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ENTREPRENEURIAL: 6 Month of Hardcore Focus Can Put You 5 Years Ahead in Life

Happy July My Charmed Ones!

We are officially half way through 2021 and hopefully each of us has made the time to perform a Mid-Year Review.

I’ve done two at this one, one for my business which was streamed live on YouTube as the last CEO Power Hour and one for my overall goals, which happened on Saturday inside the Productivity and Planning Mastermind.

Now, after doing my reviews, I personally felt a little meh about my goal progress. Yes, I’ve made progress in most areas, but some goals were a challenge for me during the first half of the year.

Obstacles are a natural part of life and goal setting, so we don’t need to feel bad about them. Life happens, after all. However, the mid-year mark is an excellent time to remind ourselves that we have much more control over obstacles than we like to admit.

We can’t stop obstacles from coming, but we can do a few things to manage them better.

First, we should acknowledge that anything we allow, persists. This includes obstacles. I’m sure you have some obstacles that you’ve allowed to continue affecting you, even though you do have the power to remove them from your life.

For me, a major obstacle that stood in the way of one of my goals this year was Uber Eats LOL! I know, it’s a little funny that a food delivery app was an obstacle for me, but as I explained to the Mastermind, ever since the pandemic began, I had become comfortable using the app more and more often and now, no matter how much great food I have prepped in the house, I still default to Uber Eats when I have a craving. It’s been an obstacle for me to remain fully committed to my weight loss, so on the suggestion of my Mastermind sisters, I deleted the app off my phone along with all the other miscellaneous food delivery apps that give me the ability to easily cheat on my diet. Now, I have the obstacle removed. And if for some reason I download them again, this is a situation where I am keeping an obstacle and allowing it to sabotage my success, so I’ll be thinking long and hard before I re-download them for sure.

The second way we allow obstacles to remain in our lives is by failing to set boundaries. Sometimes, obstacles pop up in our days that we react to even if we don’t need to. How many times have you gotten involved in a situation or offered to help someone else with their problems and then you took on a burden that wasn’t your own? When we fail to set boundaries with others or even boundaries to prevent ourselves from going out and getting distracted by external issues, we are really stealing time and energy from ourselves and our own goals. This includes us being distracted by social media or other fun entertainment activities that aren’t part of our daily plan. Until we set good boundaries, we are allowing obstacles in our lives.

The third and final way we allow obstacles to remain in our lives is by failing to plan for them. We each have a certain set of obstacles in our lives that we can anticipate and plan for if we want to. This could have to do with protecting our time, minimizing distractions, and paying attention to our energy patterns. Many obstacles we face in the day are things we might be able to plan to avoid completely. If you have kids or co-workers who interrupt your productivity, there are things you can do to plan to avoid those situations. If constant emails and calls interrupt your work, you can put an out of office on your email and voice mail and let people know you’ll get back to them when you have the time. We need to have some plans in place for the obstacles we know we face or else we are allowing them to continue.

Taking back control of the obstacles you face in life is a key element to finding success with your goals and desires. So, no matter how well you made progress this year, or perhaps you faced a lot of obstacles that prevented you from making process, I want you to remember that you still have six months to do some focused and intentional work on your goals.

Believe it or not, six months of hardcore focus and alignment can put you five years ahead in life!

So much can change in half a year. You can decide to shift out of a negative mindset riddled with limiting beliefs and see immediate results in your life. Most of our goals can be reached in far less time than we imagine, because we are basing our expectations on what other people have done. Yes, there are a few examples of goals that do take time, and if you have set any like that, get focused and started right now, and you will be six months ahead by the end of the year!

But if you are like me and most of your goals are based on your effort and intention, now is the time to look forward, establish personal accountability and build your self-discipline muscle.

You can have a completely different life by December 31st, 2021 if you choose to show up and do the work today, and tomorrow, and each single day you wake up. Take it one day at a time, that is my plan and I hope to see you at the finish line with me by the end of the year!

STAYING ACCOUNTABLE TO YOUR GOALS ISN’T EASY

It’s not easy being an ambitious working woman in today’s society. Women have more responsibilities on their shoulders now than they ever have that can make getting organized and motivated feel impossible and overwhelming, which is why goal getters like you and I need to stick together!

If you would like more guidance, support and inspiration for living your best life, I welcome you to join the Productivity + Planning Mastermind!

This is what I created the Mastermind for:

To be a safe space for women like you and I who see beyond the surface of our societal expectations, challenge the accepted norms, and know there is a better way to live.

It’s a place for support, encouragement, accountability and ongoing personal development for us to continue challenging accepted norms and choosing our own unique path to success.

→ The Mastermind includes so many resources to help you on your journey, from multiple live calls each month, to on-demand strategies, tools, and even a complete course on productivity!

→ We have our own private chat forum where we connect and discuss topics ranging from planning, metaphysics, mindset, and wellness.

→ We have a monthly book club to help nurture a growth mindset and continue to learn.

→ We even have a dedicated group for small business CEOs to learn and connect as well!

→ The best part is, when you join the Mastermind, you get immediate access to the entire library of resources, masterclasses and bonus materials that I have been creating since it’s launch.

→ There is no waiting, content isn’t dripped to you, it’s all there for you to explore and access on-demand as you please.

→ And of course I am there as well for guidance and to answer your questions along the way.

When you know better, you do better.

Are you ready to do better for yourself, your family and your future by committing to your personal development to become the best woman, mother, spouse, sister, daughter, aunt and friend that you can be?

Click here to learn more about the Productivity + Planning Mastermind and enroll now for just $22/month and a valuable bonus when you choose the annual payment option.

This could be the best investment you make in yourself in 2021!

Hope to see you inside!

xoxo,

CEO Strategy Online Business

ENTREPRENEURIAL: Rest + Manifest

During my last live CEO Power Hour on YouTube, I mentioned that one of my major intentions for the month of June is to Rest + Manifest.

Rest + Manifest means that I am going to intentionally slow down each day, focus on self-care and the way I feel, and through the cultivation of more ease into my life, manifest more abundance, expansion, and opportunities.

Although I know I do a good job of keeping my business and daily tasks simple and streamlined, I have been feeling the desire to go bigger with my business this year. Bigger in terms of impact, but of course, bigger in terms of income as well.

My word for 2021 is E X P A N S I O N (written out that way for extra effect) and part of my expansion for the year was to go bigger with my business, to reach further, to grow in new directions, to take on more and show up more for my community.

I still hold true to my core desire NOT to hustle and work all day.

But, as of late, I’ve been feeling like I have to do more and work more to reach this level, and it’s causing me to feel burnt out by the end of the week.

I don’t like this feeling, I know it’s not necessary. I know I can have the expansion and continue to work at my usual leisurely pace, but I’ve been getting so caught up in doing that I continue to do more and more.

And something I’ve found to be very true, is that when we are focused on tasks and what we have to get done, tasks end up being a never ending source of work.

I hate planning based on tasks because whatever you focus on expands, so focusing on the tasks you have to complete each day just brings more and more tasks, which brings the need for more and more hustle.

I really need to slow down.

Hence Rest + Manifest.

Building Business Systems to Simplify Sales & Marketing

Slowing down doesn’t mean I won’t continue to expand, and it doesn’t mean I won’t continue to do my work, but I need to take the focus away from my tasks and start converting my work into building more systems.

Systems make tasks disappear, and when tasks disappear, I have less work for the same impact, which means I can expand away without needing to hustle.

So here are the systems I plan to put in place this month:

→ Live Launch/Promotion System: I am going to create a complete process for my live promotions or launches, including templates for marketing materials, emails, and content marketing.

Many businesses have a team or bring on specific support for launches and promotions. I don’t have or desire a team, and I’ve successfully completed many 5 figure campaigns without assistance. I just need to sit down and map a system for them with templates to help me batch this type of work in the future so I am not scrambling around doing extra work every time I decide to run a promotion.

→ Instagram Marketing: I am going to create a turn key system for creating content and also for marketing/selling via Instagram.

For years I’ve been pretty lax about my Instagram content creation. Having an editorial calendar with my ideas planned out was the extent of my Instagram strategy. Again, this served me well enough for a long time, but I think it’s time for me to start treating Instagram the way I treat my blog and have templates ready and a system for what I am going to post when.

→ YouTube Marketing: I am going to create some simple video ads to market specific products and opt-ins through my YouTube videos without having to record individual CTAs for each video.

YouTube is without a doubt my biggest source of sales when I actually take the time to sell in my videos. But, I don’t want all my content to revolve around selling per se. So, I think that by creating a few short video ads for products, it will make it easier for me to sell via YouTube more often without turning the entire video into a contrived sales pitch. I can just edit the ad into the video at the appropriate point without ruining the flow of my filming.

Rest & Manifest

Another element that will play a key role in my Rest + Manifest intention for June is to upgrade my Morning Routine into a Morning Ritual.

The two terms may seem interchangeable, but to me there is a significant difference in a routine and a ritual.

The intention of a Ritual is much more potent than a simple routine.

And for my new Morning Ritual, I will of course be focusing much more on my self-care and mindset work.

Now, I plan to outline my new Morning Ritual in a dedicated post on Thursday, so if you want to learn more about creating a high vibe morning ritual, you’ll have to come back then!

STOP CHOOSING BETWEEN BUSINESS SUCCESS AND A BALANCED LIFE!

Do you every feel overwhelmed by all the tasks you have to manage for your business and personal life?

If you’re like me, you started your own business in order to live a different lifestyle than the norm. You wanted the flexibility of time and location freedom, being able to work when you wanted, where you wanted, so you would have time to prioritize other areas of your life. Breaking free of the 9-5 life was freeing until I realized without a solid time management strategy and strong prioritization skills I could easily work on my business 16 hours a day, 7 days a week!

Does simply looking at your to-do list give you anxiety? Like tasks are multiplying faster than you can complete them and you are continually sacrificing time with your family, self-care or sleep in order to simply tread water in your business. With so many tasks to finish, how do you what you should be working on each day?

Has the overwhelm of managing your business caused you to slow or completely stall progress on your business goals? You are afraid to take action on your projects because nothing works out the way you expected it would and all you see are problems that you don’t feel capable to address.

Are you constantly stuck on what types of content marketing you should be doing to grow your audience? Your content calendar is usually empty, you wait until the last minute to write your posts but come up blank or you completely skip out on content creation all together because the process is just too time consuming.

What if there was an easier way to run your business?

Imagine waking up in the morning after a full nights sleep, rested and ready to take on the day. You are excited to start work on your business because you are clear on your priorities and have systems in place that make your work much more manageable (and, dare I say, even fun?)

Imagine waking up to a business reality where you feel in control and in charge of your business, like the inspired and aligned CEO you always intended to be.

Your business is thriving, you have time to take your work slow and get the results you are looking for. Your home life is well-managed and your personal relationships are thriving.

At the end of the day, your head hits the pillow grateful and content, knowing that you created this reality and that you can create whatever else you desire tomorrow!

If you are struggling to plan and manage a balanced life and business, I have the solution for you!

Introducing the CEO Strategy Bundle: A three masterclass series covering time management, mindset, and marketing strategies to streamline your business, so you can finally live a balanced life!

The CEO Strategy Bundle is designed to equip you with the tools, strategies and lessons that you need to intentionally create a balanced and profitable life + business…

So you can:

✔︎ Take Charge of Your Time: Clearly understand your roles as a business owner, the specific tasks to focus on through each phase of your business and to set reasonable expectations to achieve true work/life balance.

✔︎ Master Your Mindset: Get into alignment with your purpose, identify and overcome limiting beliefs holding you back from showing up for your business, and master the energetic secrets of productivity that help you triumph over your to-do list once and for all.

✔︎ Expand Your Marketing: Develop your unique messaging to stand out in your niche, quickly create a full calendar of impactful content marketing that sells in just a few hours per week, and show up on purpose and on message to grow your brand and audience.

Here’s what you’ll get:

→ CEO Strategy Masterclass: Learn how to manage your time, energy and expectations as a business owner so you can lead a balanced life.

→ CEO Mindset Masterclass: Become a master of your own mindset, overcome and reprogram limiting beliefs holding you back from taking action on your desired life + business.

→ CEO Content Calendar Masterclass: Streamline your content to keep your audience and revenue growing without overwhelming your schedule or spending money on ads.

RUNNING YOUR BUSINESS IS YOUR DREAM, NOT YOUR NIGHTMARE

Take back control of your life + business with proven strategies that will keep you balanced, focused and on track!

Stop choosing between your business and your personal life, and start embracing the strategies that can keep you balanced and successful in all areas of your life!

CLICK HERE TO ENROLL NOW in the CEO Strategy Bundle because you deserve BOTH a successful life and business!

xoxo,

CEO Strategy Online Business

ENTREPRENEURIAL: Doing the work!

Hello My Charmed Ones and Happy May!

I don’t have to tell you that there is a lot of work that goes into running your own online business, but what you may not realize is that there are two types of work to do.

One type of work you are already familiar with. It’s the practical strategy and management of setting objectives, making plans, creating the offers, doing the marketing, managing customer service, balancing the financials, etc. Essentially, it’s the tasks that make up most of your day to day work as a business owner.

The second type of work you may be less familiar with. It’s the mindset and personal development strategy of feeling into your desires, stepping into your purpose, identifying and overcoming limiting beliefs, trusting your intuition and facing down your deepest fears. It’s the metaphysical work of running a successful business. The faith and prayer and belief. And out of the two types of work you can do as an entrepreneur, it’s the more important work.

I know you might be thinking, mindset work couldn’t possibly be more important than the practical strategy of running your business. I thought that way too for a long time. But there is a point where doing all the things for your business isn’t enough. There is a point where strategy itself fails you and you need to surrender yourself to greater possibility.

You mindset will always be your upper limit.

You cannot out work or out strategize a poor mindset.

And when I reached a breaking point where I was willing to try anything to solve the stagnancy in my business, I committed to trying mindset strategies, despite my skepticism, if for no other purpose than to say I tried it all.

That’s when everything turned around for me.

I can’t say for certain what it was exactly that caused the shift, but I can say that as soon as I started implementing a regular mindset practice that included daily manifestation journaling, my business broke through to another level. Where I had been stuck for years practicing all the strategy I knew and believed in, strategy that had grown my business from the start, I was suddenly at a new level of income and of ease with my business.

Because the most interesting thing about the mindset strategies I used was not simply that my revenue started increasing, but it was that I was able to pair down my strategy to do less and it was still growing. I was truly able to do less, make my business easier to run and it was working better than it had been before.

And I am confident that it is the mindset work that made the difference, because when I got into periods where I stopped it for some reason, things began to get tough again. But like clockwork, as soon as I turned to the mindset work again, the flow of ease and money came flooding back in.

There is no substitution for doing the work

Mindset work, of course. Because even in times when I have fallen short of completing the practical work of my business, if I had kept up the mindset work, it didn’t matter that I skipped content or removed systems I had been using for years to generate income. The mindset work filled in the gaps for me.

Now I understand why so many people in the mindset, personal development and law of attraction space say that you need to show up everyday to do the work on yourself. It’s the most important work you can do for your life and business success. The work they are talking about is the mindset and belief. The claiming what it is you want and believing you can have it. It’s showing up with open arms ready to receive what you ask for, and although the strategies may be very simple to execute, I know first hand how challenging it is to do this work everyday. Because you will get distracted by the practical and put aside the mindset work, just for today, and then it turns into a week and a month and then suddenly things stop working in your business.

You have to show up to do the mindset work everyday, or most days at least, to keep a consistent rhythm and build upon new levels of success.

Monthly Manifestation Journaling for Business

Today, I want to teach you a little more about my regular mindset work that helps me to keep my business growing at its new level consistently. Specifically, I want to guide you through the Monthly Manifestation Journaling I do at the start of a new month to get into alignment with my business goals and objectives. Grab a pen and paper and write this out:

What I am achieving in my business for May

→ This month I am receiving…

→ This month I am creating…

→ This month I am attracting…

→ This month I am doing work on…

→ This month I am releasing…

→ This month I am showing up to…

→ This month I am honoring myself by…

→ This month I am valuing myself by…

→ This month I am resting…

For each line, fill in as many items as you would like. Feel free to make it a complete wish list of everything you desire to happen in the month. But try your best to fill in something for each line. I find that these prompts are a very powerful combination, and I don’t even have to write very much, I just bullet point my desires and that is enough to get into alignment with them.

I know it seems simple, but writing out your intentions this way can bring about a very powerful shift and you really don’t have much to loose except for perhaps 10-15 minutes of your day just by trying it.

Give it a try and let me know how it goes. Of course, for best results you will want to journal your intentions everyday. Perhaps not all of these monthly plans at once, but choose a handful to focus on each day to get into alignment with them.

STOP CHOOSING BETWEEN BUSINESS SUCCESS AND A BALANCED LIFE!

Do you every feel overwhelmed by all the tasks you have to manage for your business and personal life?

Does simply looking at your to-do list give you anxiety? Like tasks are multiplying faster than you can complete them and you are continually sacrificing time with your family, self-care or sleep in order to simply tread water in your business. With so many tasks to finish, how do you what you should be working on each day?

Has the overwhelm of managing your business caused you to slow or completely stall progress on your business goals? You are afraid to take action on your projects because nothing works out the way you expected it would and all you see are problems that you don’t feel capable to address.

Are you constantly stuck on what types of content marketing you should be doing to grow your audience? Your content calendar is usually empty, you wait until the last minute to write your posts but come up blank or you completely skip out on content creation all together because the process is just too time consuming.

What if there was an easier way to run your business?

Imagine waking up to a business reality where you feel in control and in charge of your business, like the inspired and aligned CEO you always intended to be.

Your business is thriving, you have time to take your work slow and get the results you are looking for. Your home life is well-managed and your personal relationships are thriving.

At the end of the day, your head hits the pillow grateful and content, knowing that you created this reality and that you can create whatever else you desire tomorrow!

If you are struggling to plan and manage a balanced life and business, I have the solution for you!

Introducing the CEO Strategy Bundle: Learn the time management, mindset, and marketing strategies that will streamline your business so you can finally live a balanced life!

The CEO Strategy Bundle will teach you how to manage your time, energy and expectations as a business owner so you can work less and earn more without sacrificing your personal life, family or sleep!

Here’s what you’ll get:

CEO Strategy Masterclass: Learn how to manage your time, energy and expectations as a business owner so you can lead a balanced life.

CEO Mindset Masterclass: Become a master of your own mindset, overcome and reprogram limiting beliefs holding you back from taking action on your desired life + business.

CEO Content Calendar Masterclass: Streamline your content to keep your audience and revenue growing without overwhelming your schedule or spending money on ads.

EMBODY THE CONFIDENT CEO ENERGY INSIDE OF YOU

Take Charge of Your Time: As the saying goes, either you run the day or the day runs you! But, you don’t have to hustle and grind 24/7 to balance your life + business, in fact, doing less often helps you to achieve more!

Master Your Mindset: Your mind creates your reality, so if what you see around you isn’t pleasing to you, the first place to look is inside yourself to your thought patterns and beliefs, and start intentionally choosing better thoughts that will lead you to better results.

Expand Your Marketing: Content creation may seem daunting with multiple platforms and posts to create, but as someone who built their business on content marketing, I have the strategies to share with you that will save you time, energy and ensure you always have the right content to post to drive sales.

RUNNING YOUR BUSINESS IS YOUR DREAM, NOT YOUR NIGHTMARE

Take back control of your life + business with proven strategies that will keep you balanced, focused and on track!

Stop choosing between your business and your personal life, and start embracing the strategies that can keep you balanced and successful in all areas of your life!

CLICK HERE TO ENROLL NOW in the CEO Strategy Bundle because you deserve BOTH a successful life and business!

xoxo,

Online Business

ENTREPRENEURIAL: Online Business is No Joke!

Hello My Charmed Ones!

It has been several months since I have shared an installment of my Entrepreneurial Online Business Journal, but I have been reworking the editorial calendar for my blog and it is now time for me to share some insights with you.

As this post is being published it is April 1st and today is also the official kick off day for my EMPIRE BUILDING Business Accelerator group coaching program. However, because I bulk my work, it is actually being written a few days prior while it is still March. Currently, I am at the tail end of the launch for the Business Accelerator and just prior to writing this, I wrote the email that would go out to my email list telling them about enrollment in the program closing soon. One of the points I made in that email is really sticking to me right now and felt like the inspiration I needed to share with you today.

In the email I discussed how my business revenue grew during the pandemic. I believe I’ve spoke about this briefly a few times so you may already know, but the point I was making in the email was that my business success in 2020 was not a side affect of luck as some might think, rather it was a side affect of intentional thought, planning and effort.

Creating a Business by Intentional Design

When I first started my business, it was my intention to create a business that would operate online, seemingly on its own through automated digital marketing systems and passive income streams.

I had the vision for a business where I would be able to earn a stable full time income, without having to work full time hours, and I absolutely wanted to be able to run this business by myself from anywhere in the world if need be. I didn’t want to have to rely on hiring a team of employees to make this work. I didn’t want to have a specific office or space where product was housed. I wanted a business that was simple, profitable and gave me time and location freedom. So, I couldn’t rely on any outdated paradigms for how businesses were expected to operate. I needed to make it work for me the way I envisioned it, and I did!

And when 2020 hit with a pandemic that threw the whole world into crisis, the systems I had build and relied on to help me run my business for years also came through to ensure my business did not need to change, pivot or close down.

Online business is no joke!

I know some people question it or poke fun at it, especially a business like mine that most people can’t understand. I make a six figure income selling PDFs and classes. I sell nothing physical. And yet, I create products that people want and need, and you would not believe the number of customers I have that return year over year to purchase my new or updated products.

I realize that what I am doing and building through my business is different and requires people to think differently about what it means to run a business.

I think a lot of people believe that being a business owner is tough and it means you need to work super hard, put in long hours and make significant sacrifices.

But, it just isn’t true.

At least, it isn’t true for me. I chose to believe in a better way, and I made that way my reality.

You can make an online business like mine a reality for you, too!

All you have to do is choose to see business as fun, easy and filled with possibility! And you need to get very clear and intentional about the business you are building, the way I did.

But it starts with the intention.

Set Your Business Intention

So, right now, I want you to take a moment, pause and set the intention for your future or current business.

Take out a piece of paper or a sticky note- it’s always better to write out your intentions on paper.

I don’t want to you think too hard about the way this is going to look. I just want you to set the intention and then you can rewrite and transfer the information to your planner or vision board as you see fit after we have gotten the intention out of your head and onto paper!

Write this out:

IT IS MY INTENTION THAT MY BUSINESS…

Fill in what comes to mind. Think about how you want your business to look, feel, operate and write that all out. Write out several lines or paragraphs, whichever works for you.

Use your imagination here but keep in mind, this isn’t an imaginary business we are creating, it’s a real business that you get to own and operate! So, while you are writing out how you want your ideal business to go, I want you to see it in your mind and feel it in your body, especially in your heart! Let this vision fill you up while you are writing. It really helps your intention solidify when you do that.

Okay, so once you are done, do with that intention whatever you wish. Feel free to edit it a but, rewrite it on nicer paper, turn it into a graphic, put it in your planner, whatever you want to do. Just put it somewhere you can see it and reference it. Because anytime you go to work on your business idea I want you to read out that intention first.

It’s going to help you align with your intention and the work that you do as a result is going to be much more elevated than had you gotten to work without reminding yourself of what you are building.

I hope you enjoyed this fresh installment of ENTREPRENEURIAL, now it’s not just going to be my monthly online business journal, but also yours. Each installment it is my intention to share some activity or inspiration for you to think about and journal on so that you are also building your dream business alongside me!

Download my latest Free Business Tool

The CEO Business Braindump Triggers List!

This is a triggers list for you to use during your braindumps with business specific categories and topics to keep in mind. As a braindump is always part of my planning processes, I recommend downloading this new free tool and using it as part of your regular business planning process.

Let me know how things are going for your business by leaving me a comment on this post or dropping me a DM on Instagram @MissTrenchcoat!

xoxo,

Functional Planning Online Business Personal Development Productivity

Entrepreneurial: The Most Wonderful Time of the Year

Hello My Charmed Ones and Happy December!

I hope you have been doing well, staying safe and healthy at home as we hit a very delicate time of year for our health during the pandemic.

I know you have heard this so many times already, but it bears repeating that although we have limitations due to the pandemic, it doesn’t mean that December and this holiday season can’t be just as wonderful and merry as always. Things may look different, but the reason for the season is still the same for you if you embrace it.

So, in this month’s installment of my public Entrepreneurial journal entry, I thought I should share about some awesome live events I have scheduled for this month.

December is the time of year when I like to wrap up my projects for the year and do my goal setting for the upcoming year. This year, like years past, I am again hosting my Annual New Year’s Goal Setting + Planning Class, however, this year the class is going to be held exclusively for my Productivity + Planning Master Mind members on this upcoming Saturday, December 5th @ 2PM EDT.

So, if you want to join, get yourself enrolled in the membership- it costs just $22 a month and each month you get an exclusive private class, plus loads activities, inserts, extra content and a private chat with our master mind group as well as myself.

In year’s past the New Year’s Goal Setting Class has cost twice as much to attend, so your investment this year into the membership goes so much further for your productivity and personal development.

CLICK HERE TO JOIN THE MASTER MIND

The second live event I am hosting this month is my 2021 Planner Setup Party on Saturday December 19th @ 2PM EDT. This event will be a live steam on Youtube FREE to my community where you will follow along as I set up my planner for 2021.

In this live stream I will share how I clean my leather planner, my process for printing and binding my inserts at home, and of course I will walk you through how I am setting my planner up for the new year.

I would love for you to join me for the livestream and set your planner up alongside me. It should be a fun and informative time and of course I’ll be taking Q+A live so it’s a great chance for us to hang out and get your planning questions answered by me.

I’ll be sending out emails for this event the morning of to those on my email list. If you would like to ensure you receive those emails and a direct link to the even, click here!

Well, that is everything I have going on for December!

Like you, I am just hoping to wrap up my year in a nice bow, get in some rest and relaxation and start the new year with a fresh slate.

I would love to hear about your plans for December and how you are preparing for the close of the year. Feel free to leave me a comment and let me know your plans. I do hope to see you inside my Productivity + Planning Master Mind to kick off a fresh year together in January!

xoxo,

Metaphysics Online Business Personal Development Productivity

Entrepreneurial: How do you follow up your best month ever?

Hello My Charmed Ones and Happy October!

If you have been following along with this Entrepreneurial blog post series for a few months, you know that I have been experiencing a series of break-throughs with my mindset, my business and my content since lockdown started. So, it shouldn’t really be a surprise to anyone that September was my BEST MONTH EVER for my business so far.

Not only was September my personal best month of sales, it also now holds the record for my top three individual days of earning ever in the history of my shop which opened in 2014.

Because of this massive influx of abundance, I was able to hit a bunch of goals I had set for myself for the year, and unsurprisingly, these goals were things I had been manifesting on intentionally through my daily manifestation journaling practice.

I did a significant amount of mindset work leading into September and, well, it worked! I was able to attract an amount of money I have never reached before in my business, with what truly felt like a fraction of the effort I have put into previous months, campaigns or launches.

I have always believed that manifestation and law of attraction worked. I have played with it for years and years, but September truly proved to me that my reality and my level of abundance was completely under my control.

So, of course, I am now left wondering…

How do you follow up your best month ever?

Clearly, I have hit a new level, I tapped into a new high for myself and my business and frankly, I do not want it to end. I desire more, I know I deserve more, I know I am ready for more, I am ready to show up and do the work to receive more again in October.

I am still playing with all this but I want to teach you how to do this too. I want to go deeper on this idea of mindset and manifestation with you. Either for your business or your productivity in general, this is a tool and a skill everyone should understand how to use.

We have three months left in 2020, and I know many of us just want to throw in the towel for this year, but there is still so much time for us to do the deeply important work of breaking down our mental barriers, getting clear on what it is we desire and taking inspired action on plans to change the trajectory of our life and year.

Look, I know many people are going to say 2020 was the worst year ever, and I certainly don’t blame them. But for me, it wasn’t the worst year. It was actually quite an amazing year for me. And I know if I could accomplish so much for myself in such a tough year, holy smokes I can do anything!

So this is what I want to do.

I want to have another live class with you this month.

I want to talk to you about how 2020 has been going and I want to hep you shift your mindset on your outlook for this year and I want to inspire you to take action on the life you want.

Let’s get together LIVE on Saturday October 17th @ 2pm EDT.

We’ll call the class IS 2020 OVER YET? Because I know that’s how many of us are feeling right now, and it is my intention with the class to help you break out of this mindset.

Don’t worry, we still have time to shift out of this mindset, and we can build momentum starting now.

We don’t have to wait for 2020 to be over.

We can have the shift now,

We can feel better now,

We can take action and have exactly what we want, starting now.

So, mark your planners for Saturday October 17th @ 2pm EDT.

AND get yourself on my list so I can send you the direct link to the class in the morning a few hours before we begin!

(If you are already on my list, you can skip this step!)

Can’t wait to see you LIVE in just a few weeks!

xoxo,

Functional Planning Online Business Productivity

Entrepreneurial: How I’ve been Working Smarter, Not Harder

Hello My Charmed Ones!

I hope you had a wonderful and productive month of August. My month was pretty successful with the implementation of my new content schedule that I outlined for you in last months installment of this series. So, I wanted to give you a recap of how the past month has gone for me, the results I’ve seen from just a few weeks of work, and how I really feel like I’ve been embodying the concept of working smarter, not harder through this process.

My New Content Posting Schedule

To give you a recap of my new posting schedule, I am now publishing content every day of the week onto one of my platforms.

MWF I post to Instagram, T/Th I post to my blog, Sat is a YouTube Video and Sun is an email to my list.

So, I’ve been creating a lot of content, but it honestly has been such a breeze for me because I have been implementing some great productivity strategy for time and task management.

Time and Task Management Strategies I’ve been Using

First, in terms of the task management aspect of this, all of my content ideas are preplanned as part of my editorial calendar, so I always know what I am creating for each piece of content. Yes, I have made a few last minute changes to content, but overall, knowing exactly what I am posting on what platform on which day is such a time and energy saver. Even if I am low on time, there is no decision fatigue that I face for my content, I just need to do what I already planned to do- pretty easy!

Another task and time management strategy I have been relying on heavily for the last month is batching my work. When I film videos for youtube, for instance, I film two in one day, which means I only have to film every other week, instead of weekly. I don’t consider filming to be difficult work overall, but batching my filming saves so much time because much of my time on filming days is literally the setup. Doing my hair and makeup, getting my camera equipment set up, getting the dogs settled so I can actually film without background barking. All that takes time and to only have to go through that process every other week is a major time and energy saver. Then of course I also edit and upload my videos together and schedule everything to go live on the proper days which helps me to get ahead on my work.

I also batch other work as well. I always write my blog posts for a week together on the same day, and at this point I am writing for a week ahead so everything is scheduled and ready to go.

The only content I end up posting in real time are my Instagram posts because I can’t autoschedule those. Of course, I do write most of those captions and decide on the photo or video ahead of time to make it all easy for me. I have been using the Apple Notes app on my MacBook/iPhone to organize the elements of my Instagram posts so I have all the pieces on hand when I am ready to publish.

My weekly email as well is always written a few days ahead of time and scheduled. I usually write those on Friday as my last work task for the week which has been working out very well.

Sticking to My Daily Top 3 Tasks

The final time and task management strategy I have been sticking to very well over the past month is the idea of my Top 3. In July with the launch of the 2021 Planner insert collection, I switched my weekly view in my planner to week on one page as opposed to the week on two pages I had been using all year.

The major difference with these inserts is that they are much more focused on prioritizing your top 3 list, which is a strategy I often talk about where you literally list the three things you absolutely need to focus on for the day. The way I work and the way I plan, I don’t normally write down each and every task I have to complete in a day, instead I like to focus on writing down just the things I know are super important, business related or things I just need to stick to. Like if I could only accomplish three things very well today, what would they be? Nothing else matters as much as these three tasks.

So, in order to avoid overwhelm and stay as focused as possible with this new content schedule, as well as my other work for the month, I have been sticking to the top 3 list each day as a place to guide my energy and focus. I try to knock out the top 3 as quickly as possible because I know if I just get those things done, I am golden. I have nothing to worry about, little things can be forgotten but these three must be done.

I’ve also gotten even better at prioritization because of this practice because I do believe prioritization is a skill that you need to develop to understand what is truly important to get done for the day and what just seems urgent.

The Results I’ve Seen

Now, you might not think that posting on a consistent schedule for just a few weeks would have such a noticeable impact so quickly, but I have already been able to see some significant results.

✔︎ My subscriptions on Youtube are up 25% from prior month.

✔︎ My Instagram follower count is up about 100 and I’m getting more views on my IG Stories than usual.

✔︎ I’ve been receiving more replies to my emails.

✔︎ I’ve been receiving much more engagement from my audience across platforms.

✔︎ The Charmed Shop is getting more consistent daily sales.

Honestly, it’s those last three that are the most important to me. I don’t really give too much concern over follower numbers as long as I am growing that’s good. I realize I am in a very privileged position that I already have a sizable audience online. At least my audience and my list are a size I am very proud of and help support my business in a way that I feel good about. The size of my audience, however, is also likely why I have had such great results in such a quick period of time. I’m not building an audience from scratch, I am just re-engaging them with my content across my platforms.

I’m eager to see how my community starts reengaging with me more and more over the coming months, especially on Instagram where I have been so stagnant for so long because I have just not been posting good content there. I know it’s easy for creators, influencers and business owners to blame a platform or an algorithm for why their accounts aren’t growing or engaged, but I know the truth is usually that the account itself is the problem. I know in my example that is true for sure. I took a big break from Instagram (several years…oops) so I have only myself to blame for low engagement. Hopefully, I’ll be able to revive my account through interesting, valuable and eye catching content and prove that it’s not the platform itself that’s the problem.

So, that is how I have been working smarter, not harder in August getting my new content schedule underway. Of course, I look forward to September being more of the same, more content, more engagement, more sales, more of me creating a valuable and popular business that serves my customers and audience well!

I hope you found this post to be informative and enlightening. I would love to know your thoughts on my new content schedule, so please share with me in the comments!

Wishing you a productive and successful month ahead!

xoxo,

Online Business

Entrepreneurial: A Break-Thru with my Content Schedule

Hello My Charmed Ones!

I hope you had a wonderful and productive month of July. I know I, yet again, took a step back from the blog last month in order to focus more fully on completing and launching my 2021 Planner Insert Collection, but I am back and I have amazing news for you!

Last week, I had a TREMENDOUS BREAK-THRU! And it has to do with my content.

If you’ve been following my Entrepreneurial Journey for the past few years, you may recall that there was once a time (2016 and few years previous) that I had been posting consistently across all my major platforms. I blogged several times a week, posted weekly videos, even updated my Instagram feed multiple times per week. But in 2017 I burnt out, I took a step back and pretty much since that time, I have been struggling to get myself back onto a consisting posting schedule across all my platforms.

It wasn’t for a lack of trying, I would set out with the best of intentions to reignite content on my platforms but for no substantial reason outside of a major mental block, I couldn’t make it work. There was something in my mindset, some limiting belief about what I was capable of and what would be sustainable that ultimately continuously threw me off my content creation schedule.

Over the last few weeks since the launch of my inserts, you may have seen I had been posting 3 videos a week, trying to catch up on essential videos I knew I needed to produce to answer key questions you in my community have been asking me to address, particularly around my inserts. The launch was the optimal time to get that content out to you and I was able to make it happen, of course at the expense of posting to other platforms.

But last week I had a break-thru. During a particularly High Vibe Business Planning Session, I sat down and felt inspired to map out a complete Marketing Plan for all my platforms. Blog, YouTube, IG, and even my email list. And in that moment something major clicked for me. Like the proverbial switch had been flipped and the lights turned on. I had a reasonable content creation schedule sitting in front of me that was populated with content I was actually excited to create.

Now, I’m not going to claim this break-thru was completely sudden. It was definitely the result of some mindset work I have been doing over the past few months to help me get out of that weird funk I had been sitting in because of all the world drama that was emotionally draining me. Particularly, in just the few days before that High Vibe Planning Session, I had done a few excellent journaling and future writing sessions where I believe I unclogged a lot of negative gunk that had accumulated in my mind over the past few years.

There is a quote I love from Marianne Williamson that says “God is the water, and you are the faucet.” I think my faucet had been clogged for quite some time and I needed to do the work of removing it from my psyche so that the water could flow again.

And flow it certainly did!

You know, several times over the past few years, I have hit a peak with my mindset after a period of stagnation, and I feel like each time those small break-thrus helped me take more and more steps into alignment. Even though valleys ultimately followed those peaks, right now in this moment I feel an even greater sense of clarity and confidence that I will be able to follow through on this new endeavor because this time it feels like a missing piece has been found. I’m seeing my future vision so much more clearly then I have in a long time. And for the first time in a long time, my content schedule isn’t merely a fill in the blank schedule, it’s actually filled with exciting content ideas.

So, of course I want to share my new content schedule with you! Here is what you can expect:

MONDAY
Instagram Post

TUESDAY
Blog Post

WEDNESDAY
Instagram IGTV Post

THURSDAY
Blog Post

FRIDAY
Instagram Post

SATURDAY
YouTube Video

SUNDAY
Email to my list

Yea, that is one heck of a content schedule, right? Daily content from me and I feel very positive about it.

Of course, if you want to make sure you catch all the wonderful content I produce, you are going to want to make sure to do the following:

Bookmark my blog http://www.StrangeCharmed.com
Follow me on Instagram @MissTrenchcoat
Subscribe to my YouTube channel and turn on notifications so you don’t miss my videos
Subscribe to my email list by clicking here

Next, let me give you a short preview of the types of content you can expect from me moving forward.

Planning & Productivity (of course!)
Online Business Strategy
What I’m reading and book recommendations
Mindset shifts
Metaphysical topics
My success rituals
Inspiration and motivation to live your best life and pursue your dreams
New monthly freebies, downloads and updates to TheCharmedShop.com as well!

There is so much I can’t wait to share with you moving forward! I do hope you will continue with me on this journey and that we can use this opportunity to grow closer together as a community. I would love to hear about what content you would like to see from me and have me integrate into this new content schedule, so don’t hesistate to leave me a comment, send me an email or drop me a DM on Instagram!

Wishing you a productive and successful month ahead!

xoxo,

Personal Development

Entrepreneurial: Making the Executive Decision to Choose Joy

Welcome to June 2020 My Charmed Ones!

I sincerely hope you and yours are doing well, staying safe, healthy and productive at home. As you may already know from my May #ICYMI post, the past month was something of a mental struggle for me social distancing for so long in this remarkable time we are living in. This is the thing though, I have gone through so many dark periods in my past that I know how important it is to first honor the way I am feeling in the moment, but also not to let myself succumb to it for too long. So yes, I was struggling this month, but I had to just let those feelings out once and for all and then force myself back into a positive mindset. One thing I know can happen to me when I go through a rough patch is that if I don’t actively fight it, I can stay in that sad mindset for way too long. It’s certainly not easy for me to shift out of that place, but I have an arsenal of mindset shifting tools that I use to help me, and if I don’t execute on them, I know I can get stuck for a longer time than necessary. It all starts for me with making the executive decision that I’m not going to allow myself to stay in that mindset, especially not without a fight!

So, what are those tools? How do I dig myself out of a dark place when I’ve fallen into one? Here are some strategies and tools I use.

Gratitude: I think gratitude is one of the most underrated and glossed over topics when it comes to managing your mindset. It’s easy to take for granted, that’s for sure, but no matter what is going on in your life at any given moment, each of us has dozens, hundreds maybe even thousands of things we can be grateful for if we choose to tap into that energy. It is, of course, a choice to feel grateful, and I think one of the problems around the idea of gratitude is that we hear about it so often or we can rattle off a quick default list of things to be grateful for, but we fail to tap into the feeling of gratitude when we do so. I could make a list of a hundred things I am grateful for right now, but just approaching that task as a catalog won’t shift my mindset. Instead I need to stop and focus on each gratitude item and think about how that item functions in my life and what my life would be without it. It’s certainly true that we often don’t appreciate things until they are gone, and to evoke a true emotional response from myself while making a gratitude list, this is a prompt I often use to help me really feel the energy of gratitude and experience the benefits a gratitude practice has to offer.

Rampage Meditation: There is a subgroup of meditations out there that are known as “rampages.” Go ahead, type Rampage Meditation into the YouTube search bar and you will see what I am talking about. This is a specific style of meditation that has grown in popularity over the past few years, usually, but not always associated with Abraham Hicks and Law of Attraction, but I find that this type of meditation is a really great tool to use to shift my energy. Essentially, this meditation type is a guided meditation where someone is feeding you prompts, affirmations and insight intended to help you shift your dominant emotional energy (aka your vibration) upwards to gratitude, love, happiness, joy, etc! If you think about your emotions as a sliding scale where sadness, depression, anger, etc are at the bottom and happiness, joy, contentment are at the top, the point of these guided meditations is to wind your energy up towards the more positive feelings on the scale. When I am particularly sad, this type of meditation often works the best for me. Because just sitting and meditating on my own is something I can’t do easily or effectively. But these rampage meditations give me the thoughts to think and help encourage me.

Journaling: Whenever I am feeling bad about something in my life or feeling like things aren’t going the way I want them to, journaling helps me so much to identify my limiting beliefs and overcome them logically and reasonably. Journaling is often a tool and strategy I use to self-coach or give myself a mock-therapy session. Now, if you have never done any sort of coaching or therapy, let me walk you through my general process for how I journal out my feelings. First, I always identify what I am feeling and the reasons why I believe I am feeling the way I am feeling. I know that for myself, there is usually some issue in my life that is not going the way I want it to that ends up causing my emotional distress. In the case of how I’ve been feeling recently in lockdown, I know the problem for me is that I start feeling powerless that I cannot just do whatever I want right now. So I start with that situation and feeling and I rant it out to my journal. I complain it all out to my journal until I feel like I’ve exhausted my feelings on the matter and laid them all out. Then, I play the role of coach or therapist for myself and force myself to recognize logical reasons why whatever I am complaining about is not true. For example, even though I can’t go out and do all the things I want to do right now, there are still plenty of things I can do and want to do, and it’s important for me to identify those things and why those are very important for me to do if I want to adjust this feeling. Then the final thing I like to do in this journaling session is make a plan for moving forward. Essentially I ask myself what I am going to do moving forward from this journaling session in a way that combats the negative emotions I was experiencing to begin with. I might list out steps, brainstorm ideas, or make a to do list, but I always like to end these journaling sessions with a plan for self-management to help me avoid the trigger again. Then I have this list or this plan to come back to if and when those feelings creep up at me again, which they do- but having the plan acts as a sort of defense for me. Like “no, we are not going to go down this road again, you already solved this problem, here is the plan, focus on the plan.” And honestly, this helps me a lot to break out of the negative emotional patterns and focus on establishing the positive emotional pattern instead.

So, that is what I do when I get into a low place, like I was in during May, and this is a strategy I am going to continue to focus on as I move into June. Because the trigger itself isn’t going away, I am still in isolation, so I need to stick to that plan to keep myself positive and execute regularly on those strategies that help me stay positive and motivated. This is my executive decision to choose joy and focus on that instead of letting negative patterns take over my mind and ultimately derail my life and happiness. But if it does happen again, and I do go dark again, it’s okay because I have these strategies to help pull me out and each time I get stronger and stronger. It’s progress not perfection we are aiming for here!

I hope this installment of Entrepreneurial has been insightful for you! Here is to another great month ahead. I would love to hear how your May went and what you are up to in June, so please do feel free to leave me a comment and tell me about it!

xoxo,

Online Business

Entrepreneurial: My Formula for Consistent Action

Welcome to May 2020 My Charmed Ones!

I sincerely hope you and yours are doing well, staying safe, healthy and productive at home. All is well with me and in my neck of the woods, and I’ve been focused a lot lately on keeping motivated with my new consistent work schedule.

As you know, earlier this year I got back on my three weekly blog post, one weekly video schedule, and since quarantine hit, I have been making those videos live classes. All of this new work has been a welcome distraction during this time for me, but, it’s still a habit I’m working to develop consistency around. So, I thought today I should share some of my insight with you on how I’ve been keeping consistent and disciplined over the past few weeks and months because I’d bet that with the drama on the world stage right now, many of you might feel like you have every reason not to do the tasks on your to do list. Am I right? So, if you have been feeling overwhelmed managing your time and expectations, hopefully I can share some tips for finding consistent motivation.

The first thing I wanted to talk to you about on this topic is actually a podcast episode I listened to recently that really resonated with something I’ve been thinking a lot about lately. The Podcast is You’re Welcome by Hilary Rushford if you want to check it out, and the episode I am going to be talking about today Ep. 58 Productivity Guilt During Quarantine + the Idealization of Time. It’s that last part that I want to talk to you all about, the idealization of time, because this is something I’ve been thinking a lot about.

So, I’ve mentioned before that I think right now, we’ve been given a tremendous opportunity with this pandemic to really go inward and work on ourselves and our goals. I’m not saying that the pandemic is a good thing, clearly it’s not, but I am saying that in every challenge comes an opportunity and suddenly, many of us who were once on the hamster wheel of time management have been given an influx of time. That’s not everyone, many people right now are more busy at home. especially parents who are now remote workers, plus teachers to their children, in addition to their myriad of other responsibilities. But, many of us do have more time in one way or another right now, and I see this as an opportunity for people to buckle down and execute on the goals they have firmly placed into the Someday category. You know what I am talking about- those goals you said you wanted to go after someday when you had more time. Well, we have more time right now, so are you doing all the things you said you were going to do once more time arrived?

My assumption is, and what Hilary discussed in her podcast episode was, that no, lots of us are not using the extra time we now have to go after our goals. There is a good reason for this- time was never the reason why you were not going after those goals to begin with. I say this all the time, but it’s truly evident right now in our current situation that time is a construct. You have, and always have had, the same 24 hours in a day that each and every other successful, goal oriented person has, but you aren’t executing on those objectives, not for a lack of time, but for a lack of motivation. Actually, it’s like a mix of motivation, discipline, clarity keeping you from executing, but all of it is a mental block and you are blaming it on time.

I want to be very clear, I am not saying this to judge or attack you if you happen to be getting triggered by this conversation. I am saying this as a friend and hopefully a trusted source of productivity advice who truly wants to see you succeed. But you can’t succeed if you don’t acknowledge the true issue here. Time was never the issue. What the exact issue is for each of you in this situation will be different, but it stems from a limiting belief you have held in your mind that is confining you to a pattern of behaviors in which you consistently prioritize other things (or nothing at all) over the completion of your goals.

You have the same amount of hours in a day as Beyonce (I love to use that quote) and, yes, right now Beyonce might have much better resources at her disposal than you, but she didn’t always. It was consistent planning and action that made Beyonce the woman she is today. And if you don’t resonate with Beyonce, substitute her for any number of successful individuals. The point is, all of us get the same amount of time and the same amount of opportunities in a day to go after our objectives, and so we have to stop using time as an excuse and start addresses the real issue holding us back from action.

I am not immune from this conversation myself, either! In fact, I want to use the example of myself to explain how I have been overcoming my own obstacles and taking more strategic action. Let’s go back to those three factors that I think really do impact our ability to take action and those are clarity, motivation and discipline. Without those three elements in alignment, it’s difficult to take strategic action that yields results.

# 1. Clarity: I define clarity as understanding where I am trying to go, what I am trying to achieve and having a set of parameters for how I want to achieve my goal. In her podcast episode Hilary talks about the fact that each of us has a list of things we believe we should do if we had the time, and yet many of us never do the things on that list. To me, this issue comes down to a lack of clarity and the importance of switching up the language we use to describe this very common issue. So, yes, we have all been faced with ideas of things we should do, but I think we need to start thinking of this list of shoulds as a list of coulds. If you are into Law of Attract you have probably heard Ester Hicks and Abraham talk about life being a series of experiences intended to highlight the contrasts of desires. Meaning, there are lots of different experiences we have in life and can have, and it’s up to us to filter through all of them and determine which we desire and which we do not. In the podcast, Hilary uses the example of her father, who is an author and speaker to illustrate the point that as humans we have more ideas than time to execute. She explains that her father knows he should turn his book into an audiobook but he hasn’t had the time to do it yet. But, time isn’t the issue, right, it’s desire. Whether or not he should turn the book into an audiobook isn’t the question, really the task is simply a could until he gets clear on whether or not that is a true priority for him. Plenty of people never turn their books into audiobooks and for good reason, maybe it’s not worth the time or effort, maybe there is a specific strategy they are following or perhaps they just don’t like audiobooks and prefer their book to be in physical form. This is what I mean when I say it’s important to have a set of parameters for how you want to achieve a goal because truthfully the options are endless for things we could do, but clarity around our values will help us define the path of execution for anything we do desire to accomplish. Let’s use an example from my own life and business. I am told all the time that I should sell my inserts as a physical product, not just a digital. Or I am told I should write a book, or I should start a podcast. But when I ask myself should I and I evaluate these ideas based on my values, I keep coming to the conclusion that those options are not in alignment with my objectives. So, it is very important that we treat these shoulds as coulds until they pass the litmus test of clarity and are formally identified as objectives we wish to pursue. If we don’t we run the risk of shoulding ourselves to death, meaning, we allow all the options that we have to overwhelm us and paralyze us into inaction.

#2. Motivation: To me, the next part of this equation is motivation, meaning that initial spark that triggers action to begin. Some people believe that motivation is required consistently in order to start and complete an objective, but that isn’t how I see it. I believe motivation just needs to inspire the start of an action. So, we need to feel like, yes, we can achieve the goal, it is possible and feasible. If you are someone who has an idea that you would like to take action on, perhaps you have had that moment of clarity and know what you want to achieve and have made a plan to get it done but haven’t been able to take action yet, what you need in this situation is that spark of motivation. For me, motivation comes from knowing that I am not the first person who has done anything in this world. So, if someone else can do it, so can I. A lot of inaction or the inability to start on a project for myself often comes because I am afraid of failure, but reminding myself that others have done something takes the edge off. Even if I can’t find an example of someone who has done the precise thing I am doing, I can usually find an example of someone who is doing something close to what I am doing. For example, recently, I have been hosting live classes on Saturday afternoon on my Youtube channel in a way I never have before. These classes are like nothing I have really seen on YouTube before within the planning and productivity community, and because of that fact and all the equipment and technology required on the back end, I get a little nervous doing the classes. But I know I am not reinventing the wheel here. I know there have been other creators in other genres who have gone live like this. Gaming streamers are the best equivalent I can think of who also have a complex tech setup and are managing an event on their own with a large live audience. So, I know I can do it. Just because other planner people don’t host these events doesn’t mean I can’t or shouldn’t. Most of the time, it is this sort of motivation that helps me put myself out there in new ways when I am afraid of trying something new for my audience.

#3. Discipline: As I mentioned earlier, I believe motivation is the initial spark required to overcome mental obstacles and take action, but it isn’t necessary after an objective has begun. What you need after you get started on a goal is discipline! Self- discipline is the mental muscle that keeps us coming back and working on an objective after the motivation has ended. For many people, including myself, this is where the struggle begins. It’s not in finding clarity and it’s not the motivation to get started, it’s the discipline required to show up over and over again until the work is complete. I know many of you reading this believe I am naturally very self-disciplined, but I would not agree. I have struggle often with discipline and have to find creative ways to get myself to execute and complete work all the time. The first element that helps me with this is having a plan and making sure I have clear visibility to everything I need to do. So writing out my top three tasks in a day and making sure I have that complete list of work with my next-action on it is crucial for me. But the list itself isn’t enough for me. I can stare at a to do list all day and never take action on a task, so I have developed a formula for myself to get to work. First, I need to slow down to understand what is holding me back that day. It can vary of course. Perhaps I see that the tasks aren’t what I desire to do, or I have another priority that has taken precedence. Often though, I am just feeling tired or overwhelmed with my work. So, I give myself permission to take a short break to get my head straight. Usually, if I spend this break relaxing in meditation I can calm the mental blocks enough that they dissolve and then I am no longer afraid to tackle the to do list. Or, sometimes I take a bath to relax my muscles physically. Or, other times, I will watch some funny videos on YouTube or TikTok to lift my energy and vibration. Once my energy is lifted, when I come back to my to do list, I can sense my increased capacity for the day and I’m ready to get down to work.

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That is my formula and process for consistently motivation myself to start and complete my work. I’ve been using this process a lot lately because in these challenging times, it’s so easy to get down about what is happening in the world and it can drain your energy and capacity to get things done. It’s so important that we have grace with ourselves and acknowledge where we are struggling because when we dig deeper at that struggle we will find the obstacles that are holding us back from executing on those objectives we desire to achieve. It doesn’t matter why you want something, your desire is valid and you are worthy of it. Sometimes, it just takes some good self-awareness and analysis to understand what blocks are truly standing in our way.

So, this is the process I am going to continue to work on through the month of May as I develop that consistency and self-disciple to execute on my new content calendar and the other projects I have on my business plan to execute. I know I have big dreams for my life and where I am heading and its so important to me that I complete the work I plan for myself so that all the dominos fall properly throughout my year.

Okay, well with that here’s to another great month ahead! I hope this post has been insightful for you and I’d love to hear more about what you are working on this month in the comments below!

xoxo,