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Who Do You Need To Become In 2024?

Who Do You Need To Become In 2024?

by | Feb 14, 2024 | Mindset, Uncategorized

“Success is not so much what we have, as it is what we are.”
~ Jim Rohnn

Sometimes our inability to achieve our goals comes from a lack of skills or knowledge but often, we actually know what it is that we need to do but for some reason, we simply don’t do it.

Why is that? And how can we become the kind of person that does the very things that will bring us the success we so dearly crave?

I’m going to give you my best answer to these questions.

As I see it, there are 3 main reasons we don’t do what we know we need to do or what we say we want to do.

1. Lack of desire — We don’t actually want to do it. It’s not something we enjoy or have any true desire to do.
2. Lack of knowledge — We don’t know how to do it. The desire is there but the knowhow is not.
3. Presence of fear — We want to do it, maybe even know how to do it but there is some level of fear about what will happen if we do it.

Take a moment now to think about something you set out to achieve this year in your business but failed to do so. Do any of these three reasons apply?

What all of these three have in common for me is they relate to how we’re thinking about the task at hand and how we think about something directly affects how we show up to that thing.

One woman in my business planning workshop shared this comment and it felt so apt:

“I thought I really hated doing administration, marketing, planning, and all of that, for my business. And that I was bad at it. And I have to admit, with my ADD, HSP and possibly autism, it’s a big challenge. But if I take my time, stay in touch with my gut feeling, stay true to my values, accept that I have my own pace, my own way of doing these things, I actually kind of enjoy it. And I feel proud when I’m doing these things. I really do get better at it.”

Can you see how by changing how she showed up to those very tasks she thought she hated, how she felt actually changed?

Consider now something you want to do, know how to do and feel excited to do. I’d guess that nothing would stop you from doing something you feel this way about.

Now consider something you know you should do but have zero desire to do, have no idea how to do and/or feel some level of fear around doing it. My best guess is that it would be nothing short of a miracle if you managed to do this thing.

So let me ask you this. Where in your world do you need to change how are you are thinking about things to change how you are showing up to them?

I’d like to share with you something that’s coming up for me around this question of who I need to become.

Over the past few years I have had a financial target I’d like to hit, which, after several years of stable and steady financial growth, would be a stretch for me. And whilst I have increased my income year on year, I’ve yet to hit this particular stretch goal, which has been frustrating to say the least.

As I’ve been working on my business plan for next year, I’ve done just about as much thinking as I can about what I’ll need to do and how I’ll need to change my business model in order to achieve this goal but if I’m honest with myself, I’ve been feeling anything but excited about the prospect. Instead, there’s been a serious lack of desire or motivation to tackle these things head on.

As I contemplated my word of the year, which is what I suggest speaks to how you want to feel in your life and business, my mind kept going to a desire to feel more motivated or inspired. For a while, I thought INSPIRED might be my word of the year, but as I sat with it, I also couldn’t see how I was going to magically feel more inspired in 2024.

Then, this word dropped in.

BRAVE.

And I couldn’t shake it, it felt scary (in a good way) and big (also in a good way) and that’s when it dawned on me…

In order to do what needs to be done to hit my stretchy financial goal, I need to feel excited, inspired and motivated and in order to feel those things I need to be brave.

I need to push the edges of my comfort zone, challenge myself, do new things and be bolder and braver.

So my answer to who I need to become in 2024 in order to achieve my goals?

I need to become brave.

Now I’m here, it feels so obvious, some of my best life moments have come from leaning into being brave and I realise now that once I achieved a level of success in my business, I got scared of doing anything that might rock the boat. I now see that becoming brave again is exactly what is needed to take my business to the next level and, more importantly, feel inspired and excited in the process.

Shifting my thinking from what I need to do to who I need to become is such a simple shift but one that has the power to change everything.

It’s oh so easy to tell ourselves that we’ll never be able to do something, that we’ll never be able to be something but I’ve experienced and witnessed myself and others achieving what felt like the impossible time and time again.

So, my lovely, as you consider all that you would like to bring forth in your life and business in 2024. Who is it that you need to become?

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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 Fear Is Real

The Fear Is Real

by | Jan 17, 2024 | Mindset, Uncategorized

“Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. The fearful are caught as often as teh bold”
~ Helen Keller

There are a number of ways and places that fear shows up for solo business owners. As micro business owners, we’re not just responsible for the creation and delivery of products and services but we’re also the face of the business, the marketing team, the message bearer and the sales team.

For anyone this would be a daunting affair and yet, what I’ve noticed lately is that many business owners (the kind, thoughtful and sensitive types I work with) aren’t fully acknowledging that this is a very real and totally natural fear.

I’m hearing talented, accomplished women describe their fear as silly or stupid. I’ve heard them express how vulnerable it feels to even admit that there is fear or anxiety and as you might imagine, I have something to say about this.

First though let’s look at two of the most common situations where fear might come up for solopreneurs.

Sharing your point of view or opinion on the internet

Let’s take my business as an example. When I first started to understand that there was a more ethical way of doing business, in order to share that point of view, it meant saying things that go against much of the mainstream marketing advice out there in the online business world.

When everyone was shouting about using opt-ins and freebies to get subscribers, I was encouraging my audience to ditch them. When most business coaches tell their clients to raise their prices, it’s not uncommon for me to tell my clients and audience to lower their prices.

When everyone is telling you to focus on closing the sale, I’m teaching people to slow down the sale and put people first.

I’ve been going against the grain long enough in my business not to feel fearful anymore about sharing my opinion but back when I hadn’t done it before, I still remember the fear well. A very real fear of judgement, criticism, ridicule or rejection.

In fact, when feeling the need to speak out about war crimes in Gaza, I once again, felt a very real fear of being judged, attacked and misunderstood for sharing my thoughts and have witnessed many people being criticised for sharing theirs.

Sharing your point of view (especially as women) has always been hard, but in these times where people don’t think twice about bullying and attacking others online, the fear is even more present.

The problem, however is that sharing your point of view is precisely how your ideal clients find you. It’s how you stand out from the crowd without using pushy and manipulative sales tactics. Learning to overcome the fear of sharing your opinion is, therefore, extremely important.

Fear of launching

Another area where fear is often present and equally as unacknowledged is when we are launching a new product or service. For me launching carries with it a particular flavour of fear. We’ve created something, more than likely put our heart and soul into it. We want to let the world know it exists and invite people to buy it.

For many of my clients this looks like a workshop or a group program, something with a set number of people who need to sign up before a designated start date. Talk about pressure!

In business there’s few things more scary than putting out an offer that you can only hope will be well received.

I often hear comments from clients like “what if nobody signs up??” or “I’ve only got 1 person signed up, what if nobody else does? What will I tell the person who already paid?” or “what will people think about me and my business if I have a failed launch?” Totally understandable worries and fears to have, right?

Yet so many of the people I work with beat themselves up for having these fears or worse still, avoid launching new things because these fears feel too big to face.

What I want to share here is what I said in one of my group programs recently.

First and foremost the fear is real.

It’s not silly or stupid. It doesn’t make you less than or incapable. It says nothing about your level in business. People with 10 years in business still have failed launches. Fact.

It’s absolutely to be expected and therefore should be acknowledged and seen.

Second of all.

You, who are already out in the world forging your own path, building and growing your own business and living and breathing your calling are the brave minority.

Before I stepped out of my former life to create my own business, I lived in a world where I spent my days wishing for Friday to arrive, my weekday evenings numbing out with crap TV, my Friday nights drinking to release the stress of not living my purpose, my Saturdays nursing a hangover, my Sundays dreading Monday mornings and my Monday’s starting the whole sorry cycle over again.

Sounds crazy right? But this is the mainstream. This is what the vast majority of people in the Western world do.

But not you.

You are the brave and courageous. You’ve stepped out and decided to do something to make this world a better place.

You feel fear because you are out in the arena. You are putting yourself out there and risking it all to make a difference.

So, here’s the thing. I want you to honour the fear you feel. I want you to know that you feel the fear, not because you are silly or flawed.

You feel that fear because you are going against the grain. Stepping out of the comfort zone most people live in and your fear is merely a testament to that fact.

Finally, if you deny, supress or downplay your fear, it wins. It stops you from taking bold action. So, for today, acknowledge and celebrate your fear and know that she’s here because you’re ready to show up and shine.

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.

Getting Back On Track

Getting Back On Track

by | Nov 22, 2023 | Mindset, Uncategorized

“You never fail until you stop trying.”
~ Albert Einstein

It’s my firm belief that there are certain things in business that require a certain level of consistency in order to support your business growth. Creating valuable content for your audience on the regular is just one of those things. Others might include regular outreach, sticking to a sustainable work schedule and other business growth activities.

That said, we all struggle with consistency some of the time. Why? Because we’re not machines. We are human, who have a life to live beyond our work that can include ups and downs, personal challenges, emotional upheaval and rough patches. We all know what it’s like to set yourself a goal or commit to a habit only to fall off the horse at some point down the line.

I used to let falling off the horse derail me, it would impact my confidence and mental fortitude and I would find myself giving up on whatever it was I had set out to achieve. Thankfully, I managed to change that many years ago and now firmly believe in the age old idiom that it doesn’t matter how many times you fall off the horse, what matters is how many times you get back on. Easier said than done, I know.

So, I thought I would share with you the process I have followed to get back on track with my content creation habit.

1. Getting honest with ourselves

With all that we have to deal with in life and business, it’s pretty easy to let ourselves off the hook with certain things. If we are busy with other work, parenting, life challenges etc, then it makes sense that certain things slip by the wayside. But we always have a choice. I could make every excuse in the book for not being consistent with my weekly newsletter but if I’m really honest with myself, I know that I’ve allowed a really important business activity to fall by the wayside, which, if left unaddressed, is only going to cause me more headaches down the line.

When I have no new content to repurpose my entire marketing strategy dries up, which will lead to reduced visibility of my business, which in turn will lead to less clients and less income. Not a good look for a business coach!

Being honest with myself and acknowledging that there is a problem I need to address has been the first step in taking action to resolve it. It has also helped to share what’s going on with others. I recently shared my content struggle with my group mastermind and one of the women said that my honesty around my own struggle, is precisely why she likes being in my group. I also know when I hide these things from others, it’s easier to hide them from myself.

2. Understanding why the problem exists

It’s easy to let excuses come into play here, it’s been the summer holidays, I’ve had children at home, I’ve been away, I’ve been sick, my 3 year old isn’t sleeping well, so I’m not sleeping well and so on and so on and whilst many of these are valid reasons for reduced output, I also know this isn’t the full story when it comes to why I haven’t been creating content. The time has been there but I’ve been choosing to do other things instead, some productive and others not productive.

As I sought to really understand why I’ve been struggling to write my weekly newsletter, a few things came up.

  • I’ve made it in my mind that every newsletter I write has to read like a blog post that I can later repurpose. That’s my content strategy after all, but sometimes I don’t want to write an article style letter, sometimes I want to write whatever and however I want to write. Recognising that I’m putting this pressure on my creativity is important.
  • Because of all of the life, parenting and work responsibilities I have going on, I’ve been feeling overwhelmed, exhausted and feeling the need to disconnect and retreat. This has meant that on my content Mondays (I have much of the day blocked off for content creation) rather than get up and work on my newsletter, I have instead been going back to bed or numbing out with TV or social media. Recognising why this is going on has been huge.
  • And on top of this, I’ve long been a believer that the longer we go without practicing a habit, the harder it is to get back into it. This has definitely been a factor for me over the last few months. I know that when I am showing up consistently with my content creation, it feels a lot easier to be consistent. Getting back on the horse requires substantial effort which can be hard to muster when you’re feeling depleted.

3. Giving yourself permission

Once I identified the real reasons behind my lack of action on content, I didn’t give myself a good talking to and force myself back into action — if you’ve tried this, you’ll know it doesn’t work! Instead, I gave myself permission to lean into my need to disconnect, rest and sleep more. But I did these activities consciously. I wasn’t unconsciously avoiding my schedule and my commitment to weekly content, I was allowing myself to take the time I needed to feel better. I still held the intention to do my tasks but when I didn’t, instead of beating myself, I got curious, I noticed how I was feeling in my mind and my body. If I decided to disconnect by scrolling on social media, I did so knowingly and noticed how it felt as I did. I was actively raising my awareness of the resistance I was feeling and loving myself through it. The effect of this felt nourishing and kind and also was eased any feelings of guilt.

4. Prioritising well-being

As well as allowing myself to be unproductive, I also started to focus on feeling better. To this end, I’ve been going to regular yoga classes for the past few weeks as well as taking part in a 21-day breathwork programme. I’ve restarted my daily gratitude journaling, committed to being in bed by 10.30pm and I’ve been working on being more present with myself, my family and my work. All of this has worked to help me feel more energised, nourished and present. All key ingredients for increased levels of creativity. Unlike shame, self-criticism and guilt which are creativity killers, to say the least!

4. Getting organised

With time, I began to feel the energy and desire to create coming back, so the next thing I did was to get organised. I wrote out my full to do list so I could get out of my head and onto paper all the niggly things that were getting in the way of me focusing on content. I tidied and cleaned my office, which had started to reflect my busy mind and I made a plan.

5. Finding accountability

To execute that plan, I joined my favourite co-working group, I’m actually sat writing this piece in a co-working session with several other lovely people, also working on their own personal and professional goals. I find that this added element of accountability super useful when it comes to being focused during a working session. Without it, the temptation to give in to distractions can be too much.

It’s important to note that I couldn’t have skipped straight to this step, without doing all of the other work I’ve done to get back on track. For sure if I had attended a session like this a month ago, I would have wasted it and left feeling even more disheartened.

So there you have it, the exact steps I’ve taken to go from not getting a weekly piece of content created to creating my first one in a good while.

Do you have something business-related or personal that you deeply desire to be doing on a consistent basis but try as you might you just can’t get back to it? If so, my hope is that you find the steps I’ve outlined above helpful. Feel free to let me know.

Conscious Business Mastermind

If you are looking for more accountability, direction and support for your business in 2024, you might want to look at my yearlong group program for conscious business owners. I’m now enrolling for the 2024 cohort of the Conscious Business Mastermind at www.carolineleon.com/mastermind

Finishing The Year Strong

Finishing The Year Strong

by | Oct 18, 2023 | Mindset, Uncategorized

“It’s not where you start — It’s where you finish that counts.”

~ Zig Ziglar

I don’t know about you but it’s around this time of year that I start to get excited about the promise that the next year holds. It would be oh so easy for me to write this year off already, but I know that I need to finish this year strong if there’s any chance of starting the next one feeling prepared. In this blog I detail everything I’m doing to begin my wrap up of the year and lay the foundations for a really positive new year. 

1. Review my 2023 business plan

The first thing I do around this time of year is go back to the business plan I made at the end of last year. I know before I even go there that there will be many things I haven’t done but I like to review the goals I originally set and assess where I am in relation to them.

There are always things that are underway but not yet complete and others that never even got started, it’s almost like my brain forgot about them as soon as the proverbial ink had dried on the paper. And that’s okay. Revisiting my plan helps me to decide what I’m going to focus on for the rest of the year. 

2. Let go of things  

I don’t hesitate to tweak my plan throughout the year and course correct as I go. And the final months of the year are no exception. In fact it’s probably when I am the most ruthless. I know that in order to have a positive and productive final quarter, I need to focus and streamline how I spend my time. With holidays thrown in, the last few months of the year always go by faster than expected.

I’m also really mindful not to beat myself up for what I haven’t achieved. I know only too well that no good comes from this. Instead, I consider what I put on my initial plan that no longer feels like a priority and I simply cross it off the list.

The last thing I want as I enter into quarter 4 is to have a list of things I haven’t done nor will I get done before year end. If there are things I wanted to do but didn’t, I do spend time trying to figure out what got in the way. Was it a mindset or a time issue or something else? If I’m going to carry something forward into the next year, I like to ask myself what I will do to ensure success the next time around? 

3. I make a Q4 plan 

In my business, Q4 is BUSY. I have the launch for my annual business planning workshop and my Conscious Business Mastermind, as well as getting everything ready for a January start for the latter. With so much going on, I have to be on it with my schedule and it’s also the last chance I get to tick things of my annual plan so it’s crucial that I get organised. I always write a quarterly plan but for quarter 4 it’s much more detailed. 

4. Start big picture thinking for 2024

This is one of my favourite parts. After years of tweaking and trying out lots of things, my business model is pretty much nailed down these days. I have several recurring offerings like my group mastermind and my 1:1 coaching so there’s a fair amount of stuff that is already known and accounted for.

But there are also things like my workshop schedule that is somewhat up for grabs, I love to start making notes on what workshops I might run next year and any other things I might do. That said, every year that passes as a business owner. I have become more mindful of not putting too much on my plan. Like most people, the temptation to overestimate what’s possible in 12 months is ever present but I do believe that, from experience, I’m much more realistic these days. 

5. Start laying the foundations for my business planning process

 Every year I facilitate a detailed business planning process, I go through this process for myself, with my 1:1 clients, with my group program participants AND I host a public workshop. It’s a pretty thorough process and doing it means I have a robust plan for the year ahead.

Before I developed this process (many years ago), I used to jump straight in with goal-setting without doing the relevant, strategic thinking before getting to that point. This led to a heap of goals that didn’t make much strategic sense and were instead often rooted in “shoulds” and from copying what I was seeing others doing in my industry. These days it’s a different story, but before I can get strategic, there are some foundations I need to set.

Many of these are the things I’m sharing in this letter, others include allowing myself to really think into how I want to feel over the next year and what I want to accomplish. I like to journal on and envision what an ideal year would look like for me, before I get deep into planning mode.

Writing out my business wish list without restraint is one of the ways I do that. This is everything I could possibly hope for from my business. Even if my wishful thinking gets curtailed somewhat through the planning process, it’s important to let myself really feel into my dreams and desires for my business before getting to the realistic part. 

6. Plan in next year’s holidays

This is one of my absolute favourite end of year activities. Before I start adding in what work I will do over the year. I like to go through my next year and block out all the time I’ll take off work. That includes looking at my children’s school holidays, any local or national bank holidays plus our annual winter and summer holidays and blocking them off in my calendar. That way when it comes to doing the planning for my business later in the year, I’ll already know what time I have left to play with. This is much better than scrambling to find space for holidays after my whole year has been planned out. 

7. I write my business plan

As I mentioned above, every year, I do a full business planning process, which includes a full review of the current year and a set of strategic priorities, goals and systems for next year. I used to try and cram this process into December but these days I prefer to start earlier. That way I can guarantee to start the year in January crystal clear on what my business priorities are.

Whilst there are are several documents that make up my final business plan, what I’m left with is what I call the Planning Dashboard, which is where I can see, at a glance, my key priorities and targets for the year. It’s designed to fit on one page so that I can print it out and pin it above my desk for easy reference. 

I’m fairly certain that I am not alone when it comes to making a great plan and then letting it sit dusty on a shelf for the rest of the year. Having my dashboard allows me to see at a glance, whenever I want to, my top line business plan. 

And there you have it, what I’m currently working on to finish the year strong. I’m aware that if you are still struggling to get your business off the ground some of these things might feel like overkill but I’m a firm believer in building for growth.

That is treating your business as if it was already full and successful and putting into place now what would be necessary to organise your business around your life. I hope you’ve found this list useful and I’d love to hear what it brings up for you. Feel free to hit reply and let me know. 

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.

How I Handle Pre-Performance Nerves

How I Handle Pre-Performance Nerves

by | Sep 20, 2023 | Mindset

“The brave man is not he who does not feel afraid, but he who conquers that fear.”
~ Nelson Mandela

I want to share with you a few things I do whenever I feel nervous about “performing” in my business. That might be teaching a class, doing a live video, being interviewed, or speaking to someone else’s audience and even though I dislike the term performance, I trust you’ll get what I mean when I say that’s how it can feel to us!

As a solopreneur who is committed to getting the word out about conscious business and ethical marketing, I regularly need to face my fears and put myself at the front of the room, so to speak.

To give you a few examples, I presented on authentic outreach to Sarah Santococe’s Humane Marketing Circle, hosted a live online workshop (or 2), and was one of 4 speakers at a roundtable discussion on business model for Tad Hargrave. All of these things, to varying degrees, result in what I’m calling pre-performance nerves.

Back when I had a 9–5 office job, I had a lot of presentations to do and they absolutely terrified me. My voice would start shaking, my stomach would be in knots, I’d feel my face flush and I’d be dying inside (side note: people always told me I came across as very confident and didn’t see any of what I was experiencing inside). The thing was I didn’t have a choice, they were part of the job description, so I sucked it up and somehow got through the excruciating anxiety of it all.

So, you can imagine as a business owner, choosing to volunteer myself for speaking opportunities or “putting myself out there” has required some courage on my part. What spurs me on though is knowing that people need to know that I and my business exist if they are going to buy from me. So I’ve developed a couple of strategies I always do when I start to feel the nerves of presenting get the better of me.

I think about people who love me

I’m a proud Mama of two gorgeous boys and I have a wonderful and loving partner. I keep on my desk at all times photos of the four of us together as a family. Whenever I’m about to do something scary, I’ll pick up one of my photos and take a good hard look and I remind myself that no matter how badly I do in this… interview, presentation or speaking slot, they will still love me. They won’t care if I umm or ahh, they won’t care if I forget my words or encounter a tech snafu. To these 3 people, I’m already a hero and that really helps me to put whatever I’m about to do into perspective. Their opinion matters to me more than anyone else’s and it won’t be affected by how I perform for a work thing and just remembering that can be enough to calm my nerves.

I think about the future

In a similar vein, if I’m feeling particularly nervous, I like to think about a point in time after the event has happened and imagine how good it will feel once it’s over.

Usually, that point in time is the boys coming home, full of energy and life, wanting to hug me and tell me about their day. I like to think about and revel in the sensations of the relief and elation I know I’m going to feel once the scary thing I had to do is now over. I’ll even look at the clock and calculate how long it will be before this scary thing will be out of the way and not something I have to worry about anymore. Focusing on those future sensations often is enough to override or at least quieten any anxiety I might be feeling.

I think about my mission

Sometimes, pre-performance anxiety can come in the form of inner chatter like “who am I to share this stuff”, “there’s nothing special about what I have to share”, “everybody’s probably heard all of this before” etc, I’m sure you know how it goes! When that’s the case, I remind myself of the relief I felt when I first heard or learned of some of the things I now share with my audience and other people’s.

I think about the impact everything I have learned about conscious business and ethical marketing has had on me as a business owner and the growth and evolution of my business and I remind myself of my mission to spread that message.

When I was on a speaking panel with some giants in my industry who have been in business twice as long as me and make far more money. Initially, I felt totally inadequate, but as I remembered my mission I realised that for many people in the audience, the gap between themselves and some of these speakers is so huge that it might feel intimidating or overwhelming to consider how to bridge it.

My goal then became to tailor my message for those people in the audience earlier on in the journey who I can still relate to. That really helped me to anchor into the fact that I have an important message and experience to share.

I remember previous performance successes

Given I’ve felt pre-performance anxiety and nerves many times in my life but have yet to really blow a speaking opportunity and have always received positive feedback. I also like to remind myself that even though there is fear and anxiety, I can do this. I have a wealth of experience of doing things like this and not messing up.

Now each of these things on their own might not seem like they’d be enough to quel pre-performance fears but for me, they do the trick. Plus the more times I put myself out there and face the fear, the easier it becomes. Will I ever be nerves free ahead of an important speaking opportunity? I don’t think so but I think that’s a good thing. It’s what drives me to prepare and practice, which I do regularly. It’s a sign that I care about doing a good job.

How about you? I’d love to know if you have any tips or tricks for managing your nerves in situations like these. Feel free to 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.

How I Start And Finish My Working Day

How I Start And Finish My Working Day

by | Jul 26, 2023 | Mindset

“Any ritual is an opportunity for transformation. To do a ritual, you must be willing to be transformed in some way. The inner willingness is what makes the ritual come alive and have power. If you aren’t willing to be changed by the ritual, don’t do it.” 

~ Starhawk

In this article, I want to share with you two daily rituals I use to have a more productive and sane working day and to switch off completely after my working day is over. These are my Start of Day Ritual and my Shutdown Ritual. Read on for all the details.

I’ve tried all of the things when it comes to feeling organised and on top of my ever expanding to do list. You name the tool and I’ve tried it, Things, Todoist, Trello, Asana and the list goes on! More recently I reverted back to good old pen and paper in collaboration, of course, with my online calendar. I’ve been using this system for some time now and it’s working well for me.

Start of Day Ritual

Every morning after my morning ritual (which consists of journaling, exercise, breakfast and shower), I sit down at my desk and begin my Start of Day Ritual.

Step 1:

I review my agenda for the day. I use Google Calendar and use colour to differentiate between different entries. For example, red refers to paid offerings like client sessions or group program live calls, purple refers to content creation, orange is lead generation and yellow is breaks. To see an example day in my schedule, see the image below.

As I review, I allow myself to feel positive feelings towards each activity. This might look like expressing gratitude or taking time to consider what I enjoy about each activity.

This is especially important for those things that I don’t feel particularly excited by, like admin or sometimes even my content creation (gasp!). But taking the time to lean into appreciation as well as review what’s on the agenda for the day helps me to feel more connected with the day ahead and avoids any last minute surprises.

Step 2:

Once I’ve completed step 1, I head to my paper planner, which is simply a day per page diary and I write out (or review) my three most important tasks for the day (if I haven’t done it the night before).

The key here is to choose no more than 3 tasks. The reason for this is to avoid overwhelm and to set up my day to have easy wins. I can usually manage 3 tasks each day, as long as they are tasks that have been broken down into manageable chunks, which means a real sense of achievement as I tick each task off.

When we constantly work from a long and overwhelming to do list, we miss out on the sense of achievement or the feeling of pride we feel when we can mark a task complete and know that we did everything we set out to do for the day.

Some clients of mine worry that 3 things is not enough to keep up with everything they have to do. That’s fine. Once you’ve completed your 3 things for the day, if there is still more time and more things to do simply add them to your list for the day. But remember no more than 3 things at any given time!

See below to see what this looks like in practice.

Step 3:

I schedule anything on my to do list for the day (from the THREE things!) into any free spaces on my google calendar. If there is no space, then I have to adjust my expectations of what I can get done that day. Or move things around, if there is something I absolutely must get done. The key is that what’s on my list and what time and space I have available are aligned.

Once all 3 of those steps are complete, I feel ready and prepared for the day ahead.

Shutdown ritual

At the end of the day I have another ritual to close my working day. I first heard of this concept from a book I love called Deep Work by Cal Newport. Using his suggestion, I’ve created my own shutdown ritual.

Step 1:

Take a final look at my email inbox to ensure that there is nothing requiring an urgent response before the day ends and to file in the relevant folder (or archive) any emails I’ve already dealt with.

Step 2:

Transfer any new tasks that are on my mind into my master to do list in my paper planner. I keep my master to do list on several pages I have allocated at the front of my paper planner. If there is anything that has a specific deadline which isn’t the following day I will create a task in my google calendar with a date and time so that it doesn’t get missed.

Step 3:

Review my task lists and calendar to ensure nothing urgent is coming up that I’ve forgotten about.

Step 4:

If there is anything I absolutely must do the next day I write it in my day planner, in my list of 3 tasks for the next day.

Step 5:

Tidy my desk, shut down my laptop, leave my keyboard/mouse charging and last but not least I lock my office (my three year old likes to sneak in there when nobody is looking to mess with my pens and papers!).

Step 6:

Finish the ritual by saying “shutdown complete” and go to hang out with my family, free from any niggly work concerns.

And there you have it two simple and fairly quick (neither takes more than 20 minutes) rituals I perform on a daily basis to keep myself organised and on top of my workload. Do you have a ritual or routine you use to start or end your working day? If so I’d love to hear from you! Let me know in the comments below.

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