Press the reset button - it is never too late

This article originally appeared on the Business Business Business blog, you can see it here

We are now a quarter of the way through the year. How are your plans going? Your news resolutions? Your goals?

Are you kicking goals and achieving great things? Or maybe you have forgotten all those good intentions for how your 2018 will play out.

This is a terrific time to stop what you are doing. Review what you have achieved. Understand why you haven’t achieved what you wanted to. Make changes so you can achieve what you want as we head into the next quarter.

It is never too late to press the reset button.

Pressing the reset button is a chance to start again. To take learnings from what you did well and how to improve so you can achieve all t he things you want to. Whether in your life or your business.

The important thing to do is to change what you are you doing, if it is not working for you. If you keep doing the same thing, you will keep getting the same result. So, what can you do differently to achieve the great things you are destined to achieve.

• Change could be mindset – your own confidence and belief in you.
• Change could be in your daily actions – stopping procrastination, becoming focused, managing your time better.
• Change could be in your goal setting – are you trying to do too much, or are you not thinking big enough.

If you are setting goals for yourself, you also need to commit to reviewing, and celebrating, on a regular basis. With self-reflection, making a commitment to changing something, you can press reset. When you press reset add new energy into your life, focus on the new goal and go for it.

Remembering to break down the goal into easy actionable steps – so every day, week and month you are working towards achievement and success. And when you review at the next quarter, mid-year, end-of-financial year, you can celebrate the success of your goal. Or simply change and press reset.

Staying accountable to your goals and having a group who you are accountable to, is so important. People who lift you up, support you and importantly tell you when you are losing focus. Seek one out or create one for yourself.

Enjoy the goal setting process. Enjoy ticking them off. Enjoy reviewing and pressing the reset button. Enjoy celebrating your success.

Who Are You?

This article originally appeared on the 1000 Ripple Effects blog, you can see it here

When was the last time you asked yourself “Who am I?” Really truly explored ‘you’. Your history, future dreams and how you show up in life today?

Everybody has a story, a journey they have travelled, learnings they have made, history. Very few people have led a ‘privileged life’, we all have stories of sadness, of absolute joy. Too many people have seen the extremes of violence and felt desperation. Seen the effects of illness on loved ones, and themselves. Suffered loss they never felt they could move on from. This is your story, your beliefs, possibly even your anchors, holding you in place, unable to move. 

These experiences are what have shaped you to be the person you are today. They don’t have to define your future. 

When was the last time you dreamed of a better future for yourself? Do you wish for happiness, fulfilment, clarity, freedom, or balance? You are not alone – most people do. You can change your story – and you can start today!

The journey of self-discovery takes a lifetime. It takes a lifetime because you always change and grow. This is good, this is what you want to happen. What is holding you back from starting? Do any of these sound familiar:

Fear
Fear of what you will learn about yourself. Fear of being vulnerable to others. Fear of accepting things you have done in the past. Fear of reliving your past. Fear of change. Fear of becoming the person you always dreamt about. 

Think about what scares you? Why does it scare you? How can you face the demon? What will motivate you to work through the bad stuff? What does fear look like to you?


Lack of self-love
Guess who our biggest critics are – yep our self. How many times have you told yourself you will do x only when you have achieved z? How many times have you thought ‘I don’t deserve this’? 

Poor body image, lack of self-worth, lack of confidence, all come from lack of self-love. When was the last time you loved yourself? Wore jewellery or clothes which made you feel great. Exercised or had a massage to make your body feel great. Laughed, orgasmed – releasing the natural feel-good drug of oxytone.

When was the last time you celebrated being you?


Stifle dreams
Dream takers are everywhere. It starts in school and with our parents, then their ‘can’t’ and ‘don’t’ language becomes our inner voice. And we most likely say those words to others – our friends, team members and our children.

Remove negative words from your language. Replace negative speak with positive affirmations. Remove people from your life you do not believe in you. Stand tall and back yourself. Be your own personal cheer squad.

When was the last time you dreamed of your future – and then plotted how you were going to make your dream a reality? 

Too much noise
When was the last time you stopped and listened to the noise in your world? The cars, sirens, children, dogs, birds, trucks, workers, builders, the radio, TV, your phone. How do you feel? Can you concentrate on what you are trying to do? Does it raise your stress levels?

Stepping away from the noise and busyness of life, enjoying the silence, being in your mind, is important. In fact, meditation and mindfulness are key to self-discovery. Slowing your mind, allowing sub-conscious thoughts to filter through. Reduces stress, allows for problem solving and connects you with your mind and body.

Where do you start on your journey of self-discovery? How do you find out who you are? 

• Face your demons – release your fears – revisit your past
• Recognise your strengths - understand who you are
• Define your life purpose – identify your passions – do things that make you happy
• Clarify your values – understand your beliefs
• Set goals – create daily intentions - be focused
• Find inspiration – surround yourself with people and things that lift you up
• Seek challenges – stretch yourself - create new thinking
• Spend time alone – practice self-care

Stop being your own worst enemy! Stop lying to yourself about your emotions and feelings and start accepting them and allowing yourself to feel whatever is it you feel. If you have no clear idea of who you are, you will have no clarity in what you want or seek.

Self-discovery is a journey of a life time. There is no easy fix, no magic pill or fairy dust. It is constant – as you evolve and grow, you will receive new insights about who you are. The more you understand about yourself the more empowered you are going to be.

A clear self-understanding will bring renewed confidence, awareness, and strength. You have a purpose. You find happiness, fulfilment, clarity, freedom, and balance in all areas of your life.
What difference can you make to the world, yourself, your family and community? How are you going to show up?

Simple: marketing starts with a plan

Keep it simple. Make it easy. Be creative. See the results.

Marketing confuses business owners. I see it all the time. It doesn't have to be. You need to make your marketing efforts relevant to your business. Set objectives you can achieve, without setting yourself up for failure.

Marketing is not sales. Marketing is not about doing everything you can think of. Marketing is not free. Marketing is not a quick fix.

Forget confusing marketing concepts and jargon: let's go back to basics.

Marketing is about getting your customer into your sales funnel and making a sale to them.

You need to ensure you have the right customer in your sales funnel. You need to be aware of your competitors and what they do. You need a strategy with goals and how you will achieve them. You need campaigns. You need a customer focused funnel. You need to measure and review everything you do.

You need a plan.

Not just any plan a strategic marketing plan.

Your marketing plan needs to be aligned with your business plan. Ask what business goals you have that require marketing to see them achieved? There is the start of your marketing goals/action.

Don't have a plan sign up to our free 5 day challenge (for business and marketing plans).

Planning is crucial to a businesses success - you really do need to allocate some time to creating a plan. Think of it as a road map. If you take the 5 day challenge - you spent an hour or two, once a day for 5 days to give yourself a way of moving forward and achieving goals in your business.

I just don't understand marketing
No problem. What you need is the knowledge around the different elements of a plan. Easy. Do what I did - go to Uni for three years, work in the industry for 20 years. Or shortcut it and join the Marketing Accelerator Program. Where in 12 weeks you will receive all the knowledge you need right now to set yourself up for a fabulous future in business.

The 12 week marketing accelerator program, and will move you from being lost in the marketing jungle to business growth. Creating new business habits and strengthening your business core.

All business owners suffer overwhelm, and why wouldn't we. Managing financials, legal, human resources and marketing - all before we have started making our products or delivering our services.

Register today

A support community— helping you do it all

This article originally appeared in the online version of Bubble Life

We are not designed to be able to do it all – alone. Being a present mum, domestic goddess, super business women – none of it. Super-mum is a myth and kept alive by others highlight reels on social media. When you believe you need to do it all alone, you will only end up adding stress and pressure to your life.

The answer. Ask for help. Accept help. Give help. No expectations. Create a support community.

Where do you need help in your life to ease the pressure? What tasks could someone else do for you, freeing you up to do more of the things you enjoy?

Are there tasks in your business you can automate or outsource? What tasks take you away from income generating – for me it is bookkeeping and social media! Maybe you are doing tasks which you are just not qualified or experienced to do – someone else could do it quicker and with less stress. Do you need help organising yourself or helping to think bigger picture, stay accountable or someone to simply talk with and brainstorm.

What about on the home front – could childcare help you, or reciprocal playdates. What about holiday programs or extra-curricular activities. I have always found these a great way for energy to be diverted and an outlet other than home or school. Could a cleaner help free up your time or maybe you need help in the kitchen – could a timesaving appliance help, meal swapping with friends or even buying fresh pre-prepared meals? Maybe you could invest in having someone help to organise and put systems in place in your home s it operates better. Do you need to organise your family schedules better? What isn’t working, or could work better in your home to ease your stress and free up your time?

Self-care is often what we are missing in our life. As mums we are always giving to others and rarely filling up our own energy cup. Putting ourselves last – all the time. This leads to us burning out and no longer able to give. Stop doing that. What things do you enjoy doing? What fills you up? What makes you happy? Write a list and then every week allow yourself ‘me time’ and do something on that list. Is it meditating, yoga, walking, going to the gym, reading, having a massage, getting your nails done, going to the hairdresser….what excites you, and re-energises you.  Could you ask a friend to do these things with you – making sure you both do them. Even better swap babysitting with a friend so you can both have ‘me time’.

If you think about each of these areas of your life, defining what balance means to you in each. 

Identifying the actions, you need to take to make the changes you need to. Seeing where you need help, defining the type of person you need to help you make the changes. These people are your support community, you may have to pay some or ‘ barter’ with others. You will have your people who you can ask for help when you need it.

Changing Direction

As an ex-sailor, I have always loved this saying:

"When you can't change the direction of the wind ~ adjust your sails."

I would spend every Saturday racing around buoys on a lake ~ sometimes in the ocean. You would be given a course and the first boat home wins. I can remember being so focused on reaching the next buoy. Trying to get to the destination the fastest. Relying, or hoping for a steady wind - knowing there would be gusts, lulls and changes in direction. Always reading the water, watching other boats and reading the sails ~ aiming to keep momentum, be the fastest and reach that buoy before my competitors.

Much like business, having an end goal in mind, actions which will bit-by-bit get me to the finish line. Always checking on my own momentum, those around me. Monitoring competitors and what my customers want. Checking in on myself to ensure I am still passionate about my business and what I am aiming for.

Changing direction if I need to.

I have always been heading to the main goal with my business ~ freedom ~ however my course has changed over the years.

From outsourced event management. To marketing, ebusiness, weddings and running our own events. To digital marketing. To writing a book and creating a business supporting and empowering mums in business to create and grow, not only a business but their family too!

Business encourages you to grow, and you therefore need to evolve your business, mostly so you stay interested in it and passionate about it. Your customers will always pick-up on your lack of interest in your business and serving them.

Sometimes it is hard to let go of a piece of your business. Or make a change that you need to. Sometimes your customers may not like it. Basically, humans do not like change, we long for routine and familiarity.

So change can be hard, sometimes it is necessary.

I have two businesses ~ both are about Empowering women in business to be the best versions of themselves. Do I help blokes, yes I do. Rachel Allan supports mums in business and Visionary encourages business growth through marketing.

Visionary 3.0 (because this is the third evolution) is re-launching, still focused on business growth through marketing. However, we are taking a collaborative approach ~ think co-working space, online, for marketing professionals. We are connecting modern marketing professionals with small business. I can't wait for everyone to see the power of this new business model!

And so, for another time in business, I adjust my sails and keep on heading to my goal. I can't see the finish line, but I am absolutely having fun!

If you would like to hear more about Visionary then drop me an email!

Making your goals happen

This article first appeared on Business Business Business

A person with a goal will achieve more, feel focused and have a sense of accomplishment when the goal is achieved. They will have success because they are stretching themselves and growing their business.

Just writing down the goal however is not enough. You need action to achieve the goal. Breaking the goal down into easy to make steps, so that every day, week and month you are focusing on tasks which step by step are moving you towards goal achievement.

A goal without actions is just words. How many times have you made a goal, and then never achieved it? Were the reasons to do with not having the steps, or maybe not having the right steps.

IN BUSINESS GOALS LEAD TO:
~ You focus on the tasks which will help you to achieve goals
~ You put in the effort to make the goal happen and you receive energy back
~ You work at overcoming barriers, so you can achieve the goals
Goals = Focus + Energy + Persistence = Success. A perfect recipe.


Let’s work on your goals now so you can have success.

I have worked with many, many businesses over my 14 years as a consultant. Time after time I have seen businesses flounder because they do not have clear goals in place. Goals shared by the entire organisation. Goals which are broken down into actions. Where every day the team are working towards achieving the same goals.

I have also worked with businesses who see out of this world success because the goals they have set stretch themselves, their team and business.

HERE ARE MY TIPS TO CREATING SUCCESS WITH YOUR GOALS:

ASSESS THEM
Write down one goal per sheet of paper. Ask yourself the following about each goal:
~ Do they excite you?
~ Do they scare you?
~ Motivate you?
~ Challenge you?
~ Inspire you?
~ Stretch you?
~ Could they be bigger?
~ Are they achievable?
~ Is their too many or not enough?

Make any changes you feel you need to.

BRAINSTORM
What actions do you need to take to make each goal happen? Start brainstorming and writing things on your sheet of paper. I like to start at the bottom of the page and work up – thinking bigger and bigger as I go – you do what works for you. This is about just writing all the ideas down you have to make the goal a reality.

You might choose to use different colours – texta’s, pens, pencils whatever works for you.

Take a look at your brainstorm – highlight or circle the great ideas – those things you feel are going to achieve your goal. The ideas which excite you.

You may wish to use a mentor, coach, advisor or associate to review your brainstorm – add to it or question what you have written and decided on. It is always nice to have another pair of eyes.

You then need to prioritise each action under your goals. For every idea you have decided to make happen you need to prioritise in order of how you can achieve it – so number each idea 1 to whatever.

PRIORITISE
It is time to prioritise your goals. Giving yourself deadlines helps to keep you focused. What is more you can then spread your work over the year making it easier to achieve.

Since you have your goals on separate pieces of paper you can simply order them by shuffling the paper around. When do you want to achieve the goal by? When is it realistic? Maybe you have goals that can happen quickly, in they don’t have lots of actions? Maybe the goal is in line with an event that you are hosting or attending? Maybe it is a goal that you will need to work on throughout the year?

By understanding when you would like to or need to have the goal completed you can then set your actions for throughout the year.

ACTIONS
Take four more pieces of paper and label them Quarter 1 (Jan-Mar), 2 (Apr-Jun), 3 (Jul-Sep) and 4 (Oct-Dec).

By breaking your goals and actions into four quarters means you are narrowing your focus.

For each action step you have under each goal consider when you need to have it completed. Consider the deadline of the goal and then work backwards, thinking about how long you think it will take you to complete the action. Will the action fit into quarter 1, quarter 2, quarter 3 or quarter 4.

Start to write out your quarterly actions. Is one quarter looking busy – can you spread your actions over to another quarter that doesn’t have as much happening?

Always remember your life balance also when you are setting up your year. Don’t set yourself up for failure by trying to over achieve with no support or at the risk of something else.

TASKS
Now you have a snapshot of how your quarter will look – start putting months next to each task. Those tasks will become your focus for that month.

You can further break them down into weeks – then every week you know what your focus needs to be – and by having this focus and tasks you are working towards your goals.

Remember to consider school holidays (if the affect you), public holidays and anything else which will see you under resourced.

Spend some time planning out your months. Automate your marketing to support the achievement of your tasks. Make appointments with people who you would like to collaborate with to help you achieve your goal. Take time to breath understanding the bigger picture is being looked after.


TOOLS AND SUPPORT
This is what works for me:
~ I use a paper planner to keep me focused.
~ I use insightly to manage my daily tasks – it is free!
~ I have a group that I meet with regularly who I am accountable to

While it is great to be focused, it is still important to remain open minded and to look at opportunities at just that. Don’t become so focused on your goals that you miss something else that appears in your peripheral.

It could be that this new opportunity will allow you to still achieve a goal – but in a much bigger way. Maybe you will learn new skills that will enhance your business and you can make more money. You could also look at the opportunity and decide that it is not for you at this time – inviting it back into your life in the future.

Be careful to not chase the shiny objects however – make wise choices about how you use your time and use your clarity of your own goals as a way to help guide you.

The lifecylce of a mum in business

This article originally appeared in Inside Small Business

One of the many questions I pondered when writing When Business Meets Baby was when is the ideal time to start a business – before or after you have a baby?

I considered the motivations people have for starting a business and the lifecycle of a business. I also considered why people have babies and the growth stages of a baby. I concluded there was no ideal time to be mum in business, all you have is today.

Being flexible
When you look at the life cycle of a baby, every month, week, day and hour bring more developments. At each stage their needs and wants change, and it is different for every child. While the journey may not be an easy one, and you will make sacrifices, it is possible to balance raising healthy, happy children and growing a business.

Maintenance vs growth
When you have a baby, you’ll need to make the decision about whether you put your business into either maintenance mode or growth mode. Your decision will depend on so many different factors – the stage your business is in, the staffing or resourcing you have available, finances and more.

Maintenance mode – This mode will only really work if your business is already developed. Think of it as pressing the “pause” button. It is not viable to keep the business in this mode for too long – business basics say that we need to continually develop, market, and give effort to the business.

Here are some tasks that will help you maintain your business:

• Before baby is born, create marketing content and schedule their release.
• After baby is born, answer emails, Facebook messages and other forms of communication.
• Send a couple of newsletters.
• Update your social media a couple of times (just automate it!).
• Refresh your website and all your social media.
• Look at your accounts – assess each service or product, examining what is making money and what is not.
• Complete any legacy work from before baby was born.
• Revisit your business plan and consider what is your core business.

Growth mode – Employment of this strategy will depend on whether you have a start-up business or an established business. It will also depend on the funds you have available to invest. Here are my three top tips for implementing growth mode after the baby’s birth:

• Work out how much time you will have available for the business and then commit to using that time well.
• Surround yourself with the right people, in terms of business support. You need people who are both clever at their area of expertise and who also understand your business.
• Develop the business. Always think big picture. If this strategy is going to work for you then you need to make sure that your limited time is spent working on – and not in – the business.

Remember, too, that it’s OK to grow slowly – at the end of the day, you can only do what you have time to do. While focusing on growth in your business, it’s also important to ensure that you are engaged and present with your children when you are with them.

Rachel Allan, marketing consultant and author of “When Business Meets Baby”