what didn’t, and set a grounded intention for the week ahead.
Energy scans before making a big decision or saying yes to something new. (Does this feel light or heavy? Am I choosing from alignment or urgency?)
Buffer space between tasks: a short walk, a cup of tea, or just a moment to breathe, especially between creative work and calls.
One grounding question each morning, like: What would support me most today? or What’s my most aligned next step?
None of these have to take much time. It’s less about what you do, and more about how you do it—with intention, care, and awareness.
Build Something You Actually Love Being In
There’s a version of business that so many of us were taught: fast-paced, tightly scheduled, always pushing toward the next milestone. And for a while, that might have felt like the only way. But it’s not the only way.
You can grow with intention. You can move with rhythm. You can build a business that feels rooted and steady, one that supports the life you’re trying to create, not one that constantly pulls you away from it.
What you’ve built already matters. And what you build next doesn’t have to come from pressure. It can come from alignment. From clarity. From the quieter knowing that you're allowed to do things differently this time.
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If this post resonated with you, I’d love to invite you to explore the Sattva Creative Essential Brand Audit—a free resource designed to help you check in with your brand, your energy, and your overall alignment.
Whether you’re refining what already exists or reimagining something new, this is your moment to pause, realign, and return to what’s true for you.
You don’t have to hustle your way there.
You can build something that supports you just as much as it supports others. And that starts right where you are.
With love and light– Pamela
