Episode #56 How to Chart a Course That Suits You
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Hi,
This is Welcome to Self® and I’m your host Dr Hayley D Quinn, fellow human, business owner, and the anti-burnout business coach.
I’m here for service-based business owners like you to help you increase your own self-care and self-compassion, change the relationship you have with yourself and your business, and help you elevate your business to a new level so you can live the full and meaningful life you desire. We are all on a continual learning journey so let’s learn together.
Welcome to Self® is a place where you can come and learn about the practices that will assist you as a business owner and get tips on how to engage in your business in a way that is sustainable for you. You will realise that you’re not alone in the ways that you struggle, because at times we all do and I’m happy to share with you what I’ve learned through my own struggles and my experiences of running businesses. You can join me as I chat to wonderful guests and have your curiosity piqued about various topics and I’ll also bring you solo bite-sized business episodes that can easily fit into your day.
This is a place to remember that you are human first and have different tasks in your business and different roles in your life that need your attention and for that you need to take care of yourself in the best way you can. This is a place of nourishment, growth and helpful information. A place where you can learn ways to assist you and your business to thrive.
Because remember if you thrive your business can too.
Now let’s get to the episode…
Hi, and welcome to another bite sized business episode. Before we get into today’s episode, I want to let you know that our waitlist for our Welcome to Self ® Time to Thrive Group Coaching programme is now open. Time to Thrive is a live 13 week programme that offers you psychology back solutions that help you transform the relationship you have with yourself and your business and allows you to focus on growing and maintaining a successful business. Using your own definition of success.
We want you thriving and avoiding burnout. So if you’re not already on the waitlist, head to the link in the show notes and sign up. Doors to the programme are opening very soon. And for those of you on the waitlist, there’s some bonus goodies ready for you.
So, let’s get into the episode.
Do you ever feel like a rudderless boat, just out there on your own, not knowing where you’re heading to?
Here’s some things you might like to think about.
1) Goal setting.
Now I know that’s not everybody’s cup of tea, but it can be really helpful.
When we set goals, we have a direction, we have some signposts of where we want to go.
The important thing to remember when we’re setting goals is to make sure we are setting some proximal goals, so those goals that are close to us that we’re going to reach quickly,
because that’s going to help us with our motivation to keep pursuing other goals.
We also want to think about some distal goals, those goals that are a bit further out.
You’re not going to reach them straight away, they might be something that you’ll achieve in a month, or six months, or a year, or maybe even five years, depending how much you want to expand this exercise.
The other important thing to think about with goals is to make sure that they are achievable. Now that’s not to say don’t stretch yourself, but don’t make them unrealistic.
Particularly if you’re somebody who likes to find evidence for why you’re not quite good enough. If you set goals that you can’t really reach, well you’re just going to give yourself more evidence, aren’t you, that you can’t do the things. So how about you don’t do that.
Don’t set too many goals. Between one and three to start with.
This way you’re able to stay focused and give the time and energy needed to those goals. If you have too many, you’re not going to be able to effectively focus on them and that’s just not going to be helpful. You’re more likely to end up in overwhelm and in your threat system and we know when we’re in our threat what happens is any creative thinking, brainstorming or great new ideas about how to reach your goals is going to be compromised. When we are in our threat system all our mind cares about is getting safe. So do yourself a favour and keep the number of goals small.
You may want to just take one big goal and break it down into say three smaller goals. So, for example, you might choose one of your larger distal goal, and that has three smaller proximal goals related to it, that you’ll work on over the next few weeks.
Another important thing to remember is to make sure you can track your goals and that way you’ll be able to monitor your progress and reflect on how far you’ve come, not just how far you have to go. If we only look at the future and never remind ourselves how far we’ve come, we can get caught up thinking we never achieve anything, because we’re not at our goal yet!
2)Another thing that can be helpful to think about is your values.
Getting in touch with our values means that we can make decisions that are going to feel aligned with who we are, what we believe in and what we want to achieve. When we know what our values are and we make decisions guided by these values, we’re more likely to set goals that take us where we want to end up. If we are influenced by other people’s values and goals, then we risk creating a business that we don’t want to own or a life that doesn’t suit how we want to live.
There’s lots of information on the internet and you can find lists of values that you can go through and start ticking off the ones that are meaningful for you and then refining that list down to your main top three or five values or whatever number feels right for you. If you google Values Exercise you’re bound to find lots to choose from and they’ll have the instructions for what to do.
You can also do this as a more imaginary exercise and imagine you are at your 50th, 60th or maybe 80th birthday party and all your dear friends and family are there, and they each stand up and say something about the person you are. What would you want them to say about you? What do they highlight about who you are and what you stand for in the world? You might want to write some of this down after you’ve done the exercise and think about how that sits for you in terms of how you’re currently living your life and running your business.
3)Let yourself dream.
Why did you start your business? What was that dream you had? What did you picture when you thought of yourself as a business owner and how’s the reality looking in comparison to that?
I often hear from people that it looks nothing like the dream they had, so what I would say to that is, okay, so pick out the things that are really important to you from the dream that you had about being a business owner and look at how your values fit with that. Are you living in line with that?
Then look back at the goals you’ve set for yourself. Do those goals actually align with the dream you were trying to create? The life or business you were trying to create?
And if not, get back in touch with your dream and your values.
Think about those things from the perspective of why you wanted to start this and perhaps set yourself some new goals. Come up with some new ideas for your business. Ideas that are going to fit with the business YOU want to create. So often I talk to people who are building businesses and they’re getting caught up in creating a business based on the dreams, ideas, and goals of someone else. Is that really what you want to do?
4) The other thing I wanted to touch on is pay attention to what you can and can’t control.
Too many times I see people spending lots of time and energy trying to solve problems that are outside of their control.
This leads to frustration, distress and ultimately burnout.
We can only control the things we can control and it’s important to come back and ask ourselves what is it about this situation that I can control? And then spend your time and energy on that. One, you’ve got a chance of actually finding a solution and being able to implement that solution. And two, it’s going to feel so much more satisfying when you actually solve whatever it is you’re trying to solve and get the outcome you want or create whatever it is you’re trying to create rather than banging your head against a wall trying to figure out why you can’t solve something that actually isn’t yours to solve.
You started this business for a reason. Connect back with that. And yes, maybe that reason might have changed a little bit. So, check in with it now. What is the reason why you want to be running this business? What are you passionate about? What do you enjoy doing? What impact do you want to make?
There’s going to be ups and downs in business. That is undoubted for all of us. It’s just part of the business journey. I was talking to someone the other day and I’ve said this to many people that, you know, becoming a business owner and growing a business is more of a personal growth journey than a business journey. We can learn the skills, or we can outsource to people who have the skills in business, but it’s how we change the relationship with ourselves and how we can show up as the person we need to be to run the business we want.
Like the storms at sea, we can’t control the unexpected. But we can have safeguards and strategies in place for when these things happen. One of those is knowing who your community are. Who are the people that can support you during the difficult times? Because there will be difficult times, we all have them. What sort of support suits you best? If you’re somebody that finds it really hard to reach out for support, how can you work on that? So, when you need to, you can bring in the support you need. And who can be the people that will cheer you on as well? As you embark on this business journey, as you head towards the goals and dreams that you’ve set for yourself. And how can you cheer yourself on?
It doesn’t need to feel like you’re in a rudderless boat. There are ways that you can take control of the direction you’re going and build the business that you truly want to build and thrive at the same time.
If you’re looking for a cheerleader and a community of like-minded business owners to set sail with, head to the link in the show notes and join our waitlist for our Welcome to Self ®: Time to Thrive group coaching program. I’d love to see you in there and support you on your business journey.
I hope you’ve enjoyed this bite size business episode and if you have please share it with someone else. And I’d really appreciate if you’d leave a review, they’re always so helpful for the podcast.
Go well and go gently with yourself,
And remember,
If you thrive, your business will too.
Thank you for sharing this time with me today. I hope our time together has been helpful and supportive. If there has been something in this episode that you have found helpful, I invite you to share it with another person who you think might benefit. If you’ve benefited in any way from the podcast, please do me a favour and show my pod some love by giving it a five star rating and review. Ratings reviews and shares really helped to increase awareness and reach of the podcast, allowing this helpful information to be spread more widely.
All Reviews are welcome and much appreciated. If you do share on socials, remember to tag me so I can see who’s listening. Because you never really know over here in podcast land, and I can reach out personally to say thank you. If you’d like to be notified when the next episode airs, please use the link in the show notes to join our mailing list. If you have any particular topics you’d like to learn more about, or guest you’d like to hear from, please reach out and let me know. I’d love to hear from you. Music and editing by Nyssa Ray. Thanks Nyssa
I wish you all well and your relationship with yourself and your business may go well and go gently.
And remember, if you thrive, your business will too.
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