Breaking the Cycle: Push Beyond Strategy Into Action

Have you started changing your “what ifs” to “what thens” yet? I know it might sound like a laughably miniscule shift, but take it from me: changing your internal monologue can totally transform your mindset. Even though we take them for granted almost every day, words are powerful. Language is life-changing. Just ask Susan B. Anthony or Martin Luther King, Brene Brown or Malala Yousafzai. The right words can change the world for the better. And that includes the inner world of your personal aspirations and ambitions.

@@ The right words can change the world for the better. And that includes the inner world of your personal aspirations and ambitions @@

Answers aren’t actions

If you’ve already committed to the forward-thinking, preparedness-minded language of “what then,” kudos to you! Right now, you may be digging into the work of releasing your fears and building out contingency plans ... OR you may be spinning your wheels. You have some rough ideas of how to answer those daunting questions:

If I can’t pay my bills this month, what then?

If I launch a program and no-one enrolls, what then?

If I raise my rates and no-one buys from me, what then?

But even with answers in-hand, you may still fear moving forward. If you can’t pay your bills and decide that your Plan B is to borrow from your retirement fund, you may dread how your partner or family may react. If you lose customers after raising your rates and choose more aggressive marketing as your solution, you may cringe at the thought of kicking self-promotion into high-gear. You’ve got answers now, and you’ve got backups. But you may still be frozen in place.

Strategy and beyond

Action that moves us closer to our goals requires strategy. You can’t just fling yourself at a goal and hope you’ll land on the bull’s eye, you’ve gotta have a plan. A plan with a series of logical steps, built-in community support, and research on expected outcomes. Not a fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants plan, a thought-out, coach-or-colleague vetted, planful plan. (Need help with this step? I’m here for ya!)

@@ You can't just fling yourself at a goal and hope you'll land on the bull's eye, you've gotta have a plan @@

And, of course, crafting a fully fledged long-term strategy is a huge first step, but it’s not enough. Implementing this strategy requires intentional action. And I mean showing up every day and chipping away at the activities and changes you’ve identified as essential.

@@ Crafting a fully fledged long-term strategy is a huge first step, but it's not enough. Yoke energy to focus for more intentional action @@

But that can be scary. It pushes you to your growth edge - that uncomfortable place where you have to choose between the familiar and the future - and forces you to think about your business in different, challenging ways.

Fear can lead to avoidance.

Avoidance makes you to downshift into easy, brainless, maintenance tasks.

Piling on the little, ineffective actions drains your energy.

And then you’ve landed back to square one where you’re filling your days with busywork and studiously ignoring the big picture. Your goals sit in a corner, neglected and forlorn. And maybe crying just a little bit.

Accountability is the antidote

Nobody wants forlorn goals, am I right? We want our goals lively and vibrant and cheering us on at every turn. We want goals that excite and motivate us

And, as it turns out, a community of lively, vibrant people who cheer you on at every turn can help make just about any goal feel more achievable. Going it alone allows you to fall down endless rabbit holes of worry and fear, ending up in a state of analysis paralysis. Connecting with others can help you talk through your fears, break through to action, and make real progress.

@@ A community of lively, vibrant people who cheer you on can make just about any goal feel achievable. @@ 

Struggling to find a community in your own neck of the woods? The Kula is always open to new members, and a phenomenal place to practice accountability among open-minded, supportive e-friends. Won’t you join us?

Two words that can make or break your business.

Doing it all is overrated.

Focusing your efforts on strategic, key tasks is the only way to fly.

Buuuuuut ... let's take a moment to acknowledge that honing in on those key tasks and letting go of schedule-clogging, energy-sapping activities is daunting. After all, some of those schedule-clogging, energy-sapping activities are the ones you could do in your sleep, and others yield instant positive feedback. Work like this sometimes FEELS more productive than big-picture work because it's done in the moment and we see results in the moment.

The risk of keeping ourselves busy with these non-strategic tasks is that we get stuck. We end up treading water - sometimes very much on purpose - to avoid tackling bigger, scarier decisions and getting serious about growing our businesses. And when we finally start to dial in those strategic tasks? Fear shows up. Fear of risk and failure, waste and embarrassment, trashing all progress and having to start over from scratch. When fear climbs into the driver's seat, wrenching back control of the wheel can feel impossible.

I believe thoughts compel behavior.

I believe we can change our thoughts.

In changing our thoughts, we can change our behavior.

Really, I believe in the power of language.

There are two words that can make or break your business.

What if.

What if I don’t make it?

What if I can’t pay my bills this month?

What if my website gets hacked?

What if I launch a program and no-one enrolls?

What if I raise my rates and no-one buys from me?

What if I spend 3 months writing a book and no-one wants to publish/buy/read it?

@@ There are two words that can make or break your business. What if. Stop what if-fing yourself to death @@

Instead of what if-fing yourself to death, hit the pause on this disturbing thought train and choose a more productive line of inquiry.

What then?

If I don’t make it [this time], what then?

If I can’t pay my bills this month, what then?

If my website gets hacked, what then?

If I launch a program and no-one enrolls, what then?

If I raise my rates and no-one buys from me, what then?

If I spend 3 months writing a book and no-one wants to publish/buy/read it, what then?

What then may have a similar end clause to what if. The difference is in the result.

What if leaves you grasping for straws, what then leaves you prepared to take your next steps. Building a thriving business is not the path of least resistance. In order to thrive, there are so many lessons that we need to learn.

And in changing your thought process from what if to what then, there are two very important lessons.

@@What if leaves you grasping for straws, what then leaves you prepared to take your next steps @@

(1) Let Go of Fear

The unknown is innately terrifying. And what if, takes us deep into the terror—creating worst-case scenarios and forcing us to stew in that fear. But we all know that fear doesn’t serve us.

Fear holds us back from success by preventing us from even trying. Fear causes us to guard our hearts—keeping us from showing the very vulnerability that makes us human (and in turn develops trust!). Fear keeps us from making investments in our businesses and in our education—what if I don’t make my money back on this investment?

Guess what? The fear never goes away. We just get better at letting go of it and acting anyway.

@@What if takes us to a place of fear. The fear never goes away. We just get better at letting go of it and acting anyway.@@

(2) Always have a plan B (and maybe a C & D)

Let’s get very clear on something—letting go of fear does not mean being reckless. It does mean letting go of the negative thought patterns, beliefs and behaviors that are keeping you from deeply trusting yourself – and your mission in the world.

Stop playing the what if game with yourself, because you’re only feeding a fear-monster that doesn’t serve you. BUT don’t ignore the fact that things do not always work out as we would like.

The possibility of failure is huge—especially for new entrepreneurs who are just starting to build a following.

Prepare for any outcome by changing your language from what if, to what then.

Knowing how you are going to pick up the pieces and move forward is invaluable. It has the power to reduce anxiety and reduced anxiety will increase confidence and, in turn, increase your potential for success.

@@Prepare for any outcome by changing your language from what if, to what then.@@

Your Dream Clients can sense your confidence or lack thereof—even if they can’t quite put their fingers on it. Amazingly enough, boosting your confidence is as simple as changing just two words. Those two words are the difference between being scared and being strategic.

To more sacred strategy,

Feeling Burned-out? Here’s the Antidote to Overwhelm.

Are you the bottleneck in your business?

Think about it. Are you:

• Working with current clients?

• Hustling for new clients?

• Posting to your social media channels?

• Running a clinic / practice / studio?

• Studying to bring your expertise to the next level?

• Growing your business to the next level?

• Teaching classes or courses?

• Livestreaming or hosting in-person events?

• Doing your own accounting?

• Attempting to have a social or family life outside your all-consuming work?

Grow your business with a business coach

I wouldn’t be surprised to hear that many of you are doing all these things AND MORE. If you’re drowning in work, scrambling to do it all, and losing traction with every passing day—you’re not alone.

But you’re also not in a good spot, especially if you want to drive business growth forward. (And I know you do.) In order to prime your enterprise for real, ongoing, profit-generating growth, you’ve got to identify your key tasks, and yoke your focus + energy to get those tasks done.

Your time is limited and precious. Burning through your valuable time and energy with tasks that someone else could do isn’t a sustainable strategy. Understandably, you may need to wear all the hats right now….even if that is the case, track your time and you’ll begin to see where you are able to “retrieve” a few hours by pivoting your focus.

So just how do you figure out what to keep and what to ditch?

Here’s how I decide:

Divide and conquer

Make a list of every ball you’ve got in the air right now. Every task you do from creating long-term marketing strategies to sweeping the studio floor. Then divide them into two groups:

• Those that help maintain the business: The must-do daily or weekly tasks that help keep the business running. Think teaching classes and working with clients, but also paying the bills and replying to emails.

• Those that help drive business forward: Growth-promoting, catalyzing, and profit-enhancing tasks. Think developing new products or programs,  launching higher-value offers or group programs, learning valuable skills, and working with business coaches.

Some of these tasks need you. There’s no trusted advisor or second-in-command who can step in and teach your classes, courses or coaching sessions, so you must be prepared to give them your attention. But there are other tasks that you may currently handle yourself to “save money,” or haven’t considered delegating.

When it comes to that second group, I want you to ...

Hire smart people

No one likes to hear that you’ve got to “spend money to make money,” myself included. (Seriously, who enjoys cliches?) But if you drown yourself in tasks that competent paid staff members could handle, you are quite literally keeping yourself from dreaming up and rolling out new, better, higher earning-potential offerings. Investing in trustworthy, creative full-time, part-time, or freelance staff frees you up to focus on business-building.

If you’re not in a position to hunt down and take on traditional employees, consider digital solutions like:

• Virtual assistants (VAs), who can schedule your social posts, edit your content, or do grahic design work remotely and affordably.

• Provider marketplaces like Upwork or Fiverr, which connect you with designers, programmers, and content marketers through bidding systems.

• Design aids like 99 Designs, where you find and work with freelance designers on logos, packaging, websites, and more.

Once you have the tasks you keep all to yourself and the ones you selectively delegate there will be a few stragglers which don’t serve you or your business.

Eliminate underperformers

Sometimes we outgrow aspects of our business or find that certain responsibilities no longer serve their purpose.

// If you never get more than two students in your Thursday night cooking class, why are you still offering it?

// If you’re spending time populating gorgeous Pinterest boards but they don’t drive sales or generate new customer leads, quit it.

// If you dread the thought of teaching that weekly webinar, axe it.

// If you have an offer, program, workshop or course you’ve outgrown, retire the offer.

You do NOT have to keep doing things just because you’ve done them in the past. And you do NOT have to do things just because your peers are doing them. Keep your top-performing offerings and cut the dead weight. Focus on social media outlets that you enjoy and that bring you new business, and ditch the rest. You’re the boss. Make some tough calls and reduce your workload by letting go of underperformers.

Dial up the discipline

We’ve gone from easy to tough, I know! Making a list of your work tasks is a cakewalk. Increasing self-mastery? Not so easy.

Start with tiny steps like disabling social media notifications and practicing mono-tasking. (Multi-tasking is a total myth, believe me.)

Be honest with yourself about your most productive hours, and schedule your hardest tasks at those times of day. (More productivity tips here!)

Pick up an important, business-focused task to complete each day at the start of your workday. You’ll get an instant boost of motivation knowing you completed an important task for your business growth and that will help keep you motivated whe

As time goes on, you’ll learn the valuable lesson every successful entrepreneur has learned: you can’t do it all. Embrace this lesson with big, open arms. Doing it all is overrated. Focusing your efforts on strategic, key tasks is the only way to fly.

Wanna connect with a supportive group as you manage your task lists?

Join the Kula, a Free Coaching Community for female founders and integrative practitioners. We go Live every Tuesday at 1 pm EST / 10 am PST for mindful business tips and weekly action plans.

Being Good Isn't Good Enough: How to Push Your Edge

You’ve done it all … but you still feel stuck and frustrated.

You’re doing it all … but not getting the traction you’re striving for.

You’re following all the rules … but still feel like you’re reinventing the wheel every day.

You’re the absolute best at what you do … but that prowess and expertise isn’t reflected in your current business or brand.

Every entrepreneur must eventually face the fact that although she’s stellar at what she does, she must also learn the craft of business in order to thrive. Being good at your vocation isn’t enough. You also need to get used to marketing/visibility, strategic planning, collaboration, selling your products, programs, and services, delegating tasks, and growing into the next phase of business. Your services are the foundation of your business, but it’s essential that you build upward from that foundation. Tending to a healthy, thriving business requires taking action and that means there will be days when you end up in unfamiliar (and terrifying) territory.

Bottom line: The skills required to do your transformative, helping or healing work are separate from those required to build a profitable business. And both of those skill sets require responsibility and pushing your edge.

I’ve worked with countless clients who’ve eventually entered a mental-emotional space that I’ve dubbed the “growth edge.” When you enter this space, you feel pushed to your capacity and forced to make the choice between comfort and change. You’re stretched thin and frustrated, but also locked into a familiar routine. Step toward the growth edge, and you find yourself thinking, “I want to earn more, build my client list, and create new offerings … but am I ready to take a big boatload of risks in order to accomplish those things?” It can be tempting to just stay put, shirking perilous changes in favor of remaining stagnant but comfortable.

But let’s define comfort, because comfort isn’t always comfortable. Comfort is the expected, the familiar, the well-worn tracks. The expected could be an expected failure, the familiar could be the familiar pain of the feast-or-famine cycle, and those well-worn tracks could be the road to financial ruin. None of those options are preferable (am I right?), but if they reflect a past experience or a set of present beliefs, they are comfortable because they confirm what you know of the world.

Growth, on the other hand, requires leaping into the terrifying expanse of the unexpected, the dark canvas of the unknown, and the new neural pathways that lie beyond the edge of your vulnerability. It means abandoning the perceived safety of sameness and taking a chance on change. It means trusting yourself and being brave and putting yourself out there.

Growth requires change, courage, and commitment.

Business requires the same things.

Pushing your edge isn’t just a best practice—it’s how you live your message of transformation.

Conquer Your Business Goals in 4 Simple Steps

Even non-writers are familiar with the concept of writer’s block; That agonizing, empty-headed feeling of staring at a blank page and believing you’ll never again have a single worthwhile thought to share.

I want to talk about entrepreneur’s block; That dizzying, overwhelming feeling of staring at a meticulously crafted business plan and believing you’ll never, ever in a bajillion years be able to accomplish the tasks outlined therein.

I’ve been there, friends.

Breaking through the block and making headway on business objectives is actually quite simple. Not easy, mind you, but simple.

Implement the following four techniques to achieve your goals.

Focus

It can be hard to channel your energy into long-term goals when you’re constantly scrambling to keep up with the day-to-day. But remember that what you focus on expands: When you carve out the time and energy to work toward those long-term goals, you create space for them to grow and progress and thrive. When you don’t, they stagnate. And so do you.

So choose a point of focus for your business — 1 month, 3 months, 9 months, whatever feels like a reasonable time-frame for your specific goal — and prioritize accomplishment. Make space for expansion, and expansion will happen. Right before your eyes.

Dedicate Yourself to Strategic Action

Moving beyond planning and into action is tough for some … but making that transition is so vital, especially for women entrepreneurs. Once you’ve created space, time, and focus around your goals, nudge yourself toward thoughtful, intentional action. Commit to forging ahead, find ways to make steady progress, and be mindful but agile. If you get sucked into the doubts, the fears, the procrastination, and the overwhelm, seek support. Join the Kula, my Free Coaching Community. Remember, action needn’t be huge. Action can mean ...

Small Wins Every Day

“Slow and steady wins the race” has got to be the least sexy business cliche in the universe. But it’s true. Anyone who looks like an “overnight success” from the outside has undoubtedly put in a decade of blood, sweat, and tears backstage, out of sight, while the world was distracted by other shiny things. Small actions taken daily matter more than frenzied action that leads to burnout. Figure out what small wins you can maintain on the regular, and make them a part of your schedule. I mean it. Put small actions that move you toward huge goals on your calendar. Make them a priority, and do them every day. (I identify my top 3 tasks for the day the night / day before and that’s where I begin first thing).

@@ Put small actions that move you toward huge goals on your calendar. Make them a priority, and do them every day. #growthcatalyst@@

Stay the Course

Distraction kills goals, especially big, bold, far-reaching ones. And again, I totally get that putting out tiny, daily fires keeps your business from burning to a crisp. But when you eliminate distractions and stamp out overwhelm, you prime yourself for success. Doing so can mean delegation, prioritization of tasks, creating a goal-driven daily schedule, or limiting your social media time. (You can watch tiny hamsters eating tiny burritos after the day’s work tasks are complete. And you should. Because they’re hilarious.) Find personalized, effective, sustainable ways to stay the course.

Love these concepts, but need some real-time support? You’re in luck! Join the Kula.

Your Recipe for Entrepreneurial Success: Action + Accountability

Tell me if this sounds familiar: An idea sparks in your mind, your passion ignites, and you spend hours, weeks, even months planning how you’ll transform it into a reality. But when the time comes to take the big leap, you falter. Mired in details and fearing failure, you head back to the drawing board and re-immerse yourself in dreaming and planning.

No? How about this: “Action” is your middle name, which means you’re constantly scrambling to keep up with your mile-long to-do list. As you buzz from client to client, meeting to meeting, you realize you should dedicate some time to working on your larger goals and planning for the future of your business … but your calendar beckons, and off you run.

These two cycles are simultaneously the same and polar opposites. Endless Planner is avoiding action and Overwhelmed Do-er is immersed in action … but both are engaging in cycles that subtly sabotage their endeavors. Both need goal clarification and goal support, and both could use some help moving themselves toward goal achievement.

If these Endless Planner and Overwhelmed Do-er are ever going to move beyond their self-erected roadblocks, they’ve gotta embrace two of the biggest growth-drivers in business: Action and accountability. Think you might need a little of both in your own work life? Let’s talk about how to get there.

Intentional Action Centers Us

Now, before we discuss the rewards of bold, decisive action, let’s take a knee to talk intention. Because plunging into doing without first contemplating can lead to 15 kinds of disaster. Intention before action keeps us centered in the Why, the huge, soul-centric reasons we do what we do as entrepreneurs. When we tap into the power of that mission-driven motivation, it keeps us on track when we face challenges or consider giving up. It also keeps us from acting for the sake of acting without considering how our choices might impact larger goals.

So yes, I’m urging you toward action. But with a gentle reminder that intention is an essential warm-up activity before a marathon of momentous activity.

Action itself? SO essential for entrepreneurs, especially women in business. It can be tempting to stall out in that place of intention—just keep planning endlessly and dreaming wistfully—but forging ahead is vital. Intention should become the sword of discernment that slices through ineffective or unproductive action, and separates it out from truly potent and progressive action. Moving from thinking to doing can seem like taking a flying leap, and that can be scary. Force it to feel more like a step than a leap by ramping up, tackling small bite-sized tasks first before throwing yourself into the massive ones, and the process will be less daunting.

And if you get sucked into the doubts, the fears, the procrastination, and the overwhelm, you must find a way to get support. Promise me you will, OK? (And if you’re not sure how, stick with me and I’ll tell you!)

Now let’s talk accountability.

Mindful Accountability Keeps Us On Track

We healers, helpers, and heart-centered entrepreneurs are a contradictory bunch. We often get so focused on healing and helping as many people as possible, that we burn ourselves out, drown in overwhelm, and avoid taking essential steps to grow our business footprints. We heal and help until we’ve got nothing left to give. And then we collapse into groaning heaps and wonder what the hell went wrong.

Lack of accountability is what went wrong. And I don’t mean accountability to clients or team members. I mean accountability to ourselves and to our businesses.

Putting the needs of others first in all cases, avoiding achievement because of fear of success, subtle self-sabotage, endless procrastination, weak or poor boundaries, and shiny-object syndrome all screw us over in the end. Because in the end, we’re tapped out and useless. And again, this is especially true for women entrepreneurs since we’re culturally conditioned to see ourselves as givers and caretakers, and fall so easily into the trap of zero accountability.

Accountability keeps us on track, hyper-focused on the goals and actions that will catalyze business success. Accountability protects us from burnout and over-extension. Accountability helps us build healthy, thriving, efficient business models that are truly sustainable.

So think long and hard about what is truly necessary to keep your practice going. Can you cut two tasks from each day? Add a chunk of time each week for outreach, marketing, and brainstorming? What do YOU need to do to change your tendency toward endless, draining activity?

You are NOT alone

I bet all of this sounds totally possible and completely fabulous … in theory. But putting it into practice might feel more challenging. So here’s your friendly nudge toward the Kula, a phenomenally friendly Facebook group where community support is the name of the game! Embracing action and establishing accountability can be a million times easier when tackled with open, supportive, knowledgeable colleagues.

Won’t you join us? We can help you get “straight A’s” in business without pulling ANY all-nighters. Scout’s honor.

Join us!