I’ve been spending a lot of time lately getting ready for 2012 – planning, organizing, strategizing, visioning, and more. There are many transitions and transformations on the horizon for me and my business, and much to do to prepare for them, so I’m making space and opening the flow.
In Part 1 of this article, I shared 3 ways you can make space in your business. Now here are 3 ways I’m opening the flow in my business that you can do too:
1. Escape Email Overwhelm
The number one distraction to moving your business forward by leaps instead of baby steps is email. So here’s my system for handling email overload. If you can practice this 80% of the time, you’ll be way ahead of the game.
a. Delete: scan and delete junk emails first
b. Move: move any emails into an appropriate folder – and create a rule to make that happen automatically
c. Delegate: delegate any emails that should be responded to by someone else
d. Respond: respond to any emails that only YOU can respond to
The goal is to only have emails in your inbox that require action from you!
2. Track your money
One of the easiest ways to open the flow of money in your business is to start tracking exactly how much comes in on a daily basis. I give each of my private clients a money tracking sheet that makes it super-simple for them to implement this tip, but you can create your own very easily.
Just create a simple form that lists the days of the month, with your monthly money goal listed as well. Each day fill in the amount of money that came into your business, and don’t forget to include affiliate payments and any other sources of revenue as well.
Just by paying attention to what’s coming in will open the flow to more, and before you know it, all the days of the month will be filled in with a number!
3. Don’t overbook
When putting together your master plan for 2012, make sure you don’t overbook yourself. If you do, you won’t leave space for other opportunities to show up that you likely aren’t aware of yet.
When I completed my own master plan for 2012, it was complete, but not overbooked. There was time off, as well as space for other exciting possibilities to come up.
How are you making space and opening the flow for the new year? Please share your thoughts below…
I’ve been spending a lot of time lately getting ready for 2012 – planning, organizing, strategizing, visioning, and more. There are many transitions and transformations on the horizon for me and my business, and much to do to prepare for them, so I’m making space and opening the flow.
Here are some of the ways I’m doing this in my business that you can do too:
1. Clean Up Your Business Time
Time is your only non-renewable resource. If you’ve ever experienced days when you don’t know where the time has gone, but you do know you haven’t accomplished much, then you need to take a serious look at just what is eating up those precious minutes. My coach’s request of you is to track your time for the next two weeks. Like a food diary makes you intensely aware of what you’re eating, a time log will allow you to quickly and easily identify where you’re frittering time away.
Most likely culprits?… Email and TV (yes, I know some of you are ‘watching’ TV while you’re online, and no, that’s not multi-tasking, that’s just pure distraction).
Once you are aware of where your time is going, make a conscious effort to redirect it to more productive – or even more restful – activities. Turn the TV off (or TIVO/DVR whatever it is you must watch and give it your full attention later). And don’t leave your email open all day long! Allot specific time to read and respond to it instead.
You’ll be amazed at how just doing this simple exercise will free up the time you want for more important (and fun!) things. (Be sure to read Part 2 of this article next week where I’ll share more specific and effective tips for handling email overload.)
2. Clean Up Your Business Space
Now is a great time to go through your files – computer and physical – and delete or organize them for moving forward to 2012. I spent several hours going through my physical files recently, shredding lots of documents (I love to purge!), and setting up new files for my new Platinum clients as well as empty files for the ones yet to come. During this process both online and off, I also found a lot of gems I’d forgotten about – pieces of content, systems and processes, tools, resources, audios, and more.
And now that I have a recent visual in my mind of what’s in my files, it’s literally at my fingertips as I move forward in building my business. As for my computer, I actually went so far as to purchase a brand new laptop, and I’m being very discerning about what gets transferred over from my old PC to the new. Energetically and electronically, I can feel how much more open the flow is by doing this.
3. Clean up Your Business Circle
This one can be a bit difficult, but it’s necessary to prune the people you surround yourself with from time to time. It doesn’t mean you have to completely disconnect from them (unless they’re just weighing you down energetically), but do make a conscious choice to spend more time in the company of those who lift you up.
Let me give you a simple example. If you’re on someone’s ezine list just because everyone else is or you feel like you should be, but you either a) don’t read it or b) don’t feel good when you do read it, just unsubscribe and allow the space for something that resonates with you to take its place.
Or maybe you’re part of a mastermind group that you feel you’ve outgrown. Now is the time to graciously bow out. Once you do, you open the space for a new group to form around you that better supports where you are now.
How are you making space and opening the flow for the new year? Please share below…
As I’m wrapping up a slew of private retreats with clients this month, it’s become clear that it’s time for me to get focused on practicing what I’ve been preaching – or more specifically, to put myself through the same intense process and plan that I take my clients through.
This thought popped into my head several times during the retreats, but really came to the forefront of my thinking over the past week or so, as I’ve been making some very big decisions in my business that’s going to majorly shift things going forward.
So, here’s what I’ve noticed that’s going on with me in my business that I’m hoping will shed some light for you as well:
Problem: Not taking action on a particular task.
If you’re finding yourself low on energy around moving forward on a certain project or idea, it pays to take a look inside for the reason why.
I believe that everything is energy. And when I’m stuck – *especially* when I know what to do next – there’s something wrong inside that’s blocking forward movement. Because, after all, I am all about taking action.
Solution: Ask yourself…
1. What’s one thing I coach my own clients on that I can apply to myself?
2. What’s one way I show others how to operate their business that I can apply to my own?
3. What’s one method I teach that I can implement more fully in my own business?
In other words, how can I practice what I preach more thoroughly?
The answers to these simple questions are the key to getting unstuck and moving forward.
I’d love to know your thoughts on this below…
I had many light bulb moments during my three days in Dallas at SHINE this year, and I wanted to share with you 10 of my top take-away’s:
1. Opportunities come through people, not your computer
Think about that for a minute. Yes, you can build good relationships with people over email and social media. But when it comes to the really juicy opportunities, those are going to come through meeting people and spending time with them IRL (in real life). That’s one reason why it’s so important to get out there at least a couple of times a year.
2. BLT – Believe, Like, Trust
We often hear and I say it myself – that people need to know, like and trust you before they will buy from you. But I liked this version better – that people have to BELIEVE you, like you and trust you. So the more YOU you put into your marketing, the more authentic you are, the more people will get to believe, like and trust you, and the more sales you’ll make.
3. When you are yourself, you have no competition
Enough said.
4. No Plan B
If you have a Plan B, then just do Plan B. Otherwise make the commitment to Plan A, with no other option.
5. Your best ideas don’t come from sitting at your desk
My best ideas come to me in the car. Or sitting on the dock in the early morning of summer. I created this business under a palapa in the Turks & Caicos. Where do your best ideas come to you? When you’re stuck or need to hit the refresh button, go where your best ideas are able to pop into your mind.
6. You’ve got to be comfortable with being uncomfortable
Being an entrepreneur will bring up all your stuff. 🙂 Most of the time, that’s going to make you uncomfortable. You have to be ok with that and recognize that it’s just an indicator that you’re moving through whatever you need to in order to grow and reach the next level. If you can remember that, it’s actually pretty exciting, isn’t it?
7. Balance
I always say there’s no such thing as balance, that there’s an ebb and a flow but no such thing as balance. So it was empowering to hear two of the speakers say the same with their own spin:
“Life if not about balance; it’s about resilience.” and “Balance is for ballerinas.” 🙂
8. Eat that frog
You may have heard this idea before – to do the thing you most do not want to do first. Eat that frog and get it over with. Once you do, your energy is free to work much more productively and enjoyably on everything else.
9. Focus on your zone of excellence
If you’re still trying to be all things for the people in your market, I’m going to make a coach’s request that you make a commitment to stop that right now. Spend some time focusing on who your ideal client is and what is the ONE thing that you LOVE to do in your work with that ideal client? Start re-designing your message and your offerings around that.
10. Business happens at the bar
…or on the shuttle from the airport, or while waiting in line for the restroom, or when you step outside on a break for some fresh air. If you’re taking the time away from your business and your life to attend a live event, then you need to be talking to people, engaging with them, and letting them engage with you. Let me be clear – I don’t mean selling to them and I’m not fond of the word networking, but just talk to people, have a conversation. The best business relationships I have were built from a simple chat over a drink.
I’d love to know which of these resonates with you. Please leave your comments below…
Chloe has a children’s book titled Milton’s Secret: An Adventure of Discovery through Then, When, and the Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle and Robert S. Friedman, which really simplifies the concept of living in the present moment, and how the practice of that will, for the boy in the story, eliminate fear and worry.
I wanted to explore that as it pertains to your business, with a slightly different slant. I wonder if you, like so many of my clients, and myself as well from time to time, are so hooked into the future that we’re missing the NOW and not fully enjoying the journey?
So how do we unhook from it to allow what we truly want to come to pass without always feeling like we’re striving for it? Here are 5 ideas:
1. Let go of the goals that take you away from the present.
Let me say first that you can have everything you want – and there’s no judgement here on what those things are.
That being said, do you want a mansion, to be the #1 speaker in your market, to be the one with the biggest email list in your market, to be a New York Times bestselling author, to make a million dollars? There’s nothing wrong with any of those lofty (and completely attainable) goals.
And, what happens is when we’re so focused on the sexy dream we tend to get ourselves so riled up about getting there that we miss all the amazing stuff happening NOW.
What I’ve noticed is that people get impatient, sad, frustrated, and even angry when they’re so focused on the future goal that the present seems uninteresting at best, despairing at worst. The antidote? See #2.
2. Polish the present
I want to encourage you to stop striving so hard and thrive in your present. What I mean is that if you make what you already have better, and polish what’s already good and working, you uplevel your life without expending that energy on something that doesn’t exist yet.
Yes, it’s about appreciating what’s already good and right in your world and in your business AND it’s about how you can make what’s already there fulfill you even more. It’s true that if you make the most of what you already have, you’ll get more and better of it with a lot less effort on your part.
3. Don’t plan so much
I’m all about having the big picture plan down to the day-to-day details, and yet I know that most of the time, the plan changes.
One of the reasons we – as business owners – plan so much is because it gives us a sense of control and it helps to alleviate the fears and doubts we have about knowing what we’re doing.
So have the plan and be willing to be flexible with it. Let it be a guide but not the only way. If you get wrapped up in THE PLAN you’ll actually hold yourself and your business back from being able to adapt quickly when things change – and they always do.
Assess if you spend more time planning than doing – and if you do, stop right now. And if you tend to fly by the seat of your pants more often than not, you might want a lightly-built framework around you to give you some sense of stability.
4. Get out of the striver’s club
Stop trying to acquire a better future with others who are striving. It’s just too exhausting. I’m not saying to surround yourself with lazy folks, but to get out of the overdrive club if you want to relax into a currently compelling present instead of an exhausting still ‘out there somewhere’ future.
5. Get off the ‘if/when’ rollercoaster
I admit this is a pet peeve of mine. Not from people who are decisive, but from people who use it as an excuse to not be happy now. When you make ‘if/when’ statements, you’re living in the future. Dreaming and visioning is one thing; otherwise it’s a holding pattern for you but even worse, you’re not enjoying where you’re at right now!
Now take and implement these five ideas to unhook from the future so you can enjoy the present.
I’d love to hear which of these resonates with you the most – feel free to share with me below
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