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The roadblocks to consistency

The roadblocks to consistency

by | Apr 14, 2026 | Business foundations, Business Growth, Client Creation

The roadblocks to consistency

I want to talk about consistency.

It’s easy to argue the point that consistent revenue and clients come from consistent business growth effort and from continuing to show up, share your work and stay in relationship with the people you serve but in truth, we’re often thinking about consistency all wrong.

How many times have you thought to yourself that if you could just show up more consistently in your business, sharing your ideas, writing, reaching out and connecting with people, things would start to move more easily but then reality lets you down? Same. I used to beat myself up often for not being more consistent, more disciplined, more productive. I would create an annual business plan that on paper seemed flawless but then when it came to execution, I repeatedly found I just couldn’t deliver on what was required of me to achieve the goals I had set for myself.

Something always happens that I haven’t planned for. Getting sick or my menstrual cycle or perimenopause symptoms kicking my butt. My kids getting sick and being off school. Needing to travel to be there for a loved one who is having surgery which has happened twice in the last two years. Sometimes it’s the inevitable heartbreak and despair over world events or extreme weather cutting the internet for whole days and closing down school.

And sometimes, I am just tired or low energy and simply don’t have it in me to follow the plan. I need to take more breaks, sleep in instead of getting up early to exercise, meditate and plan my day.

The difference between how I now handle these situations and how I used to handle them is night and day. Before I would allow these setbacks to completely derail me and when there wasn’t an obvious cause of my inaction, I would take it as evidence of my failings. I would feel bad about myself and sink into a rut, taking even longer to get back on track.

These days, I not only accept that life interruptions and lows happen but I expect them. I make my plans in light of their inevitability and I pay attention to what tends to interrupt my rhythm of showing up in my work.

I have even created a whole framework around them.

That framework is something we use inside The Clearing during our monthly Focus + Priorities reflection, especially when we notice that something we intended to move forward, share or follow through on simply didn’t happen. I also wanted to share it lightly with you here in case it’s useful.

Usually when we plan to do something and it doesn’t get done, there is a specific reason that goes beyond laziness or lack of motivation. I refer to these reasons as roadblocks and I’ve identified seven of them.

#1 Capacity and health
This relates to illness, chronic health conditions, burnout and energy levels. 

#2 Time + Competing Priorities
This happens when we have too many demands on our time, when we have set unrealistic timelines or when other responsibilities take over.

#3 Mindset + Inner Dialogue
This looks like perfectionism, self-doubt, fear of being judged or a feeling of inner resistance.

#4 Clarity Gaps
This is where the next step is unclear. Perhaps the task is too big or vague or we are missing information or support.

#5 Emotional landscape
This might look like overwhelm, anxiety or tenderness resulting in low motivation.

#6 Environment + Systems
This could relate to your workspace or a lack of reminders, structure or systems that support the work.

#7 Alignment
This comes up when we perhaps planned the task out of a “should” or when we realise on reflection that it isn’t actually a true priority.

I’ve found that something quite profound happens when I’ve used this framework for myself and with clients as a lens to look at stalled tasks. More often than not, it becomes immediately clear that the issue does not represent a lack of commitment. It is that a very real and tangible roadblock was present, something that interrupted the rhythm of showing up or moving the work forward. And once we can see that clearly, there is almost always something that can be done to get back on track.

When I do this, sometimes it’s a really simple fix. For example, I failed to carve out time for the task and then my schedule got booked up with calls. The fix? Block out time to work on the task, perhaps the time to write, reach out to someone or share something I have been meaning to publish.

And sometimes it’s trickier. If for example I’m dealing with a hormone issues like fatigue, the fix isn’t always so obvious. But acknowledging what’s going on brings about more self empathy and compassion which in turn helps me to think of small things I can do to feel better, such as getting more sleep or reducing my expectations slightly so that I can still make small progress.

That is very different from simply feeling defeated because tasks went unfinished and not really being sure why.

When we look at unfinished tasks or a lack of obvious progress through the lens of possible roadblocks it allows us to get proactive about support rather than simply applying more pressure on ourselves to just get things done.

Examples of this include:

  • Reducing the number of priorities you’re setting yourself.
  • Breaking tasks into even smaller steps.
  • Creating better structures or systems in place to support your work.
  • Getting support or accountability.
  • Allowing rest or emotional space so recovery time is shorter.
  • Letting go of something that isn’t aligned and freeing up mental space.

I find that this practice helps us to notice patterns with curiosity and compassion rather than judging ourselves or forcing momentum. And when we understand what tends to interrupt our rhythm, it becomes much easier to return to the work and begin showing up again.

And now a question for you. If you think about something in your business that hasn’t moved forward recently, which of these roadblocks might have been present?

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The intention behind these letters is to be a voice for integrity within your (undoubtedly) cluttered inbox. To be the one email you can count on to contain strategic and soulful advice for building a business without selling your soul.

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The Most Important Skill For Introverts In Business To Master

The Most Important Skill For Introverts In Business To Master

by | Mar 22, 2023 | Business foundations, Business Growth

“We cannot live only for ourselves. A thousand fibers connect us with our fellow men; and among those fibers, as sympathetic threads, our actions run as causes, and they come back to us as effects.”
~ Herman Melville

SIGN UP FOR MY SOULFUL STRATEGIES WEEKLY

 

Once a week, in the form of an e-letter, I share the best of what I know about building a business with integrity for conscious business owners.

The intention behind these letters is to be a voice for integrity within your (undoubtedly) cluttered inbox. To be the one email you can count on to contain strategic and soulful advice for building a business without selling your soul.

If you want to receive the Soulful Strategies Weekly, simply share with me your name and email address below and you’ll start recieving emails right away.

The One Thing I Can’t Teach You About Business

The One Thing I Can’t Teach You About Business

by | Nov 3, 2022 | Business foundations

“Life is a balance between what we can control and what we cannot. I am learning to live between effort and surrender.”
~ Danielle Orner

In this blog, I want to talk about the one thing I can’t teach you in relation to growing a sustainable business.

Let me start by sharing what I can teach you.

I can teach you what to do in your business to bring about more growth. A huge part of how you apply this is, however, out of my control.

The part I can’t teach you about achieving business success is how to feel in your business.

Let me break down what I mean by how to feel in your business.

I’m talking about a few things, the energy you bring to your work, your attitude, the intentions you set (consciously or not), the mindset you have and so much more. It’s the intangible part of running a business and as many of you (as coaches and healers) will know, it’s what makes the difference between getting the results we desire and not getting them.

This is precisely why I never promise results in my marketing and why you shouldn’t trust anyone who does.

It’s why I could work with two clients and teach them the exact same strategies and whilst client A will succeed, client B won’t gain any traction.

How a person feels and shows up in their business has a HUGE bearing on how well they will do in business.

Now whilst this isn’t something I teach primarily, I do cover this in my work with clients. Not as extensively as a Mindset Coach or healer might, but it’s impossible not to come up against this when trying to apply business strategy.

Allow me to share some of what I’ve learned in this area over the past 10 years of working for myself and coaching hundreds of clients.

Your energy is everything.

One of the biggest issues I see when it comes to business is the energy the business owner brings to the work. In the early days of business when money and clients aren’t yet flowing, it can be easy to fall into a “grasping” energy. This is when you might feel so desperate to get the next client that as you put out your content and marketing and connect with potential clients, you unwittingly give off a desperate and grasping energy.

This is where I lose people sometimes because it’s a bit woo. But stay with me.

In my world energy is everything. It’s not something we can see or touch but it’s why you can get a bad or a good feeling about someone you’ve just met.

It’s how I chose the construction company for our house reno. Despite not having the biggest team or the most experience, the head builder we went with has good energy and I felt it the moment I met him. Within minutes of speaking with him (even in a second language!) I instantly knew that he would care for our home just as he would his own. It wasn’t anything he said, I could just feel it. And I was right, he’s been hands down the best part of this whole process. This is what I mean when I talk about energy.

Sometimes if we’re not careful and we’re not feeling especially confident about our work we can put out an energy that feels off. That’s why when we show up to our work desperate to get the next client, we may be subconsciously sabotaging our strategic efforts.

Something my first business coach taught me when doing gift sessions, was that whilst I might need a new client, I didn’t necessarily need this particular person to become that next client, allowing me to release all neediness and simply focus on being of service.

You may have experienced this, perhaps you’ve done a discovery call or gift session with someone and they expressed some interest in potentially working with you, but then they go quiet, as a result, you obsess over them, checking your email constantly to see if they’ve been in touch, counting the hours or days until you can message them again just to “check in” or follow up.

Even if you don’t actually tell the other person that you desperately want them to become your next client, your energy may well be sending that message. Nobody wants to hire a needy practitioner, so this is a really important one to watch out for.

Your attitude matters.

What’s your attitude like around business? Do you have a good attitude about the work or a bad one? I’m aware that terms like ‘good’ and ‘bad’ are crude, but bear with me.

If you constantly sit down to your work with an internal narrative that says: this will never work, this is hopeless or when creating content to market yourself, continuously hear a voice muttering what’s the point, no one is ever going to read this, then it follows that you’re going to have problems.

A negative attitude permeates everything (not least your energy!). When we feel and think negatively about our business, our subconscious looks for evidence to prove our point of view.

Now don’t get me wrong, I’m not one to tell you to suck it up and think positively and all will be well, but I have found that the more I focus on the positive, the more I feel grateful for the small wins, the better I feel and the clearer my energy is for my work.

This undoubtedly helps me to make better connections with potential clients, spot more opportunities for collaborations and just makes me a nicer person to be around.

The mindset piece.

Closely linked to attitude but not quite the same. Mindset for me falls into one of two camps. We usually operate from a fixed mindset or a growth mindset. I’ve written a whole piece about this before which you can read here.

To illustrate the point, I’ll use the words of Carol Dweck, Author of the book Mindset:

“When we have a “growth mindset,” we believe that our intelligence, creative abilities, and character are things that we can improve in meaningful ways. We can always learn and get better at what we do.”

By contrast, a fixed mindset describes people “who believe their intelligence, talents and personalities are fixed traits that cannot grow. They believe we are born with a certain level of ability (or special skills) and we are unable to improve our level abilities over time.” (From the Big Life Journal)

If you have a fixed mindset when it comes to your business skills, you will inevitably miss out on the many opportunities there are to improve your skills.

I hear people talking from a fixed mindset all the time. Often using sentences that start with the words “I’m just not someone who can…” and ending with things like: create content on demand, stick to a schedule, use spreadsheets, get to grips with technology, write web copy and so on and so on.

If you can shift from a fixed to a growth mindset, I have no doubt that it will benefit your business immensely.

Check your intention.

Something I see often is people getting tripped up by the intentions they hold as they put their work out into the world. In my work, I talk a lot about holding an intention to serve because I believe that when people feel truly served, they are more likely to buy from you. I also love this intention because for myself, and the types of business owners I work with, being of service is the main reason we’re doing this!

However, due to the need to make money sometimes this intention can get muddied. When we sit down to write a piece of content, rather than hold the intention that what we create truly helps our audience to overcome their struggles, we write from a place of hoping it makes them want to work with us or that it gets enough ‘likes’.

Or when we offer a gift session to someone, rather than holding the intention to serve and come from a place of generosity, we fall into the trap of focusing on the outcome of making the sale.

Of course, this is all perfectly natural and you’ll find no judgement here.

Holding an intention to serve has been a practice for me since day one. In the early days of my business when I was just starting out as a coach and it was easy to get caught up in wanting to impress the other person or come across as a good coach, I used to meditate before sessions so that I could get my ego out of the way just long enough to make my intention about the other person and not about me! My best sessions were always when I forgot about my “performance”.

How to improve how we feel in our business.

Having shared a few of the places that how we feel can derail our strategic efforts, I feel a bit bad about not giving you my best advice on how to work on this side of things, but here’s the issue.

There is no one way to improve how we feel about our business.

Personally, my journey with this has been long and complex. Over the years I’ve seen a myriad of therapists, coaches and healers.

Lately with all the external “stuff” going on in my world, feeling good both inside and outside of my business has been hard.

When this happens to me, I don’t hesitate to call in support. I book sessions with my most trusted healers, Laura Perkins and Megan Caper, I use my EFT sessions with Liesel Teversham to work on what’s coming up for me.

I lean on my favourite mindfulness practices like morning pages and taking walks in nature and most recently I jumped at the opportunity to get a customised flower essence made for me by the wonderfulTracy O’Meara Smith | Holistic Therapist.

I’m aware that not everyone might have the resources to hire help but that needn’t stop you. Some of the resources I mentioned above have come about from exchanges, i.e. swapping my business coaching skills in exchange for someone else’s skills.

In short, I do what I can to get back to a place of feeling centred and grounded and good in my mind, body and spirit. The effect this has on my bottom line is undeniable.

Your journey might look totally different, as it should do.

The point I’m trying to make here is that you can’t build a sustainable business without spending some time on the emotional and spiritual side of doing so.

I hope what I’ve shared here is useful to you, let me know what comes up for you in the comments.

SIGN UP FOR MY SOULFUL STRATEGIES WEEKLY

 

Once a week, in the form of an e-letter, I share the best of what I know about building a business with integrity for conscious business owners.

The intention behind these letters is to be a voice for integrity within your (undoubtedly) cluttered inbox. To be the one email you can count on to contain strategic and soulful advice for building a business without selling your soul.

If you want to receive the Soulful Strategies Weekly, simply share with me your name and email address below and you’ll start recieving emails right away.

Why I Don’t Recommend Starting A Business To Most People

Why I Don’t Recommend Starting A Business To Most People

by | Aug 17, 2022 | Business foundations

“If you’re starting something on your own, you better have a passion for it, because this is hard work.”
~ Sallie Krawcheck, Co-founder of Ellevest

In this blog, I share with you why I don’t recommend starting a business to most people who ask me about it.

Given what I do — running my own business (from home) and coaching others on how to build and grow theirs — you can bet that I get a lot of people wanting to talk to me about how they might get started as a coach or other online business owner.

I’ve had it many times over the years, basically from people who are unhappy in their 9–5 job and searching for an alternative. Once they learn about what I do, the freedom it affords me and the success I’ve had with it, they are intrigued to explore if the online business world is something that they might also get into.

90% of the time, when I get approached in this way, my heart sinks.

Why?

Because usually, they are enquiring about starting their own business for all the wrong reasons.

The wrong reasons

The main reasons people are wanting to explore starting a business or becoming a coach include:

  • Hating their 9–5 job
  • Wanting to work from home so that they don’t have to deal with office politics (and can work in their pyjamas!)
  • Wanting more freedom to be able to work whenever and wherever they want
  • The ability to make more money than they can working for someone else.
  • Wanting to do work that they enjoy more than the work they currently do.
  • Loving the idea of being a coach and getting paid to talk to people.

Now while there’s nothing inherently wrong with any of these reasons (I can totally relate personally to each and every one of these), if these are the only reasons a person has, I think building a successful and sustainable business is going to be an uphill struggle.

Let’s dive into the 6 reasons why I think this.

1. Running your own business is harder than working 9–5

A lot of people think that running an online business will be easier than working 9–5 and in many ways, it’s actually the opposite. For many people, 9–5 is a breeze compared to running their own business.

Why?

Because when you run your own business you have lots more to deal with than you do in a paid job. You have to be good at all of the things: admin, finance, planning, marketing, networking, systems and so much more.

It’s not enough to be good at the service you provide (such as coaching or healing), you absolutely need to be skilled in all of the areas it takes to run a successful business. Do you need to be an ace at these skills right off the bat? No, of course not, but you do need to be willing to learn and uplevel your skills in all of these areas and more.

Not only this but you have to deal with the stress of inconsistent income and sales, at least for the first few years. No longer do you have a steady paycheck that drops into your bank account on the same day each month, some months you’ll make nothing or barely scrape by. This can and does take its toll.

Unlike a 9–5, where you can take sick days, maternity leave and holidays without it impacting your pay (at least in the UK) or the overall success of the business, when you run your own business, every day off typically means closing down your business during that time. There are no colleagues to delegate to or to take up the slack while you’re not there. And when no one is working on the business for too many days in a row, this can have a negative impact on your bottom line. Inconsistent marketing inevitably leads to inconsistent income.

2. In the short term you’ll make far less money than working in a normal job

Especially in the online world, there is a huge misconception that it’s easy to get to a place of consistent and sustainable income relatively quickly. Allow me to burst that bubble for you right now.

In the offline world, it’s a given that if you want to start a new business, you’re going to need some investment to cover you for at least the first few years. That’s because it takes years to become profitable (if you even do — many business fail in their first year). Just take a quick look at the google search results I got when I asked: How long does it take a new business to become profitable?

If you’re interested in starting an online business, purely for the potential financial gains, you’re going to really struggle when you learn that it’s not an overnight thing (despite what many online marketers would have you believe). It’s much more realistic to expect it to take anywhere between 2–4 years to get to a place of profitability.

AND…

… ‘profitable’ only means you are making money after all expenses have been taken into account, how much money you are making is another story. It may not mean you are making the kind of money you were making or could make with a 9–5 job, that could in fact take even longer.

3. It’s not enough to love what you do

A lot of people are drawn to becoming business owners because they fall in love with a modality, (such as coaching, somatics, dance, therapy or healing) and want to build a business in which they can spend their days sharing their skills in that area, with the people they believe most need it.

Given what I mentioned above about all of the hats you’ll be required to wear as a solopreneur, if you don’t also love the actual business side of running a business, you’re going to struggle. I can’t tell you how often I talk to frustrated business owners who feel disillusioned with their business precisely because they don’t enjoy nor want to do the business building activities (such as marketing and outreach) that will help them get the growth they so desperately need to be sustainable.

If you hate marketing, planning, finances and systems your business will suffer. Most new business owners can’t afford to outsource these things in the early years and they are essential business survival activities that you’ll not only need to master but ideally learn to enjoy. If you don’t, growing your business will become a drudgery.

4. Running a successful business is a full time job

A lot of the people I talk to were drawn to entrepreneurship precisely because they thought they would have more free time. Now while this might be something you can achieve down the line, in the first few years of getting a business off the ground, the reality is that you’ll be working at least 9–5 on your business. I’ve always worked full-time on my business and it’s only in the last year or so (years 4–5 in business) that I’ve been able to scale back some of my hours to work less.

Caveat: If you can’t work full-time on your business, that’s okay but it will in all likelihood take you longer to achieve what someone working full-time could.

The 4-hour work week and other unhelpful noise online about making big money in your sleep is actually a rarity and even then tends to come after a lot of hours of work (and years) have been put in.

Let’s consider “passive” income for a moment. The idea that you can make money in your sleep, it’s possible for sure, I do it on the regular. It’s not uncommon for me to check my email in the morning and to see that I made sales of digital products overnight.

The work I had to do up front, however, to not only create those products but also to do the marketing and build the engaged audience I need to buy those products, took significant time.

I say it all the time, but if it were really that easy to make money in your sleep, working 4 hours a week, no one would work a 9–5 job. Ever.

5. The freedom of working for yourself isn’t the freedom you imagined it would be

The freedom to work whenever and wherever you want is a huge draw of being an online business owner for many people. But it’s not quite that simple. Whilst you may not have a boss to answer to, you do (and should want to) have clients and customers (or potential ones at least) to take into account.

During those years when I didn’t have a full client roster, if I had taken the day off every time I felt like it, then I wouldn’t be where I am today in business. Now with a full client roster, if I cancelled appointments every time I felt like doing something else, I would tank my reputation and the flow of new clients would quickly dry up.

Do I have more freedom than in my old 9–5 job? Absolutely, without a doubt. Do I have the freedom to work whenever or wherever I want, no, not by a long shot. So the reality is somewhere in between these two and it’s often a shock to people who decided to start their own business to have more freedom when they realise that this is not always possible.

As I started building my first business back in 2014, I was what some people call a “digital nomad”. I had left the UK (and my career in programme management) in 2012 and didn’t have a permanent residency anywhere. I had been living in Thailand for a few years and then, shortly after meeting Joan, we travelled to Colombia before settling down for a year in Mexico.

I used to get so wound up by the pictures I’d see online from business owners with their laptops out by the pool or on the beach. As a travelling business owner, I knew only too well how different the reality of running a business on the road is.

Allow me to dispel the myth — You can’t work outside in the sunshine because you can’t actually see your screen, also it’s far less likely that you’ll have a strong enough wifi connection to actually do anything productive online outdoors. Not to mention how uncomfortable it is to work in a hammock!!! These pictures were and are staged to present and sell a certain lifestyle and it works, we make 6-figure businesses buying into that BS.

If you talk to anyone running a successful business abroad, they’ll tell you that they spend more time at the local co-working place or cooped up in their room than they do relaxing by the pool.

6. Running your own business requires courage and resilience

Whilst you might have to step outside of your comfort zone in a 9–5 job (I certainly did in my former career), it’s a daily requirement when you run your own business.

There’s no place to hide when you’re the boss. If you don’t exercise courage on the regular, no one will know you even exist. To exercise courage on the regular, you need resilience. You’ve got to be able to face the critics (inner and possibly outer) and come out relatively unscathed.

Running your own business requires you to embrace failure rather than run from it. To get good at anything, you have to fail first, I know this from personal experience and I see it every day as I raise two young children.

Nobody steps out of the gate doing everything perfectly. When you see someone’s flawless and polished video or perfectly presented webinar, you can bet that they started out with a DIY version that was far more rough around the edges.

The thing is we rarely see most people’s practice runs or failed attempts, we see the end result of years of failing, improving and practising. If you’re not up for the experimentation (and possibly falling flat on your face) part, you’re unlikely to reach the successful, expertly executed part. Fact.

So there you have it 6 reasons I believe that running a business isn’t for everyone. Now, you might be forgiven for thinking that I don’t believe having more time, freedom and money is possible when you run your own business but nothing could be further from the truth. These absolutely are possible. But if you are going into business just for them and expecting that you’ll have them quickly and easily, it’s my belief that you’re in for a bumpy ride.

Given I’m sharing here the top reasons I don’t recommend most people start a business, you might be wondering when I would recommend it.

That’s easy.

When you can understand and appreciate all of the above and still know in your heart that it’s what you want to do 100%.

Even though I didn’t know all of these upfront, I soon learned. My passion to do work that has an impact as well as my desire to be my own boss (with all that that entails) has never wavered.

Is there anything you would add to this list? Or any of the above that you are struggling with? If so, let me know in the comments.

SIGN UP FOR MY SOULFUL STRATEGIES WEEKLY

 

Once a week, in the form of an e-letter, I share the best of what I know about building a business with integrity for conscious business owners.

The intention behind these letters is to be a voice for integrity within your (undoubtedly) cluttered inbox. To be the one email you can count on to contain strategic and soulful advice for building a business without selling your soul.

If you want to receive the Soulful Strategies Weekly, simply share with me your name and email address below and you’ll start recieving emails right away.

4 Business Areas To Focus On In 2022

4 Business Areas To Focus On In 2022

by | Jan 5, 2022 | Business foundations

  1. Marketing
  2. Operations
  3. Business Model

This is all about the reason your business exists and the ideas and big why upon which it is built. It’s the message you share with the world. Under purpose it’s important to explore and identify those very things that makes your business unique — it’s what separates you from others in your field and helps people to know that you are the business owner they want to work with.

  • Your core message, which I describe as the big idea behind your business. Not sure what yours is, consider what business related idea you would share if you were to give a TED talk. Mine for reference is this: When you change the way you do business, you change the world. You can read more about what I mean by this here.
  • Your point of view, which is basically your take on how to solve the problem the problems your clients have. It’s your opinion on the best possible course of action to get the results people are looking for. To read more about point of view head here.
  • Your framework, this is the how of your business, it’s your particular approach to facilitating the transformation your clients seek. What I’m sharing here in this blog is, in essence, my framework for building and growing a conscious and sustainable business.

This as an “area” to focus on can often feel huge and overwhelming, especially given how much conflicting and toxic advice there is out there on the internet. Personally, I like to keep it simple. First of all I like to reframe marketing from marketing to our audience to connecting with our audience. Often the first step we need to make is to change how we think about marketing. Click here for more on that.

  • Practice regular outreach, which essentially involves reaching out to people 1:1 and developing meaningful relationships, which over time inevitably lead to sales as well as a host of other opportunities and friendships. To watch a presentation I gave about outreach, head here.
  • Conduct audience research. I can’t tell you how many people fail to ask their audience what they think, what they are struggling and what they want. Conducting audience research is a wonderful way to build relationships, get invaluable information about how to help our ideal clients and a great source of the specific language we can use to better connect with our ideal clients and get sales. To read about different ways to do this head here.
  • Offer a generous freebie. I’m not a fan of pithy email opt-ins designed to get people on your list but I am a fan of generous freebies, such as full, pitch free gift sessions or high value free workshops (as opposed to time-wasting webinars). In my experience when you wow people with a generous freebie, both sales and loyalty are much more likely. To read more about my approach to gift sessions head here.
  • Your processes and systems. As my business has grown, I’ve had to get serious about having strong systems in place. If I didn’t it would be chaos over here. Often we think that we don’t need systems (because we’re still small) or that systems will stifle our creativity but I promise you that having solid systems in place allows you to focus on the important work of delivering your services without wasting countless hours on unnecessary admin and busy work. To access a systems checklist I use with clients, head here. (If you make a copy you’ll then be able to edit).
  • Your support system, i.e. the tools and software you use, the tasks you outsource (or could) and any people you employ and how these work together to save you valuable time.

Your business model is the way you bring money into your business and as such covers the following:

    • Pricing. This is where you’ll want consider your positioning. Are you a business that offers premium services or do you favour affordable and accessible pricing? To read my thoughts on authentic pricing head here.
    • The customer journey. Some people might call this the sales funnel, but I hate the thought of squeezing people through a funnel. I much prefer to think of the path my potential clients take to the front door of my business. You’ll also want to consider what kind of marketing you’ll need for each individual product or service. How you market a group program that happens once a year is very different to how you might need to market an ongoing membership. To read more on pathways head here.

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    The Secret To My Consistency

    The Secret To My Consistency

    by | Nov 24, 2021 | Business foundations

    “It does not matter how slowly you go as long as you do not stop.”

    ~ Confucius

    I believe that showing up consistently is one of the key components to business success and also one of the hardest things to do. This is what I have learned about being consistent in both life and work endeavours.

    I haven’t always been disciplined. In fact quite the opposite, for many, many years I was a bit of a disaster on that front. In my twenties I would often declare new goals or intentions only to be laughed at by friends. “I’m going to give up alcohol” I would boldly declare. “One day I will run the London Marathon.”, “I’m going to write a novel.” All statements I made, all dismissed or laughed at by friends. Why? Because I was known for having big ideas, but then lacking the discipline and consistency to follow through.

    I loved to dream big, but forming consistent habits that helped me to achieve those big dreams was a struggle. I would endeavour to do something, such as give up drinking for example and I would last a few days or even a few weeks before my resolve would crumble and then I’d be back to square one.

    Fast forward a couple of decades and I’ve actually achieved all three of those goals and many, many more besides. Now when I say I’m going to do something, friends and family don’t doubt for one minute that I will. People don’t laugh at my lofty goals anymore, they’re inspired by them.

    So what changed?

    How did I go from having terrible will power and follow through to being disciplined and consistent in both my personal and professional life?

    The answer is surprisingly simple. So simple that you might at first dismiss it but I encourage you to really think about what I share and examine how it applies to your life.

    In a nutshell, I stopped seeing things as black and white. Good or bad, success or failure. I stopped striving for perfection.

    Allow me to explain. In my younger years, if I made a bold statement like I’m going to run every day this year, when the day came that I inevitably couldn’t go for a run — perhaps due to time or health restraints — I would consider that a failure and my thinking would go something like…

    I said I was going to run every day, I didn’t run today so I’ve failed at my goal.

    End of story. Well not quite the end of the story, because with that perceived failure came a whole load of being hard on myself. Negative self-talk that would have me believe that I was a failure, lacking in will power and incapable of sticking to my goals. You know the sort of thing — the lovely feedback we like to give ourselves that leaves us feeling empowered and motivated to do better (not!)

    For many years, I lived in this pattern, slowly undermining my own sense of self worth until gradually I started to see another way. With time I realised the flaw in my black and white thinking and I started to embrace the gray.

    I started to see that doing things imperfectly was better than not doing them at all.

    That’s how I managed to run a marathon in 2008, even after an injury that prevented me from training for months. I had the perfect excuse to bail on my goal but instead, as soon as I could, I got back out there for my training runs.

    When I committed to writing a 50,000 word novel in 30 days back in 2012, it was this new way of thinking that allowed me to come back to and complete the goal, even when by day 25 of 30, I had only written 4,449 words. I don’t mind telling you that those last 5 days were intense!!

    And more recently, when I declared that I wanted to do 100 days of walking to get fit again after two babies, I didn’t give up when on day 6 (the first Saturday), I failed to get out for a walk. Instead, I adjusted my goal from 100 consecutive days of walking to 100 days of walking Monday to Friday and then when I missed a Thursday because of a stinking cold, I simply adjusted my goal to 100 days of walking, no matter how long they take. I’ll get to my 100 days and by then it will be a consistent habit and I will be healthier and happier in my body.

    Not giving up when I fail to do something perfectly, is one of the most life-changing shifts I’ve ever made.

    Coming back to the goal after every slip or stumble is what helps me to stay consistent. Not beating myself up when I don’t do it perfectly is what helps me to stay consistent. Allowing life to get in the way of my ambitions, without then throwing in the towel is what helps me to stay consistent.

    How about you? What’s your relationships to goals, commitments and consistency? Does my story help? If so, let me know in the comments.

    SIGN UP FOR MY SOULFUL STRATEGIES WEEKLY

    Once a week, in the form of an e-letter, I share the best of what I know about building a business with integrity for conscious business owners.

    The intention behind these letters is to be a voice for integrity within your (undoubtedly) cluttered inbox. To be the one email you can count on to contain strategic and soulful advice for building a business without selling your soul.

    If you want to receive the Soulful Strategies Weekly, simply share with me your name and email address below and you’ll start recieving emails right away.