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The Impact of Letting Myself Be Supported This Year

The Impact of Letting Myself Be Supported This Year

by | Nov 25, 2025 | Mindset, Uncategorized

The Impact of Letting Myself Be Supported This Year

 

This year I did something I have never done before.

I joined a small group mastermind for business owners at a similar level to me.

Now, I realise that some people might find that odd, given that small group masterminds are the bread and butter of my business, but a year or so ago I reached a point in my business journey where I felt stuck.

I probably do not need to tell you what a rollercoaster ride being in business can be, and the last thirteen years of entrepreneurship have had their fair share of ups and downs. But what I experienced over the past couple of years felt new to me. Gone were the highs and lows, and in their place was something else.

After a few dramatic increases in income from 2020 onwards, my annual income eventually levelled out. I had settled into a business model that felt easeful to operate and a marketing system that I could rely on, even when I could not rely on my fluctuating energy levels.

In short, things got really stable. Which felt great… until it did not.

Something I have a hard time admitting is that I had started to feel a bit bored.

Offering the same things year after year and doing marketing the same way began to lose its appeal. I started to miss the creativity of trying new things and seeing what happens. But as I mentioned in a previous letter, making any big changes felt scary. I did not want to break something that was working.

That was when I realised that I needed a shift in perspective. I needed to work with someone further along in business than me, who could show me what I could not see for myself.

As is often the case when we reach the point of being ready for change, the universe put in front of me exactly the kind of support I felt I needed: a small, yearlong group mastermind called Quiet Ambition for established business owners. And even though I was tempted, I had my doubts.

What almost stopped me

What if I disappeared in the group? As a raging introvert and HSP, even though I have no problem leading a group, being a participant has always been more challenging for me, so I have tended to favour one-to-one support.

How much progress would I actually make with only two calls a month? Given that my own yearlong programs have always had weekly calls, I worried about paying more than three times what I charged for half the time I gave.

What if the advice given, or my fellow participants, did not believe in ethical marketing the way I do? The last thing I wanted was to be given advice that I could not implement because it felt out of integrity.

And possibly the biggest concern of all: what if the coach running the group or my fellow participants told me that the only way to get to the next level in business was to put my prices up? I have always prided myself on accessible pricing, and yet the only advice I ever seem to find online about growing our income is to raise our prices.

Despite my doubts, I got on a sales call and, after a good conversation with the coach, decided to go for it.

The experience of being a participant rather than the guide

When the first call came around, back in January, I will admit that I was a little nervous before joining. I had to laugh at myself for finding it edgier to be a participant than to lead a group. I am still not exactly sure why.

My initial fears soon gave way to a deep feeling of relief. The kind of release that comes when you let go of control and surrender to the support available to you. It felt wonderful to know that it was not my job to hold space or provide support; my only job was to be open to receiving it.

It was also fascinating to watch how someone else held space and structured the calls inside an offer somewhat similar to mine. It felt different, and that was exciting. There were moments where I wished things were done the way I do them, and others where I thought, perhaps I could try that in my groups. I felt inspired.

But it was not all plain sailing.

I think it was on the second call that my heart sank when one participant shared her struggle with sign-ups for a launch and another said, “Just spam them!” You can imagine my horror. Thank goodness I was muted because I think I gasped out loud.

The mirror I needed

Something that being part of a small group mastermind gave me was the wisdom of a group of fellow business owners and their honest reflections about my work.

It was so interesting to see how they responded to my business. There were several moments when people had noticeable reactions.

There was the time I shared my annual income alongside the number of subscribers on my list. People were shocked that I could make the income I was making with such a small list and asked how I was doing it. Some of the other women had lists five or ten times the size of mine but were struggling to convert them into clients. I remember thinking, perhaps it is because I do not spam them.

Then there were the gasps when I shared the pricing for my yearlong group program, the Conscious Business Mastermind, and the number of calls I offered.

And despite my initial fear that I would be told to raise my prices, simply saying them out loud became a huge turning point for me. (I will share more on that in a future letter.)

What changed for me

So much has changed in my business as a result of being in the mastermind. I have re-thought my entire business model, decided to close a program I have been running for six years and, yes, in the end, I have raised some of my prices and put tighter boundaries around my time.

What I learned is that the biggest shifts and breakthroughs come not through information and advice but through taking action and reflecting on it. A big part of my previous programs focused on teaching and sharing the strategies and tools that helped me reach the level of success that I have.

Being in a group where teaching was not the priority, but reflection and action were, has changed my whole approach to facilitation. It is the reason I have decided to remove live classes from my programs next year. The strategies and tools will still be there, but what I will facilitate more is the reflecting and doing.

The permission and courage this group has given me to let go of what no longer serves me and to lean into my creativity and intuition has been such a gift. The changes you’re seeing unfold in my business are a direct result.

What this experience reminded me

Even after more than a decade in business, there is always more to learn, not just about strategy but about ourselves. Being in a space where I was not the one leading helped me reconnect with the curiosity and humility that got me started in the first place. It reminded me that growth doesn’t always come from knowing more; it comes from having the space to explore, reflect, and uncover what works for us.

More than anything, this year showed me that I do not have to do it all alone. Letting myself be supported does not make me less capable. It makes me more resourced, more creative, and more alive in my work.

I am so grateful I said yes, even with all my doubts. It has changed how I see my work, how I hold space, and how I define success.

DO YOU WANT TO ROOT & RISE IN 2026?

If you’re interested, I’d love you to check out Root & Rise. My two, year long programs in 2026 designed to help you grow your business with clarity, ease, and integrity.

Head to www.carolineleon.com/mastermind for all the details.

Why I Don’t Recommend Tiered Pricing

Why I Don’t Recommend Tiered Pricing

by | Jul 23, 2025 | Selling, Uncategorized

Why I Don’t Recommend Tiered Pricing

Why I Don’t Recommend Tiered Pricing

Given that I work with business owners who want to operate with integrity and do right by their clients and customers, accessible pricing options such as Pay What You Can (PWYC) and tiered pricing often come up in my 1:1 and group program calls. More often than not, people are surprised when I share that I don’t recommend them.

In case you haven’t heard these terms before, Pay What You Can allows your customers to choose a price that feels affordable to them and tiered pricing offers several different prices for the same or similar offering, inviting the customer to choose the price they can best afford.

If you’ve ever considered PWYC or tiered pricing, I totally get it. Having a single price point that might exclude some people from accessing our offerings can feel uncomfortable for the conscious business owner who wants to help as many people as possible.

Couple that with how tricky pricing our offerings can feel, because we worry that we might pick a price people can’t afford or one that equates to undercharging, and it’s no wonder then that many people see these multi-price options as a potential win-win.

My perspective is a bit different, and here’s why

The hidden costs of PWYC

I first encountered PWYC pricing years ago when I was trying to access some business trainings from Mark Silver’s Heart of Business. I’ll be honest I found it stressful.

Whilst he goes to great lengths to describe how to make your decision and even gives a baseline amount, I remember not knowing which option to choose and feeling too guilty to choose the baseline but not really being able to afford more and so, on more than one occasion, I ended up not buying at all.

You can see how he presents it here. As you notice, there is a significant amount of information on making the payment decision that I feel makes the whole process more fraught for the buyer. Just to note I love Mark and his work so this isn’t me knocking him at all. In fact when clients are set on doing PWYC, I’ll often send them to the Heart of Business website as the best example of PWYC pricing I’ve seen.

Most people don’t give even half as much information as he does, so making the decision can feel even harder.

My feeling is that for the consumer PWYC pricing can create unnecessary stress around making a decision and can have you wondering throughout, should I have chosen the lower price? It may even mean losing sales if people can’t decide easily and plan to come back to your sales page but inevitably never do.

For the business owner, it can mean constantly navigating who pays what, making it hard to keep track or to predict income. It may mean more admin or questions from potential customers unsure about what price to choose.

And, when more people inevitably choose to pay less, there’s a chance of resentment and wondering if people should or could be paying more.

It’s for these reasons I’ve chosen not to use it myself.

The pitfalls of tiered pricing

Other ways I’ve seen pricing offered is with several tiers, sometimes based around affordability and other times based on what is offered.

Here’s a simple example of what tiered pricing could look like for a course/program.

Tier 1 — might be just the materials/videos for 199$
Tier 2 — might be the materials/video + live group calls for 399$
and — Tier 3 might be materials/videos + group calls + 1:1 sessions for 799$.

Here’s where we might see names like Basic package or VIP package thrown around.

For me the issues with this kind of pricing are as follows:

  • It’s unnecessarily complicated — too many options can lead to overwhelmed and indecisive customers.
  • It can lead to a fear of missing out (FOMO) if you simply can’t afford the higher tier. This creates an unintended hierarchy, in that people feel like they are getting a “lesser” version, which could impact engagement and outcomes.
  • It can undermine your work especially if your work is deeply transformational or relational — not something that fits neatly into silver/gold/platinum boxes.

When I tried using tiered pricing in the past, I noticed that people nearly always went for the cheapest option, even when I knew one of the other options would be more impactful.

That’s why these days you won’t see different tiers for my offers.

There is only ever one option (the one I think serves the customer and myself best) and one price (the price I need to charge to have my business be sustainable).

So what’s the alternative?

Now you might be thinking, but what if people can’t afford that price?

I get it, I think about this all the time.

One way I recommend to clients who really do want to offer a cheaper option for people who can’t afford it, is to include a line on the sales page underneath the price that says something like.

If the price of this <insert offer> is prohibitive, please note that I offer a number of discounted (or scholarship) spots for people with limited means. Please email me at <insert email address> for details.

That way, those people who really can’t afford it have an option available to them. You could give more detail here, but I am a “less is more” kind of girl when it comes to sales pages.

What I do

What I do to ensure accessible pricing is to choose the best price I can offer without sacrificing my own needs. There’s no doubt I could charge more than I do and could be earning more as a result.

Instead, I try to keep my prices as accessible as possible. That said there will always be people who can’t afford, for example, my 1:1 subscription, but rather than offer my most premium service for less money, I try to offer more affordable alternatives, options such as workshops or group programs.

That way there are always cheaper ways to work with me, without me devaluing my higher touch services, like 1:1 coaching. As someone who leans towards undercharging and overgiving, this is progress for me!

Interestingly, the people who come to me with a desire to offer cheaper options to their people are often the business owners who are themselves struggling to make their business work for them financially.

I’m curious, have you tried PWYC or tiered pricing? Is it working? Does it feel sustainable? If you feel called to share your experience, please do hit reply and let me know.

If you’ve been wrestling with how to make your pricing accessible without burning out, I hope this gives you some reassurance and direction. It’s okay to keep things simple. It’s okay to have one clear price. And it’s more than okay to create boundaries that support your sustainability and service. There are thoughtful ways to make your services accessible without compromising your needs.

 

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 Path to Mastery: Why Embarrassment Is the Entry Fee

The Path to Mastery: Why Embarrassment Is the Entry Fee

by | Jul 14, 2025 | Mindset, Uncategorized

The Path to Mastery: Why Embarrassment Is the Entry Fee

The Path to Mastery: Why Embarrassment Is the Entry Fee

I came across the following quote a few months ago and it stopped me in my tracks. It perfectly captures what the path to mastery really looks like:

“Embarrassment is the cost of entry. If you aren’t willing to look like a foolish beginner, you’ll never become a graceful master.”

~ Ed Latimore

I wholeheartedly agree with this and what I love so much about this quote is the link it makes between feeling like a foolish beginner and achieving a level of mastery. It got me thinking about what I have achieved over the last decade of running my own business and where I started the journey.

I still remember the excruciating fear of my first coaching session, my first group call, hitting publish on my first blog post and the first time I reached out to a stranger on the internet. Now I can tap back into the feelings of anxiety and self-doubt like it was yesterday.

I’ve been surprised numerous times over the years by just how terrifying being in business can feel at times but thankfully, I haven’t let it deter me from moving forward. I now find myself comfortably on the other side of many of those initial fears. Reading the quote above brought into sharp focus the link between facing those initial fears and the path to mastery at what we do.

The Myth of Mastery

Mastery is so often grossly misunderstood. More often than not, we look at someone who has achieved a level of mastery in a skill or profession and incorrectly assume that they’ve always been accomplished in this area. We assume they must possess some innate brilliance that we simply don’t.

That’s how I used to feel anyway.

And then someone told me what a gifted group facilitator they thought I was, which immediately transported me back to my very first group call. A Women’s Circle I decided to host, right at the beginning of my entrepreneurial journey. I was absolutely terrified, consumed with fear of failure and concerns over what the women on the call would think about me, but somehow, with a wobbly voice and shaking hands, I managed to pull it off.

I have no idea how I came across on that very first call — I’m certain my nerves showed — and I’m pretty sure that nobody would have referred to me as a gifted facilitator. More like a rabbit in the headlights.

Since that point I’ve hosted hundreds of live group calls. I’ve stumbled my way through tricky group dynamics, had more than a few difficult conversations with individual group members about their impact on the group and received a ton of feedback on my group facilitation skills that has helped me to improve and feel more confident. But it hasn’t been a straight line.

The Messy Middle

A while ago, I was feeling called to pull the plug on my yearlong group mastermind. I had stopped enjoying it and was feeling the call to do something else. So I sought out a coach to help me figure things out and as I talked about the group program, he said the following: “Sounds to me like you’re coming up against the edges of your leadership skills.” He went on to say that the problem wasn’t likely the program itself but my need to level up my skills at leading it.

It really hit home. I took what he had said to heart and I worked hard to improve my facilitation skills, not shying away when a situation required me to step up as the leader, no matter how uncomfortable I felt.

Since then my group program has only grown and I love it more than I ever have. Plus I feel confident about my skills and my ability to face any situation that might arise. Getting to this place with group facilitation has taken over a decade. It wasn’t something I was naturally gifted at nor particularly skilled at but it is something I’ve persevered with and managed to clock up hundreds of hours of practice at.

It would have been so easy for me not to push myself at working with groups. To let one bad experience derail my self-belief. The hard work has been pushing through that discomfort. I firmly believe that mastery is a relationship with discomfort, repetition, and showing up even when it’s messy.

What the Path to Mastery Looks Like

For me the journey to mastery goes through 4 stages:

1. The initial attempt. This is often the hardest thing to do. It’s the first time you’re trying something new. Perhaps it’s your first launch, your first video, your first group call. Whatever it is, it’s not something you’ve been able to practice and perfect so the vulnerability stakes are high. If we can get past our fear of looking foolish, this first milestone is huge.

2. Repeated practice. This is where we take that first attempt and we keep going. I’ve heard from so many business owners when discussing business strategies the following words: “I tried to do that and it didn’t work” which they present as justification for not trying again. Many of my first attempts at things have felt like failures (as a perfectionist that’s pretty much a given) but over time and with practice I’ve turned those initial “failures” into successes. You can only do that with repeated practice.

3. The messy middle. Sometimes when we’ve been practicing for a while, things come up that test our abilities, much like what happened with my group mastermind. I could feel comfortable and okay as long as I didn’t have to deal with anything too tricky. When things got challenging, the desire to bail got strong but leaning into my discomfort at these times is what has kept me on the path.

4. A level of mastery. This is where you’ve gone through the 3 stages and survived to tell the tale. People look at you and consider you gifted or skilled (and probably underestimating all the effort you’ve put in over the years). This is where the phrase “you make it look easy” comes into play. Not because it is easy but because you’ve done the work to make it look easy.

Every stage has its unique challenges. Your only goal, if mastery is what you are seeking, is to stay the course and keep showing up.

Why It’s Particularly Difficult for Business Owners

What makes the path to mastery so difficult for us is the fact that we are making the journey publicly. It’s not like learning to play the guitar, where you can go through the stages of mastery behind closed doors, in the comfort of your own bedroom.

For us, more often than not, the path to mastery requires us to face our fears and lean into vulnerability in front of an audience filled with prospective clients, peers and possibly mentors. And that is not easy.

It’s probably no secret by now that being an entrepreneur requires courage and determination. Not, as we often think, skills or confidence. They come later with time. The courage to take the first step and the determination to keep showing up? That’s what’s needed.

And now a question for you to contemplate:

Where are you holding back in business because you’re afraid of looking foolish?

And once you’ve identified that,

What first step would you be willing to take in the next week or two?

Unfortunately, it’s not possible to skip being a beginner. But rather than see that as a flaw, what if we viewed it as a rite of passage on the journey to mastery?

And when you are worried what people might think, remember most people are too busy worrying about not looking foolish themselves to really pay any attention to what you are doing.

If this post has inspired you to make a first step, let me know in the comments. I’d love to hear from you.

 

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.

Six Business Foundations for an Effective Year

Six Business Foundations for an Effective Year

by | Mar 18, 2025 | Business Growth, Uncategorized

 “The important thing is that you’ve got a strong foundation before you start to try to save the world or help other people.”
~ Richard Branson

 

I want to share with you six foundations I recommend getting in place to have a more effective and successful year ahead.

1. A strategic business plan

We all have things we want to achieve in any business year and what I see most people doing at the start of a year is pulling together a laundry list of goals that they would love to achieve or that they think they should achieve.

The problem with this approach is that we don’t do any thinking around what actually makes strategic sense for our business.

To counter this I recommend first looking back over the past year to assess what worked and what didn’t and to integrate any learnings into the year ahead. We’ll also want to consider what our overall business objective for the year is and what our strategic priorities should therefore be.

Once we’ve identified which goals make strategic sense, an effective business plan will lay out how we plan to achieve these goals, answering the question:

What do I actually need to do to make these goals a reality?

Knowing why you’re choosing the goals you are choosing and how you expect to achieve them are key to having a strategic plan. To read a blog I wrote on this head here and to purchase a replay of my Business Planning Workshop for 2025, head here.

2. An ideal schedule

As you may have already realised, it’s so easy to waste valuable time, when trying to build and grow a business, either getting lost in distractions or procrastination.

And it makes sense, when left to our own devices and wide open days, anything and everything looks more appealing than getting down to business.

Having a schedule for my working week has been an essential that I don’t know how I lived without. If you, like many of the people I work, feel resistance at the thought of scheduling your days and weeks, let me remind you that what I’m talking about is an ideal schedule i.e. one that works for you.

A schedule that protects your freedom rather than restricts it. A schedule that, first and foremost, protects when you won’t work and what you will do with your precious time when you do work. For full instructions on how I recommend pulling together your ideal schedule, head here.

3. A system for tracking your finances

I know, I know this is one most people love to hate but have you heard this phrase?

Where attention goes, energy flows.

I wholeheartedly believe this to be true and so it makes good business sense to pay attention to our business finances even if (especially if) they feel dire right now. For me this looks like setting an annual and monthly financial goals (having a business plan to back up those goals) and then tracking my income (and expenses) on a monthly basis to see how I’m doing.

I use the word “system” but it really doesn’t need to be anything fancy. I have a simple spreadsheet I use (if you want a copy email me and I’ll send it over).

I look at my income regularly and if I haven’t yet updated my spreadsheet, I can always go into Stripe (the payment processor I use) and check the figures that way.

4. A Content Plan

I could wax lyrical all day long about how important I think creating content for your business is but rather than do that, you can read a blog I wrote on the importance of content here.

A business can only become truly financially sustainable if people know it exists and content is a great way to have your business become more visible.

That’s why having a clear content schedule and plan makes it on this list.

And yet again, it doesn’t have to be anything too complicated.

If you grab a piece of paper right now and draw a grid with days of the week along the left side and your channels (e.g. email, Instagram, blog etc) across the top and then fill in what type of content you will publish and when, you have a content schedule.

If you want to learn more about my approach to content you can read this post or if you want to go deeper, you could purchase my Content Marketing Training.

5. An organised digital space

More simply put a filing system for any digital documents related to your business as well as an easy way to access any important information you need in your day to day work.

After years of having issues with space on my laptop, I finally bit the bullet in 2019 and set up a new filing structure on Google Drive with four key folders: 1. Internal Operations 2. Products + Services 3. Marketing 4. Professional Development — each with its own set of sub-folders.

For a full run through of my filing system click on the video below.

I also use Bookmark Folders in Google Chrome for easy access to everything I need online during the working day. These things take a minute to set up but once done, save you untold hours of time in the future.

6. A clean and organised physical space

Last but not least, I recommend making sure you have dedicated space to work on your business, be that a space on your dining table or a whole office to yourself. Wherever you decide to work on your business, I think it’s crucial that it’s clean, tidy and well organised.

This one really is a quick win but has a huge impact on our state of mind as we sit down to work.

Being surrounded by clutter or mess can have a negative impact on our ability to focus and at the same time it’s important to have everything you need at your fingertips to do your best work.

And that’s it, 6 things you don’t to get in place today or tomorrow but that would serve you well to work towards over the next few weeks.

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.

Three Things I Do When In A Time Crunch

Three Things I Do When In A Time Crunch

by | Feb 11, 2025 | Mindset, Uncategorized

 “You can’t calm the storm, so stop trying. What you can do is calm yourself. The storm will pass.”
~ Timber Hawkeye

 

I want to share with you three things I do when I have more things to do than time available to do them in.

I know that in crunch times, it’s all too easy to fall into a state of overwhelm but I learned long ago that overwhelm is a choice and so staying out of overwhelm is also, therefore, a choice. Here’s what I do instead.

 

I reject overwhelm

I’ve written about overwhelm as it effects business owners several times over the years and I always talk about my belief that overwhelm is a choice.

If you think about it, it makes sense. If it weren’t a choice, how is it that some people can feel overwhelmed having far less to do than other people who don’t feel overwhelmed with far more to do.

It’s a bit like rain, one person can look out of the window see rain and feel down, whilst another person (me!) can look out of the window, see rain and feel uplifted. It all depends on how we think about rain (or overwhelm!) I learned many years ago that if I succumb to feelings of overwhelm, they paralyzed me and make it certain that I will in fact get far less done than if I choose to think about things differently.

So rather than collapse into thoughts of “this is impossible, I’ll never get everything done!!” instead, I get strategic and practical and I breakdown my list into priorities and start to take focused and sustained action.

 

I manage my energy

When feelings of overwhelm and stress are circling, I know that the easy route is to try and bury those feelings in food, netflix and doom scrolling. Believe me when I tell you that I am in no way perfect and have taken the easy route more times than I care to mention. It’s precisely because I’ve been down that road and know where it takes me, that when push really comes to shove I know that I need to do everything I can to protect my mindset and my energy. Something neither of those easy options do.

So instead of checking my phone first thing in the morning, listening to the news while I make breakfast, and then rushing around trying to do a million things (all while feeling heartbroken at the state of the world), I actually seriously slow the f*ck down.

The busier I am the more likely it is that I’ll take the time to write in my gratitude journal first thing, then when I get to my office, I’ll burn some incense, savour my cup of coffee and listen to calming music, usually from either Satnam Kaur or Beautiful Chorus before I even think about work.

The impact this has on my ability to stay calm, centered and focused is huge. Only then will I allow myself to tackle my workload.

 

I bend time

Years ago when working with my first Business Coach, I was working on a email course for my audience and in a session, when my coach asked me why I hadn’t done all of my homework, I complained that the lessons for my email course were taking forever to create. I was at that point taking nearly a whole week to create each lesson’s email.

My coach, who was fond of giving me meaty challenges, invited me to create the next week’s lesson in just 90 minutes. As you might imagine, I laughed in response. “not possible” I argued but he persisted. He told me to put aside 90 minutes the following day and use my phone to set a timer, the goal was to complete the email lesson before the 90 minute timer went off. I agreed to try but I couldn’t help feeling like he was setting me up to fail.

The next morning, I did as he told me and something miraculous happened. I did it. I finished the lesson in 90 minutes. I was amazed, it felt like magic and I haven’t looked back since.

I later learned that this is a tool called time-blocking and I’ve been a convert ever since.

My time-blocking game has advanced over the decade since that first experience with it and I now follow the 52/17 rule.

This means using a timer, I spend 52 minutes working on a specific task followed by a 17 minute break.

When I am working I am 100% focused on the task at hand and if I feel tempted to do something else, like check my email or scroll on social media, I only need to look up at my timer and know that soon I’ll have a 17 minute break in which I can do anything I want.

When I’m lucky enough to get a whole day to work on things I’ll plan out my whole day like this using a time calculator. It’s a full day but with plenty of breaks.

And there you have it, 3 things I do to stop me falling apart when I have more work than I can possibly handle! Is there anything you would add to this list? Or anything on this list you would love to try, hot 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.

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Is This Stopping You From Taking Action?

Is This Stopping You From Taking Action?

by | Oct 13, 2024 | Mindset, Uncategorized

“Being detached allows us to stay balanced and free from the anxieties that arise from success or failure.”
~ Pundarika Vidyanidhi Das

 

I want to talk to you about something that comes up in my client calls all the time. The struggle to take action on important business activities. In today’s letter, I’d like to share one reason that I think that might be.

Take a moment now to bring to mind something that you want to do in your business but that, for whatever reason, you struggle to take action on.

It could be getting your content marketing up and running, launching a new product or service, reaching out to someone who you know could be a great collaborator or any other thing that you know will move your business forward, but, for whatever reason, you’re stalling on.

Now ask yourself this?

 

What outcome are you attached to?

Is it that the content you write is well received and impactful? Is that your launch goes really well and you get a certain number of sign-ups? Is it that the person you reach out responds enthusiastically?

Now take that outcome and consider the fear behind it.

Is it that people won’t like your content or that they’ll criticize it? Is it that no one will buy your new offering and it will look like you don’t know what you’re doing? Is it that you won’t get a response from the person you reach out to and worse still, they’ll be annoyed that you did?

Can you relate? Do you have these sorts of thoughts running through your head? Perhaps you’re conscious of them or maybe this is the first time you’re giving them attention.

The key is that many of us become attached to a certain outcome and the fear of not getting the outcome we desire then gets in the way of taking action.

I get it, I used to do this all the time and I can still fall into this same trap but I want to share something that really helped me.

Years ago, when Joan and I left our home in Mexico (where we’d been housesitting for a year) and moved to Valencia, Spain, we were both excitedly working on our businesses. Joan had, since meeting me, really got into personal growth and was keen to start his own coaching business.

In typical Joan style, he dived right in and decided to run an in-person workshop on stress. He found a venue, found a partner to help him promote it and set a date. On the morning of his workshop, I couldn’t believe how calm he was. “Aren’t you worried that nobody will show up?” I asked him. Well aware that if it were my workshop, that would be my greatest fear.

“Not at all” he replied and went on to explain that his only goal was to become a person who had run a workshop on stress in Valencia. Essentially, to have gone through the process of finding a venue, getting all the equipment, marketing the event, creating his slides, delivering the workshop and gaining all the knowledge that doing so would bring. “I’ll do the workshop even if nobody shows up.” he said with a smile.

I’m not going to lie, I was stunned by this and being who I am, I wanted to understand how he could be so calm, when I might be a nervous wreck. The more I thought about it, the more I realised that my stress in similar situations came from my attachment to a certain outcome. I realised that whenever I wanted to try something new in my business, I wanted to be sure that I would succeed and my fear of failure was often enough to stop me even trying.

Since then (that was 9 years ago!), I’ve largely got over this habit of getting attached to outcome. I’m much better at spotting the desire for success and feeling the fear of failure and going for it anyway. Knowing that who I will be on the other side of just doing the thing will give me more knowledge, confidence and true feeling of accomplishment (regardless of the results).

When we start to do things for the sake of doing them, rather than as a means to an end, we get to enjoy them a whole lot more.

Let’s go back to my earlier examples.

What if, instead of attaching to the outcome of people like our content, we created content because we enjoyed the process of creating? What if, Instead of worrying about what people might say, we focused on expressing our ideas and point of view through content, knowing that over time our content marketing skills would improve?

What if, instead of obsessing over how many people might sign up to our new thing or not, we focused on the skills we’ll deepen as we lean into launching and selling our gifts. One of the things I always tell myself when I’m launching is that nobody knows if it fails. I don’t have to announce that I didn’t get any sign ups and my efforts will likely have got some people ready to buy next time.

What if, instead of not reaching out to people for fear of rejection, we told ourselves that rejection is an inevitable part of the journey. Some of the greatest success stories in life have come about after countless rejections. I’m currently starting the Harry Potter series with my son and so it feels apt to share how the first Harry Potter book was rejected by 12 different publishers before an obscure literary agent took it on.

The truth is, if we adopt an attitude of play, experimentation and exploration in our work, we enjoy it a whole lot more and actually achieve success all the much faster.

Another truth is that while we’re worried about what other people will think, they’re not actually watching us and waiting for us to trip or fail because they are too busy worrying about their own potential missteps.

And let’s just say for argument’s sake, that we do fail spectacularly. What’s the worst that can happen? If you publish that piece and no one comments or someone writes something rude? In a few days you’ll have forgotten all about it — trust me I’ve been there. Or if you try and launch a new offer and no one buys, who is even going to notice?

The worst that can happen in my opinion letting our hopes and fears about what might happen stop us from even trying. So please, ditch your attachment to outcome and consider what might be possible, if you just did the thing for the sake of doing the thing.

Care to share with me the one thing you’ve been procrastinating about moving forward with? I’d love to know so feel free to hit reply and let me know.

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