December 2016 - Page 2 of 2 - Strange & Charmed

Month: December 2016

100 Life Changing Actions to Turn into Habits

100 Life Changing Actions to Turn into Habits

They say if you control your habits, you control your life! So, I’ve been collecting and refining a list of actions or activities that I think are essential for us to master and turn into habits in our lives. They are broken down into ten major areas or categories of life that cover nearly every situation. I don’t expect anyone to turn all 100 into habits in life, certainly not every action applies to every person, but if you’re looking to improve your life in any of these ten areas, there will be a habit to master that I’m sure you don’t have down yet! I hope this inspires you to make little changes in your life that add up to big things!

Health

1. Drink half you weight in ounces of water (150lbs > 75oz)

2. Serve yourself slightly smaller portions at meal time

3. Take any opportunity to walk

4. Wash your hands after you finish in the bathroom

5. Meal Plan

6. Eat home cooked meals most of the week

7. Stretch in bed before you exit

8. Never skip your annual health exams

9. Brush your teeth everyday

10. Wear seasonally appropriate clothing

Relationships

11. Say please and thank you

12. Hold the door for strangers

13. Talk to members of your immediate family weekly and extended family regularly

14. Interact with your friends on social media

15. Send loved ones birthday cards in the mail

16. Send thank you cards for the gifts you receive

17. Set a regular date night with your significant other

18. Be the first to apologize and the first to forgive

19. Accept the fact that not everyone is going to like you

20. Kill ‘em with kindness

Personal Development

21. Create a simple morning routine

22. Create a simple evening routine

23. Spent time visualizing your goals while you are in the shower

24. Create your own personal empowerment Mantra

25. Spend at least one evening a week on self care

26. Set your alarm 15 minutes earlier

27. Never go to bed before removing your makeup

28. Never go to bed before removing your jewelry

29. Say YES to experiences that scare you

30. Say NO to experiences that do not serve you

Spirituality

31. Spend time in quiet reflection daily

32. Accept your limitations

33. Surrender your sense of control

34. Have integrity in all that you do

35. Have grace with yourself and others

36. Seek to find the activities and people that light you up

37. Be generous with others

38. Let go of your ego

39. Ask for forgiveness

40. Always believe in the impossible

Productivity

41. Use a planner

42. Batch your work

43. Set your top 3 priorities each day

44. Silence your phone and notifications while you work

45. Write everything down

46. Get down to inbox zero on a weekly basis

47. Block out time for important tasks

48. Be clear on your priorities

49. Accept that you won’t always get everything done

50. Never be afraid to ask for help

Career

51. Find a mentor

52. Find someone to mentor

53. Dress for the job you want, not the job you have

54. Accept responsibility for your mistakes immediately

55. Take criticism with grace

56. Work hard even when your boss isn’t watching

57. Turn off from work when you get home

58. Volunteer for new opportunities and challenges

59. Make your voice heard in meetings

60. Always ask for what you’re worth

Hobbies

61. Read one book a month

62. Keep a journal

63. Cook for pleasure

64. Find a physical hobby

65. Plan one no-tech evening a week

66. Limit your screen time

67. Spend time outside in nature often

68. Keep a list of things you’d like to try in your free time

69. Explore your city

70. Spend more time creating than consuming

Organization

71. Make your bed as soon as you wake

72. Never let a wet towel touch the floor

73. Never let dishes sit in the sink

74. Keep money organized in your wallet

75. Clean out your bag at the end of the day

76. Establish a home care routine

77. Discard damaged clothing

78. Keep your contacts up to date

79. Discard and replace expired products

80. Don’t treat your vehicle like a storage unit

Community & Charity

81. Find a charity to contribute to regularly

82. Donate your old clothing

83. Pay for the coffee of a person behind you in line

84. Follow local news

85. Be friendly towards your neighbors

86. Practice safe driving

87. Support local small businesses

88. Greet your mail carriers by name

89. Bring reusable shopping bags to the grocery store

90. Be kind to everyone you meet

Money & Finance

91. Carry cash and change with you

92. Pay off your credit card balance each month

93. Spend less than you earn

94. Save at least 10% of everything you make

95. Start a retirement account and contribute to it monthly

96. Pay your bills on time

97. Don’t open credit accounts at every store you visit

98. Set up dedicated savings accounts for major purchases

99. Put extra money towards paying down debt

100. Check your bank balances and card statements weekly

What actions on this list do you plan to work on for your own personal development? I’d love to hear about your plan in the comments!

xoxo,

Online Business

How to Make Your Business Successful in the New Year

My Business Planning Process for a Successful New Year

If you run an business online or offline, or intend to start one in 2017, now is the time to start business planning for the new year. I realize that for most people, the idea of business planning can be pretty daunting, and I have to admit, when it comes to my personal planning philosophy, I never like to make planning a stressful or complicated task. So today I want to outline for you my streamlined process for business planning with 5 steps you can take to get your plans mapped out and get a strong start to 2017!

Step 1: Analyze your current/prior year results.

So, if you are staring this process before the new year hits, you want to make sure to capture important information for how your business did this year in order to understand what steps need to be taken in the new year for success. Although you may not have complete full year data at this point, you can begin to collect key information to start the analysis and then fill in the blanks after the year ends. Key information you want to collect and review would be sales data, revenue information, content/traffic numbers, and follower growth. If you are not already tracking your social media statistics to get an understanding of your follower growth, make sure to start asap! I have a video on the topic you can check out here, that will teach you a simple process for tracking your statistics and analyzing them to help you grow your following.

Step 2: Set goals for the new year.

Based on the information and analysis in step 1, you will want to set goals for where you want your business to be in the new year using the same key factors. Set goals for your sales, revenue, content/traffic, and list growth, as well as any new products or offerings you plan to work on in the year to come. If you need additional guidance to help you analyze your current year data and set the right goals for the new year, here is a business planning video I made last year that walks you through my exact process. Block out about an hour and a half for this video, and even more time to collect and process the data! Although this process is streamlined, it’s not necessarily quick, so give yourself a nice block of time to complete this essential business task and I guarantee you will see better results in the new year just from taking this time to focus!

Step 3: Set up your planner and start working out plans before the new year begins.

When it comes to choosing a planner to keep your life and business organized, I think you need to go with what works for you! I use my Charmed Life Planner, and you can see how it is currently set up here, but whatever you choose, I think it’s important that your planner include some key items:

A monthly view
A weekly OR daily view
Master task lists for each month
Expense sheets for each month
Project planning pages and trackers
A notes section or dedicated notebook
Year at a glance calendar for forward planning (get mine here for free)!

Step 4: Get your systems in place.

Systems are just a fancy way of saying a codified process for how you operate and accomplish specific business tasks. Systems are important because they save you time when you have your process worked out and don’t have to make it up as you go each time you complete a business task AND they come in handy if you bring on help for your business because you can easily hand off the system to your worker and they know exactly what needs to be done with little oversight from you. Here are some common business areas that you should have a system in place for, and I suggest downloading my free Online Business Incompletions Trigger List to help you think about where you can implement systems throughout your business:

Emails
Order Processing
Finances
Tracking
Savings/Taxes
Accounts Payable
Inventory
Manufacturing
Marketing/Promotion
Administrative

Step 5: Do some personal development to understand your personality type as a leader.

Did you ever wonder why so many important business figures and successful people are often associated with different productivity or personal development habits? It’s because they know that the secret to success doesn’t necessarily lie in your business plan- it’s all about managing your own personal development so you can operate at a higher level! Personal development as a category is a huge topic, so I won’t overwhelm you with a vast number of resources, but instead I want to leave you with two easy personality tests that I think every online business owner should take in order to better understand their strengths and weaknesses. The first is the Myers Briggs Type Test. This test helps you understand your dominant predispositions and from understanding these and your Myers Briggs Personality Type you can understand yourself at a higher level and take action to work on issues or challenges that your personality type faces to make you a more successful individual. In case you are curious, my Myers Briggs Type is ENFJ which means I am an extrovert, that uses my intuition and feelings to judge situations. I wrote a blog post all about the Myers Briggs Test that you can read here to get a link to a great free resource to take the test and get additional information to understand your personality type. The second test I recommend is the Fascination Personality Test developed by Sally Hogshead. This test is geared towards business owners and anyone developing a brand online. It essentially pinpoints different dominant communication styles that people use to attract others to them and their brands. My Fascination Personality Archetype is called the Victor, which means I communicate primarily with prestige and use power as my secondary advantage. Now with both these tests, It’s important to take your time answering the questions, don’t overthink things, but make sure your answers are as accurate to reality as possible because its not about what you “wish” you were like, it’s about understanding your true nature, personality wise, so you can find a clear path to develop yourself to where you want to be.

I hope this process has given you some ideas for steps you can take right now to set your business up for success in the new year. Of course, these are not the only ways you can prep your business, so if you have other suggestions, let me know about them in the comments below. Also, feel free to check out my YouTube video on this topic if you are interested. I’ll leave it linked above.

xoxo,

Productivity

Jumpstart Your Goal Setting for the New Year

Jumpstart Your Goal Setting for the New Year

I’m often asked about the secret to my success. Why I’m so productive, how I get so much done, why I was able to make myself successful when the odds are stacked against me (and you, the odds are unfortunately stacked against all of us)? It’s hard to pinpoint what I do that makes me different, but after talking to so many of the members in my community, I’ve learned that I have some systems in place in my life that I stick to and use as tools to guide me towards the success I seek. One of those systems is Goal Setting!

Every year come December I begin the process of goal setting for the year ahead. It’s a pretty simple process really, that has evolved over the years for me. I started by just keeping a list of “New Years Resolutions” as many of us do! Then, after realizing that I rarely completed many of the tasks on the list, I switched up my methodology and created action steps that would help me achieve the goal. My processed has refined over the years and turned into a complete goal setting/project planning process where I literally map out everything I’d like to achieve for the year on a timeline and keep project plans handy to ensure I’m making progress. I know this may sound like I have the contents of my days prescheduled for a year in advance, but that’s really not my style. I use a framework for deciding, breaking down and managing my goals that is simple, logical, and fits directly into my planner, which is the best part, really!

Eventually, I codified my process. First, for my own memory since this is an annual undertaking, and second, to share my process in an easily digestible form with the rest of my community. What resulted is known as YOU GOT THIS: A Strategic Goal Setting and Planning Guide to Help You Achieve Your Goals and Organize Your Life! It’s a PDF Workbook you can purchase from my shop RIGHT NOW and work through over the next few days and weeks to prepare yourself for a successful year ahead. It’s a streamlined 31 pages in length with 9 worksheets/checklists to apply the lessons in the book to your goals and life, PLUS I include a very handy Resource Guide with extra links to additional educational tools and planning supplies that I recommend for anyone who is truly looking to go deep to ensure a successful year!

So, if you haven’t picked up your digital copy of the workbook yet, click here to get started and feel free to check out this video I made introducing the workbook! If you already own YOU GOT THIS, I’d love to hear your thoughts about it in the comments. I’ve heard nothing buy good things so far from this best selling productivity tool, and I’d love to hear how it worked out for you!