Tag: Business mindset

Posted on by

E#157 Discipline Vs Commitment

Listen Now

This episode is about discipline vs commitment

I want to make an episode today about discipline and commitment. I’ve just come out of a lot of conversations I’ve had recently where people are talking about wanting to be more motivated and needing to be more disciplined in order to reach an outcome that they’re striving for.

I think the word discipline has a lot of negative connotations for so many people. They imagine this carrot and stick approach where they have to be hard on themselves in order to achieve something. 

Think about that concept for a moment. 

How does it make you feel?

In this episode, I’ll talk about 
* Comparison between discipline and commitment
* What does the word discipline mean to you?
* What can make someone commit?

What does the word discipline mean to you?

I was thinking about this the other day while coaching somebody. We were talking about how hard it can be to do new things and that you may have to make yourself do something you don’t enjoy for a period before you finally do it regularly.

Using the word discipline – if it has a negative connotation for you – can make things feel harder!

Take exercise for example. You may not like getting sweaty and feeling puffed, so when you start exercising after a long break, it can feel a little difficult and you may not feel very disciplined about your exercise sessions.

Your brain starts coming up with all of the excuses why you can’t exercise, and you may not be very consistent for a period as you fight with yourself.

This is where we think ‘discipline’ is required to do the exercise.

So the work of doing the exercise is potentially much less pleasant than it could be. So change and consistency probably take a long longer!

The interesting thing is that at a certain point you learn to love the exercise and you look forward to it every day. You have made a decision to do it, and you. are committed to it.

This happened for me with teeth flossing a few years back. I found it fascinating to think that I had struggled with so-called discipline for several weeks and then I got to enjoy the feeling of commitment. I had decided not to break my record of flossing daily and I was totally committed to that. I tapped into my competitive streak to get to this point.

And I thought to myself, why can’t we just get the decision and commitment up front?

If we could do that, then we wouldn’t need to keep going back to this idea of discipline.

The adoption of flossing as a lifelong commitment took me about 14 weeks. That’s quite long, and imagine if I’d been committed to it in week 2?

What might have gotten me committed earlier?

If I’d had a coach who had tapped into my competitive streak, that definitely would have helped. As it was, I didn’t realise and use that strength to help me until about week 10 of my flossing journey.

This is why I love health and wellness coaching so much, because it’s such a strong component of our work and we can help people get there faster.

Health and wellness coaches are trained in positive psychology and we do a lot at the front end of a coaching program with someone in helping them to tap into their whys, and develop that decision and commitment to a new habit that they’d like to form.

I think this is a golden opportunity to take some of the pain out of developing or upgrading habits, and to rather focus on why we want them and why we are committed to them.

Some people need a lot more work in this area than others.

For example, it was only after several coaching sessions examining all angles of a relationship with exercise, that my client was able to finally decide it was a not negotiable activity and that she was ready to commit to it.

But the fact that we had those conversations week after week about all of the things that were important to her, as a key part of her arriving at the place of commitment.

Once commitment is in place, once you have made the decision to do something no matter what and you are totally committed to it then it becomes easy. You don’t have to rely on the easily-fatigued muscle of willpower any more. 

You’re doing something because it is important to you and you want to do it, so the discomfort involved in doing the thing is minor compared to the sense of achievement and reward of doing it. 

There is one caveat on this conversation of discipline versus commitment. In some cases, you might think that you want to do a certain thing and it may actually take a journey of experimenting and trialling and testing to figure out that you don’t actually want to do that thing. So if you are in this situation, then perhaps it is more relevant for you to focus on experimenting rather than trying to gain commitment. 

On the other hand, if you are sure that you really want to commit to something and you have some very good reasons, then perhaps there is a language there for you to gain that commitment much easier so that habit is more enjoyable

I challenge you now to think of a habit you are trying to form, or be consistent with.

What could help you just decide to do it?

What could help you commit to it, no matter what?

Summary

Today we compared discipline with commitment.

We discussed the fact that discipline may have negative connotations for some people, and it may make a journey to form a new habit or be more consistent with a habit a little bit harder.

On the other hand, if you focus on the benefits, the strengths that you can use, and the reasons why you want to make the change right at the front of the journey of change, and the more likely to make a decision to continue and gain commitment to that habit so that it becomes much easier and more enjoyable to continue.

In any case, that commitment to the habit is where sustainability comes in.

Ready to get clarity on your pathway to success?

Understanding who you are and what you need will allow your business to thrive! If you’re truly ready to break old habits and get out of the rut I encourage you to check out the Habitology membership.

Learn more here:

Learn More
Posted on by

E#156 Overwork vs productivity

Listen Now

This episode is about overwork vs productivity

Today I’d like to talk about how overwork impacts your productivity and how to flip the switch so you can enjoy high productivity and balance.

What is overwork?

A lot of people have the belief that you must work hard to succeed. And while this is correct in many ways, I want to split the hair and separate working hard from overwork.

When you hear the phrase ‘working hard,’ what comes to mind? What does it mean to you?

Does it mean working to produce an outcome, or working long hours or to the point of exhaustion?

In this episode, I’ll talk about 
* What is overwork?
* What is productivity?
* What leads to overwork or productivity?

Our ability to work with balance starts by what we make things mean – in other words, the meaning we assign to words and phrases.

To me, working hard is staying focused on a task, giving it my sole attention and finishing it in the allocated time. I define working hard as focused work that has an outcome of positive, empowered productivity without burnout. It is punctuated by dates, boundaries around a finishing time, and working to a step by step plan mapped out in advance.

That means I define overwork as the opposite of that. 

To me, overwork means spending long hours on a task and driving yourself to do it, with insufficient breaks, and with diminishing returns. 

To me, a hallmark of overwork is long hours for diminishing returns. In other words it is inefficient and ineffective. We know that your productivity and focus declines after x minutes. So working longer usually means working softer, being less efficient and less productive.

Overwork doesn’t mean high quality, and it may not even mean high output. It often means the opposite – a low to moderate volume of low to moderate quality work.

Very few people who work long hours for long periods, are able to generate high quality work. Or if they do, it comes at an emotional cost.

What is productivity?

Productivity is the art of working in a focused way to produce tangible outcomes and results.

It is not about the number of hours you spend. It is about the quality of focus and results that you create.

Here are some hallmarks of productivity.

I think a big one is the fact that you feel good and like you have accomplished something.

Another hallmark of productivity is that you can see a tangible output. You’ve completed something. There is something to show for your efforts.

A simple way to sum this discussion up is that productivity is about quality, not quantity. Overwork tends to be more about quantity, not quality.

The problem with overwork

Overwork causes problems for both individuals and organisations.

At the individual level, overwork often leads to excessive stress. When someone becomes stressed, their behaviour changes. 

They are prone to become emotionally imbalanced and reactive towards other people and situations. They feel negative emotions more often, such as irrationality, frustration, irritation, resentfulness. They more likely take things personally, and more likely catastrophise or amplify problems. 

Thinking patterns of rumination and worry can result.

Since the human brain can’t multitask (yes, that’s a myth), it makes sense that with all of those things going on in your brain, you have very little space left for productive work.

Imagine the impact of this if you are running a solo business? It means that you’re left feeling flustered, lost and not getting anything done, and doubting yourself.

Now, imagine the impact of that person within a team or an organization?

If that overworking person is a manager (and I’ve worked with these) then their team ends up walking on eggshells to appease their boss and avoid getting sprayed. The team may feel pressured to also work long hours, may lose confidence in themselves. Everyone in the team feels stressed.

If that overworking person is an employee (and I’ve worked with these), they may feel entitled to more money, better conditions or elevated status. But remember that overwork usually means poor quality output, and possibly a low volume of it, so the person who overworks 

The overworking employee might become a prickly person who is hard to connect and interact with. Or they may become withdrawn or morose. None of these outcomes is favourable for team or client relationships.

What leads to overwork…or productivity?

Simply, it’s all about your values, beliefs, thinking patterns and expectations.

If you value hard work and believe that you must work hard and long hours to get an outcome and that it must be perfect, then you’re probably on the path to overwork and actually lower productivity due to burnout.

If you value tangible outcomes and efficient use of time without distraction, with a sense of balancing your energy on the journey to getting there, even accepting imperfect results, then I believe you’re more likely set up to be productive.

Resolving overwork

Since overwork is founded in beliefs and may be driven by workplace culture and policies, the answer to resolving it is two-pronged.

Firstly, businesses (even solo businesses) can create policies that set boundaries around working hours, and can introduce initiatives to help people better structure and plan their work. 

In other words, workplaces (and solo business owners) can change their work environment to make it more conducive to breaks, to manage expectations and to send a message about the importance of time off to rejuvenate.

We’re talking about a positive workplace culture.

But a lot of the resolution is in the hands of the individual.

So the second prong is supporting individuals to set boundaries around their work and personal lives, to review their own expectations of themselves, to challenge old thinking patterns, and to better manage urges.

Let’s use my old workplace as an example, in the 1990’s.

I managed a business where we had very clear boundaries around personal time off, and encouraged employees not to work on weekends. We allowed them  to take some of their sick leave as ‘well days’ if needed so that they could rejuvenate themselves. 

We were very progressive, and our CEO was big on creating a supporting culture that rewarded hard work and encouraged enough time to rest and recover.

This went against the grain in our industry, because many other firms like ours were requiring their salaried staff to work many hours of overtime to finish work that was over budget.

Our approach was to quote for jobs very accurately, to teach our staff tightly manage time budgets, and to ensure we have the right people for the right job so that they could work efficiently and effectively in their zones of genius, which is much more time efficient than trying to make somebody do a job that they’re not very good at.

So as a workplace, we created the environment and policies to support productivity, and we created a culture that upheld those same values.

That is the bit we could control. We also encouraged employees through our performance review system to work productively rather than excessively, and we engaged staff who fit this way of working.

Summary

As I mentioned earlier, simple way to sum this discussion up is that productivity is about quality, not quantity. Overwork tends to be more about quantity, not quality.

You may be driven to overwork or to be productive in a balanced way, depending on your work environment, your beliefs and your values.

If you’re in an organisation, the policies and structures can drive overwork or productivity.

If you’re a solo business owner, then it’s up to you to create this framework for yourself.

But as an individual, your values and beliefs may require examination to discover what drives you and if necessary, how to develop a more positive, self-sustaining perspective that promotes work life balance.

Ready to get clarity on your pathway to success?

Understanding who you are and what you need will allow your business to thrive! If you’re truly ready to break old habits and get out of the rut I encourage you to check out the Habitology membership.

Learn more here:

Learn More
Posted on by

E#153 Some Better What ifs

Listen Now

This episode is about some better what ifs

A lot of coaches that I help with in business get held up by fears and it shows up in the form of unhelpful what if thoughts. I used to be like this too. I used to think, what if I fail, what if people judge me, and all of these other sorts of limiting thoughts.

Today I want to show you what it sounds like when you problem solve and flip the what ifs, so that you can manage your fears, keep showing up each day, and find more calmness and enjoyment in running your business.

Problem Solving Unhelpful What Ifs

Unhelpful ‘what if’ thoughts happen when your brain latches onto your underlying fears and limiting beliefs. 

Unhelpful ‘what ifs’ are a problem because they often get amplified into terrible catastrophes. Please know that although painful and scary, these what ifs are just thinking habits that you can change just like any other unhelpful habit in your life.

In this episode, I’ll talk about 
* What are unhelpful what ifs in problem solving?
* What are better what ifs?
* How and when to do it?

Let’s look at how to do that now, firstly by problem solving those unhelpful what ifs.

First, I want you to notice how you feel when you hear these unhelpful what ifs. Just a few to get you thinking. 

What if I launch and there’s just crickets?

What if nobody buys?

What if I crumble and can’t answer the questions?

What if someone trolls me?

What if I’m no good at this?

What if I don’t like it?

You’ll notice I added some emphasis and intonation to make it sound just like that scaredy-cat voice in your head.

How do you feel right now, listening to these?

Do they help you take action, or block you?

I feel miserable and defeated if I think like this. And just to be clear, you can move into more positive statements which we will get to in a minute, but, it can be kind of interesting to answer those negative what if’s.

For example – what if you go to all this effort and you don’t like it?

If you were to problem solve this, there are a lot of options. One option is to go back to your old job. Another option, if your business has some traction, is to sell it. Another option is that it might lead you down another path toward something more meaningful, something that you can’t even conceive of right now because you haven’t persisted long enough.

Right now, think about how much weight the what if has after you’ve really analysed it?

Here’s another one – what if nobody buys?

Great question. What if nobody buys, what does that mean? Does it mean you suck? Probably not. It probably means the offer isn’t relevant or worded right, so you can go back to your audience and find out what they truly want, and how they would describe it, so you can get the copy right. Or maybe you need more exposure so enough people see the offer in the first place.  In any case, you can get help.

As you can see, writing down the what if’s that are buzzing around in your head gives you the chance to problem solve them and take away their power.

It’s an interesting exercise – give it a go!

This is one thing you can do to address the what ifs.

But your computer hard drive – your brain – may be still wired to generate what ifs.

So in that sense, you need to go back and rewrite the code.

This is where reframing or flipping comes in.

I want to give you an experience of what’s possible when you reframe these inner statements and create some better what if’s.

Better what ifs

As you listen to these, notice what happens in your body and mind.

What if Instagram was a place you could have fun and connect with people?

What if LinkedIn was a place to build professional contacts and find aligned clients and colleagues?

What if professional photos were a way to highlight your strengths, best bits, and personality so you could attract more clients more easily?

What if email campaigns were a way to find people that you love to be around, connect with, and help to achieve significant transformations and goals?

What if people in your niche felt intimidated by perfection, and much preferred you to be only three or four steps ahead of them?

What if writing was a hidden strength that you could harness and grow to build your business?

What if you could hire an online business manager to organise everything that you need to do online regularly, so that you could just relax and stop sweating the small stuff?

What if you only needed to work five hours a day to build your business, sleep soundly at night?

What if people desperately needed and wanted the service that you want to sell and were so thankful and relieved when you launched your business?

What if you don’t know what your business is about, but you were willing to keep going because he knew you would figure it out eventually?

What if you didn’t have to try and please everybody, and you only needed to work with people that you were really excited to be around and had exceptional rapport with?

What if all you had to do was be really good at one thing and do that one thing consistently?

Reflect on those for a moment. How do you feel?

How different is that to the first set of unhelpful what ifs?

As you can hopefully see, it’s your brain that is your undoing. The work is to create a habit of problem solving and reframing those unhelpful what ifs so you can persist and learn to love your business, despite the unknowns.

How and when to do it

So, how often should you do this work?

I would recommend daily at first, so you can develop a regular habit of getting stuff out of your head rather than ruminating on it.

Make it easy – choose one What If that has come up that day, and then problem solve it, and reframe it.

Over time, you might reduce this to a few times per week – but I’d suggest you start more frequently and maintain that for a while as it takes persistence to break an unhelpful habit.

Summary

Today we looked at what ifs that come up and sabotage your efforts on building your business.

The key is to get the what ifs (monsters) out of your head, and into the real world, where you can problem solve them, and reframe them.

Hopefully you felt the effects of hearing unhelpful what ifs, and better what ifs.

Now, you have a choice. Do nothing, or start rewriting your mental code.

Ultimately, your work is to develop a daily or weekly practice that will help you break an unhelpful thinking habit.

Ready to get clarity on your pathway to success?

Understanding who you are and what you need will allow your business to thrive! If you’re truly ready to break old habits and get out of the rut I encourage you to check out the Habitology membership.

Learn more here:

Learn More
Posted on by

E#151 Commitment, Failure, Success

Listen Now

This episode is about commitment, failure, success

I love AFL football. And watching my team play the other day, it became clear to me how football is just like business. Today I want to use football as an analogy for committing to your business no matter what and getting through the failures so that you can succeed.

Commitment 

Commitment to your business is like commitment to your football team.

I have followed the same football team since I was 14 years old and that’s a long time ago. I’ve been with that team through the celebrations, through the hard times, through the controversy, and I’m still here supporting that team.

In this episode, I’ll talk about 
* What is business self care?
* How developing weekly habits and monthly reviews can help your business
* How a support/check-in process can help your business

And there are two parts to this that are relevant to business. 

Firstly, your commitment to your business could be seen, generally, as your commitment to a particular sport. You love that sport and follow it like a true fan.

More specifically, you might follow a particular member of that sport. At some point, you might shift your focus to a different player that you like better, or that has more aligned values with you.

This is a bit like you changing your business model, or even changing your niche.

You’re still committed to that sport, but you’re just saying things a bit differently and doing things a bit differently.

Imagine for a moment that you could bring the same commitment to your business, that you bring to your favourite sport?

How would that change your attitude each day?

How would that change the action that you take?

What would happen if you were 100% committed to your business, determined to persist, and you did that over a period of years?

What would happen then?

Failure

If you’re any kind of sport fan, then you know that every team has failure. There is failure on a weekly level, on an individual level, at a team level, and even add a season level.

No team ever, and no individual sports person ever, is always at the top of the ladder all the time.

If you enter a sport or a business or anything knowing that there’s going to be failure along the way and committing to it anyway, what do you think would happen?

One of the things that would happen is that you would be training for that sport no matter what and expecting to win, but being prepared to fail and knowing what to do when that happened.

You don’t see teams and footballers and sports people throwing their hands up in the air, giving up, falling in a heap.

They are committed to the process of training and being their best and skills development no matter what their win or lose count.

If they lose a game, they watch a recording of it to learn what they did well, could have done more of, and what the mistakes were so that they can correct them.

They know that if they keep doing the work, and the training, and the preparation, and keep focusing on what it takes to win, and learning from failure, they will get there.

A friend of mine is a huge Richmond supporter in the AFL, and he has followed Richmond even when they failed miserably for many years.

But more recently he has had his comeuppance, because Richmond has become a very good team and they won premierships in the last few years.

Failure is easier when you accept that it will happen, learn from it, and also rally support around you to get through it.

Sports teams and individual sports people have fans who relentlessly support their team no matter what.

In your business, and in your life, you also need to have that cheer squad, and that support team who will help you to keep on doing the work and showing up and delivering every day so that you can achieve the success that you define for yourself.

If you’re committed to a process, embrace failure and build a support network and fan base you are well positioned to wear the hard times and celebrate the good.

Success

If you commit to your business or your football team and you roll with the punches in the hard times, then success will inevitably come as a result of continual action.

Success is not just an end result though. Success is also an opportunity to refine your message, do more of what you love, and create a singular focus to become a specialist.

To learn what your zone of genius is, your most lucrative service is, and what you do best.

This happens in football, too.

Recently, while watching the footy, a commentator made an insightful comment: in an average team, it’s all hands on deck. In a good team, every player sticks to playing their best in their specific role.

To reiterate – success is more than an end game – it’s a chance to refine, streamline, focus and excel.

Summary

There are many analogies for creating success in daily life.

Today I explained how the AFL could be a metaphor for commitment, managing failure and leveraging success in your business.

I invite you to reflect on the parallels and see what insights you gain.

Ready to get clarity on your pathway to success?

Understanding who you are and what you need will allow your business to thrive! If you’re truly ready to break old habits and get out of the rut I encourage you to check out the Habitology membership.

Learn more here:

Learn More
Posted on by

E#148 Identifying high chemistry clients

Listen Now

This episode is about identifying high chemistry clients

High chemistry clients are the people that you have a natural resonance with. They are the people that you look forward to seeing and find pleasure in being around. 

The saying goes that you are the average of the five people closest to you. So if you want to have enjoyable work with great people, then seek high chemistry clients and your whole life will change.

Let’s look at their traits, how to identify them and how to find more of them!

In this episode, I’ll talk about 
* Identify high chemistry clients
* Know the traits of a high chemistry clients
* Where to find your high chemistry clients

Traits of high chemistry clients

They have the same journey or history as you. 

When they tell you their story you hear that you have experienced it all – or worked with many clients like that.

They have similar values as you. Maybe it’s health, family, community, giving, or not taking any BS!

My top values are honesty, fairness and justice. So when I hear people talking about what’s fair, or being very honest about something, or if they are helping people or championing the cause, then I know that they’re my people.

I think this is the clearest trait of high chemistry clients, because values influence thinking patterns, feelings and behaviours so this sets the scene for the other things that will help you identify high chemistry clients.

They are at a similar age and life stage. Perhaps they’re a mum of young kids like you, or going through menopause, or are juggling career promotions and social activities, or need to get off the couch and back into running.

They are you, five years ago. You’re a few steps ahead in the journey. Maybe you’ve lost the weight, run the race, beat the demons or are better at mastering your monkey mind, or you’re motivated, inspired and able to talk yourself down from drama. So, they want to be like you.

They have similar fears, worries and obstacles as you. When you hear them discuss the fear they had about taking that first step, or the same limiting beliefs you get, or the schedule clashes you had to navigate, it resonates.

They think the same way as you. Maybe they also think kids should do chores for pocket money, that Labradors are cool, or that outdoor exercise is way better than indoor. 

Start listening for the signposts in your coaching conversations with your favourite clients.

Last week, I heard one of my clients saying that she likes to write down her goals and tick them off with a pen because she can see them and acknowledge them more clearly. She likes the sense of achieving things and it motivates her. 

She said that starting is hard, but once she’s started she is ok – she gets momentum. All the same for me. I know she is my high chemistry client. 

Identifying high chemistry clients

You know when you’re looking forward to something and you get that tingly feeling of anticipation, and butterflies in your stomach?

That’s a similar kind of feeling that comes up when you are with high chemistry clients.

You have almost instant resonance with high chemistry clients, like you are long lost family members or have known each other for 100 years.

I know that if a client is coming for a session with me and I’m excited to see them, I feel a sense of admiration for them, and we have a really good, deep conversation with a lot of resonance, then I’m with a high chemistry client.

The conversation flows easily, and we go deeper quickly, and there is a real sense of honesty and openness.

In contrast, if the conversation feels clunky, awkward, or stilted in any way, then I’m probably not with a high chemistry client.

Or if I leave the session wondering if I actually helped them, they’re not a high chemistry client for me (caveat – if you are inexperienced, you may feel this way all the time, so this doesn’t count!)

Finally, if I feel irritated, deflated or de-energized before or after a session with someone, then it’s likely they are not my people either.

The great thing is that when you learn to identify that feeling you get inside, it can help you to quickly screen your leads and decide if they’re in or out, based on how you feel in that initial enquiry or sales call. 

And in that case, it’s your chance to thank them politely and offer to refer them on, because you don’t feel like you’re the right person for them. 

Finding more high chemistry clients

Client referrals

The great thing about working with high chemistry clients is that they might refer their friends to you. And remember, they are the average of the five people closest to them, so it means that they will probably refer more high chemistry clients to you.

Best of all, high chemistry clients LOVE you and rave about you, so they will easily tell all their friends how wonderful you are and you will have a steady stream of leads.

I know a coach who had excellent resonance with a client, and subsequently that client referred her mother, sister, cousins and aunt to the coach for the same service. How good is that?

Friend referrals

Another way to find more high chemistry clients is to have your own friends, family and inner circle refer people to you. After all, they know you well, so they are equipped to do a good job of match-making you with someone who would be a good fit.

This is why family and friends are a great place to start practice coaching (so they experience your service) but also, you can equip them with a short statement to describe what you do (specifically) and how you help people. 

I’m talking about a simple message to share with people about how you help others. This is not necessarily your elevator pitch, it’s a much simpler statement that describes the type of person you work with.

This happened to me earlier this year. A friend referred someone to me because she could see the fit with me and how I work. She told her contact that I helped people with developing healthy habits and that I could work with her alongside her other health practitioners.

We met for an initial conversation for an hour, and went from there. As it turns out, we have a LOT in common and have a great connection in the sessions.

Preferred Locations

So many coaches ask me – where do I find my ideal clients?

This is actually a no-brainer – they generally hang out in the same sorts of places as you do.

For example, I don’t like social media much and prefer networking and referral in live conversation to meet people. I’ve never tried to find clients on social media. 

My ideal clients are the same. They tend to come to me via one of three ways;

  1. People I know refer them, 
  2. They listen to my podcast or YouTube channel and sign up for something,
  3. I meet them through my work partnerships and buy after they’ve gotten to know me.

I’ve met and engaged high chemistry clients through social engagements after conversations about a shared love of football, similar work backgrounds, or a love of nature.

You can meet high chemistry clients anywhere. You just have to have your radar up and start looking out for them, from the supermarket to the dentist’s waiting room, to the next charity event or party you go to. 

Screening to Make Sure

Even if they seem right at that initial meeting or contact, I always have a formal good fit call or chat to make sure the prospective client is someone I can give value to.

It sets the scene for a professional relationship and it provides certainty that you ARE actually a good fit.

As I mentioned earlier, your good fit call gives you the chance to hear them using the same sort of language as you or your typical client, a similar background or stage of life, and definitely the same sorts of whys. 

For example, my high chemistry client has a professional background, often in science or law. She doesn’t usually have kids or if she does, they’ve grown up. She’s driven by truth, fairness and achievement and has a career focus. She wants to have an impact in the world and is sensitive, sometimes fearful or lacking self confidence. She loves nature, data and getting to the bottom of things. She’s hopeful, optimistic, innovative and tenacious.

So when I hear those things coming up in that first conversation, I know I can truly connect with and add value to that person.

Summary

Today I discussed the traits of high chemistry clients, how to identify them and how to find more of them!

There are the things that they say that resonate, but also, there is that underlying ‘feeling’ you get that they are on the same wavelength, and someone you feel totally at ease and comfortable with.

Once you start working with high chemistry clients, they will refer more of the same to you!

You can also equip your friends and networks with some information to help their high chemistry contacts to connect with you more easily.

Ready to get clarity on your pathway to success?

Understanding who you are and what you need will allow your business to thrive! If you’re truly ready to break old habits and get out of the rut I encourage you to check out the Habitology membership.

Learn more here:

Learn More
Posted on by

E#147 Being Prepared (Getting Ready)

Listen Now

This episode is about being prepared (getting ready)

If you are thinking about embarking on a big journey or a big change like starting a business, losing 10 – 20kg, training for a marathon or having a family, or changing careers, then you’re probably thinking that you need to be prepared or organised before you can start.

It’s great to be prepared because it can help you to feel confident, but on the flipside, trying to be too prepared means you may never feel ready to take a step.

As somebody who totally knows this from lived experience, I want to invite you to think about what being prepared creates for you, and how to do it in a way that doesn’t sabotage your success.

In this episode, I’ll talk about 
* The meaning of getting prepared
* When to know you are ready
* What and who can help you

What does getting prepared actually mean?

A lot of people talk about needing to be fully prepared before they launch their business, or to be totally ready before they take action in some area of their life. But what does getting prepared actually mean? It’s like the ubiquitous “I need to get organised” statement that people say. 

When I question my clients on this, they’re often not very clear on what it means to get prepared. They’re often not really sure about what getting organised means or when enough is enough. So I invite you to think about that right now, and to get some clarity around the specific things that you must do to be prepared enough to take action in some area.

I can give you a few ideas to get you started.

In business, getting prepared means you have done enough market research to define a viable niche. 

Logistically you need to have a business number set up, a separate bank account, a LinkedIn profile set up, and to have clarity on a core service you will sell and the benefits of that service.

You need to know what you’re charging and how you will collect money.

You need documentation to run that service, and you need a marketing plan to start reaching customers and building your professional networks.

If you have those things then you are prepared.

Even though that’s a business example, you can follow the same process for life.

For example let’s say you’ve been studying something and you need to know whether you are prepared enough and ready to sit the exam.

So in this case, you might have read the text book a couple of times, you might have answered the study questions, you might have done some practice practical sessions, and you have reached a point where you sense you know the answers when you hear or read certain questions being asked.

On paper, for both of these examples, it looks like you’re organised and prepared.

But when will you be ‘ready’?

So here’s the other half of the equation. Logistically you’ve ticked all the boxes, but do you feel ‘ready’ to take action, in terms of your confidence, your motivation and your energy?

Being prepared is one thing,  but feeling ready is another.

 If you have ticked all of the logistical boxes but you’re not feeling very confident or sure about your next steps or whether they will be successful, then there is some mindset work that you might need to do and some limiting beliefs that you need to overcome before you can actually start taking action.

I see this a lot in students studying health and wellness coaching, but also people who’ve made any sort of change in their lives.

I’ve seen people lose weight in an 8 or 12 week program, and then not feel ready to make lasting behaviour change and wanting to go back to their old ways.

I have seen people get study completed and get everything ready to set up a business, and then back away from it because they lack the confidence in themselves or their knowledge of this skill to start the ball rolling.

Any sort of change into a new direction requires you to change your identity. This isn’t an overnight thing. 

The first critical step to changing your identity is developing the belief that you can become a different sort of person.

This is a hard step, but a very important one. This belief in your ability to become successful is required to find the motivation to get started and to persist, even when things are hard.

You need to draw deep on your strengths and get support, and to create the environment of success to persist and succeed no matter what.

If you’re a long time listener of my podcast, you might recall me telling the story of my motorbike trip across Australia. A key point in that story  is that everybody I told about the coming trip either laughed at me or told me I was an idiot. Nobody was backing me to do that trip. My boyfriend at the time thought I could do it, my two sisters were neutral and said please be careful, but everybody else tried to talk me out of it and told me that I couldn’t do it. Luckily I had enough self-belief that I could ride a motorbike through all sorts of terrain that I had never experienced and get to the other side and return unscathed.

You can see how easy it could have been in that situation to let myself be talked out of the trip. I was terrified about it, having never ridden a motorbike before in my life and only having just got my licence.

But while I was vulnerable to the opinion of all the ’nay-sayers’ around me,  I was still able to imagine myself persisting through the difficult times, using the support of my boyfriend at the time and my mental strengths and skills, and a physical strength program I’d developed and used to get me to the other side.

While this was a physically- and mentally-demanding trip for me with a risk of injury or accident, many of the things that we are terrified doing in life are actually not life-or-death situations.

In many cases, the consequences of failure are a lot less than what we make them out to be.

I had a business coaching client once who booked a coaching session with me but could not take any action until she had spoken to her supervisor at work about her plans to build a business in the background. She couldn’t even bring herself to do market research!

I had a weight loss client who wouldn’t start making any progress into her journey until after her one-week holiday overseas, which was 6 weeks away.

So to answer the question, when will you be ready, I suspect it’s more to do with making a decision, waiting for something to occur, picking a start date, and finding the courage and support you need to take action and get traction with your new venture – whatever it is.

What and who will help you?

In my example of the motorbike trip, I mentioned that I was relying on the support of my boyfriend at the time, my own strengths, and my own physical and mental preparation. 

The question is for you now, what and who will help you on your journey?

What are the character strengths that you have to that will help you through the difficult parts  more easily?

What are the strengths and skills you bring to the project that will ensure your success or at least give you confidence in some areas?

What sort of mental and/or physical preparation will you need to do?

Who are the people you need to rally around you and help you to stay motivated, to brainstorm ideas, to download to, and troubleshoot problems as they come up?

I’ve never heard of any great success being achieved by one person completely on their own. If you know of one, please let me know because I would be very interested to hear that story.

What is your platform for action?

Let’s bring these elements together for a moment and talk about your platform for action. 

Whatever your project is, whatever the thing is that you wish to do, there are going to be some logistical aspects you need to complete to be prepared.

What are those things?  Write a list.

Now, there are going to be some mental or self confidence aspects you need to work on before you feel ready to start.

What is the decision you need to make?

What do you need to commit to?

What do you need to believe in advance?

Why is that important to you?

Finally, there are the strengths and supports you need to put in place as your backstop to help you be consistent and persistent.

What are those strengths?

How will you draw on them?

Who are the people who will help you?

How will they help you?

I encourage you to put these things into a plan with specific activities scheduled into your calendar.

When you have all of your ducks in a row, you will finally be prepared and feel ready to take action and get traction.

Summary

Today, we’ve really dug into the idea of ‘getting prepared’ but behind that, ‘being ready’ to take action.

Whether it’s your business or your life, you certainly need to tick a few boxes but you also need to manage your thoughts, get support and make some commitment to when and how you will take your first steps.

A lot of people give up before they even start, even though the consequences are often not exactly life or death.

The worst that can happen to you is an emotion.

If you can just do enough to get started, then it might free you up to work and live on purpose and do what you were meant to be doing in the world.

I invite you to reach out if you need support for this – it’s exactly the work we do in the Passion to Profit Program.

Ready to get clarity on your pathway to success?

Understanding who you are and what you need will allow your business to thrive! If you’re truly ready to break old habits and get out of the rut I encourage you to check out the Habitology membership.

Learn more here:

Learn More
Posted on by

E#145 Overcoming Purpose Blocks

Listen Now

This episode is about overcoming purpose blocks

A lot of people say that they want to find their purpose. They start the journey but end up getting stuck. Why is that? What do we actually need to do to find purpose? 

Today I want to talk about some blocks that a lot of people face. They might be blocks that are stopping YOU from finding your purpose. I’m going to talk to you about how to work through them so you can finally find your purpose.

In this episode, I’ll talk about 
* Finding your locus of control
* Pleasing yourself and not other people
* Finding yourself

What Is Your Locus of Control?

If you are struggling to find or define your purpose, check your locus of control. 

Your locus of control is the degree to which you believe that you have control over your life, as opposed to external forces that are beyond your influence. 

Conceptually, this ‘locus’ is either internal – a belief that you can control your own life, or external – a belief that your life is controlled by outside factors which you can’t influence – that things are all down to fate or chance.

If your locus of control is largely external, you tend to think things like:

“It’s too hard to succeed.”

“The market is saturated, I can’t stand out.”

If your locus of control is more internal, you tend to think things like:

“I can learn how to become successful.”

“I can learn how to become attractive to others.”

Notice the difference in the language – internal control is signified by sentences that begin with the letter “I”!!

If your locus of control is largely external, then you have probably always left your purpose to chance or fate, or blocked yourself from considering the notion that you could succeed on your own terms.

Consequently, you may not have given much thought to what your purpose could be – perhaps your focus has always been on what it couldn’t be.

According to Psychology Today, researchers found that of more than 7,500 British adults who were followed since birth, those who had shown an internal locus of control at the age of ten were less likely to be overweight at age thirty, less likely to describe their health as poor, or show high levels of psychological stress. The major explanation for these findings was that children with a more internal locus of control behave more healthily as adults because they have greater confidence in their ability to influence outcomes through their own actions. They may also have higher self-esteem.

What could this mean for finding your purpose?

There is something you can do right now. You can start watching your thoughts and changing the language to what you can do, rather than what’s stopping you.

This takes daily work but is worth it!

It’s going to take a few months, but over time, changing this dialogue will make so much difference to the way you see the world, and possibilities will start to show themselves because you have shifted your focus.

Try it and see for yourself.

Create a dedicated practice of intentionally pursuing your future and letting go of the internal dialogue that it’s out of your control.

Notice what changes when you do this.

Hire a coach to help you with this if you need to. This is a long game and it is life changing but you might need some support along the way.

Are You a People Pleaser?

People I’ve coached who like to put others first often have very little idea of who they are and what they stand for, and consequently what they want.

If you’ve spent many years trying to fit in, trying to please other people, wanting to be liked, then please know that those things are more outward focused. 

And if you are trying to find your purpose, it can be pretty difficult if all you have ever done is worry about other people and what interests them and what they value.

Knowing that this can be a block to finding your purpose is a great thing, because it frees you up to finally start paying attention to what’s important to you, and to what you value, so that you can finally find your purpose.

Putting others first often means being busy all the time, not sitting still to be mindful and present, and both are great ways of avoiding getting to know and understand yourself.

The first step – Finding yourself

Before you can identify your purpose, you need to go on the journey of finding yourself. 

This is a scary but very interesting and rewarding journey . It is an enriching journey where you get to learn what you like and don’t like, what you do and don’t want, and what’s important to you and what you value.

You will invariably feel some discomfort as you start to realise that there are people and things in your life that no longer serve you.

There will be some pushback from people who don’t like the new you, or who are affronted by the fact that you won’t be so focused on them and their needs anymore.

That’s ok.

Be prepared.

If you want to find your purpose, you need to clear away everything that doesn’t serve you in order to find what does. 

You need to create the space and stop being busy and stop attending to everybody else’s needs so that you can focus on what it is that you want for your life.

Then, you can truly start to find your purpose!

Summary

If you’re stuck finding your purpose and don’t know why, or how to move forward, I invite you to consider some things that might be getting in the way:

  1. Shifting your locus of control to a more internal and empowering state
  2. Pleasing others less and yourself more (get a good balance!)
  3. Start working out what you do and don’t like – who you really are

If you would like help with finding yourself, I’ll be developing a short course on this later in the year. Hit me up on my contact page if you’d like to be notified of the release.

Ready to get clarity on your pathway to success?

Understanding who you are and what you need will allow your business to thrive! If you’re truly ready to break old habits and get out of the rut I encourage you to check out the Habitology membership.

Learn more here:

Learn More
Posted on by — Leave a comment

E#136 Have to, Need to, Want to

Listen Now

This episode I would like to invite you to think about the language of success.

I want to ask you to reflect on your commitment to yourself, and how you speak to yourself and whether it’s really giving you the happiness and the sense of purpose that you want. I’ve come up with a concept that I’m going to call language feeling. What I mean is that when you use certain words, they make you feel a certain way and this is going to affect your experience, things, situations in life.

Notice the language that you use on a day to day basis, and think about how it serves you and decide how you like it to be going forward. I want to talk to you about ‘I have to’, ‘I need to’, and ‘I want to’, more specifically and it was so interesting because I had the idea for this podcast a week ago. I saw a product client who was using this exact language and it was so funny because it felt like I had the concept in my mind. And then I started to see it everywhere.

In this episode, I’ll talk about – 
* The connection between your words and your emotions
* Pressure and the language we use
* Where to focus your attention to feel good about the ‘have to’ things 

That’s how your brain works, right?

Your reticular activating system is at play here, what you plug into that creates a filter so that you start seeing those things around you. This led to a fruitful discussion and allowed me to come up with this episode and I want to start with the concept of ‘I have to’ how do you feel when you say ‘I have to do this’, or ‘I have to do that’. When I say ‘I have to’ I feel a huge sense of responsibility, I feel like I have no way out except to do the task at hand.

So if I say I have to do something, it means it’s not negotiable. Do you feel like that too? If you think about it, this could be helpful or unhelpful. If you say, I have to do something for a specific reason, then it could be like meeting a deadline or getting paid or something like that, then maybe there’s a motivation and a drive to do that thing so that you can achieve that outcome. But on the other hand, if you are saying I have to all of the time about everything that you do, then maybe what you’re doing is actually conferring a lot of responsibility, and maybe a bit of drama and pressure that you don’t necessarily need.

That’s not helpful.

I’m going to invite you to think about that language and how often you say I have to, is that something you say all the time? How does it make you feel when you say I have to? How does it affect your energy levels, your stress levels and your ability to switch off and take care of yourself? Or are you driving yourself to do things because you feel like you have to I would speculate that the more you have to have in your life, the more pressure you had in your life pressure to perform and pressure to complete. And I bet that could leave you feeling overwhelmed or unable to sleep or putting aside your own needs at certain times to get things done.

Keep your eyes peeled for this one and have a think about how you respond when you start saying I have to. Notice yourself over this week and see what happens. Here’s an example. Maybe you’re saying I have to exercise or I have to do my social media posting for my business. Notice how much of a burden that is when you use this language? Maybe you feel there’s no way out. And it’s something that you don’t really want to do.

Is this how you want to feel?

Think about I have to. But now let’s talk about ‘I need to’ how do you feel when you say those words, I need to do something? What does that bring up for you? Is there a sense of urgency? Is there a sense of desire? Notice how it’s different from ‘I have to’. ‘I have to’ sounds like you must do it. But you don’t necessarily want to or maybe you’re not looking forward to it or you feel a sense of tension around it. Whereas ‘I need to’ has more desire and a sense of urgency. I think, in my opinion, if you say ‘I need to’ it could mean that something’s really important to you. And in certain cases, that could be a good thing, right? I reckon though if you say ‘I need to’ too often, then it might mean that you’re living with a sense of urgency all the time, or heightened importance about things that may not necessarily matter too much.

It could be a different kind of pressure that you’re applying to yourself if you’re saying ‘I need to’ all the time that is and so then the question really is what is it that you truly need to do and why is the need there? Is it your need? Or is it somebody else’s need, whose need is being met? 

 Listen to the entire podcast to learn more.

Ready to get clarity on your pathway to success?

Understanding who you are and what you need will allow your business to thrive! If you’re truly ready to break old habits and get out of the rut I encourage you to check out the Habitology membership.

Learn more here:

Learn More
Posted on by

E#137 Should You Start a Business?

Listen Now

This episode is about whether you should start a business, or not

As a coach trainer and strengths-based business specialist, I see a lot of people who are lacking meaning and purpose in their lives and wanting to do something different. They’re bored, unfulfilled, and wishing that they could get out of their current situation and into something more exciting and meaningful.

If this sounds like you, then you need to keep listening because I want to talk to you about whether or not you should start a business. I want to talk about the specific types of people who are more likely to succeed, and those that aren’t. 

I want to help you get a realistic view of what is required to be successful in business so you are equipped to make good decisions about your future. 

In this episode, I’ll talk about 
* Idealism vs realism – Separating the dreamers for the doers
* Having a genuine desire to help people
* The search for more purposeful work

Idealism vs realism

I see a lot of people join my Passion to Profit program because they have realised they want to do something more meaningful that truly makes a difference.

Some of these people are idealists – they have a big dream, but lack the drive or commitment to pursue it, or their idea lacks enough substance to be viable.

But there are some people who have a very realistic vision but might just be scared that they won’t be able to make it, or that they don’t know how to run a business and they might fail. In other words, they’re just lacking confidence and clarity on how to turn their business vision into a reality. 

If this is you, I really want to speak to that and equip you with some information to help you get clarity in whether you should start a business – and perhaps more specifically – whether you’re ready and how to become ready.

Right off the bat, I want to say that anybody absolutely anybody can be successful in business.

The caveat on that is that you need to be prepared to do the work required on yourself and your idea, if you want to be successful.

Sure, you might have learned a new skill or gained a qualification and you will need to be proficient in that, but that aside, you will also need to commit to becoming uncomfortable, putting yourself out there, and learning the skills required to run a business – not just a hobby!

Knowing there is hard work ahead, I want to map out three things that are required for success in business, and that you would need to develop in order to be successful for yourself.

As I talk about these three things, I invite you to reflect on how strong these skills and strengths are in you, and what you would need to do to build on these before launching into your business.

Helping others

To be successful in business, and particularly a relationship business like health and wellness coaching, you need to have a really strong desire to help other people.

Over time you will need to become more specific about who you help and how you help them to be very clear in your marketing, but in the beginning, it’s your passion and drive to help and serve others that really makes you a suitable candidate for running a business.

If you don’t like people, if you aren’t interested in people, or if you just want to make money, then you are unlikely to succeed. The reason is that you are not going to be able to express the empathy and make the connections you need to connect, empathise with and truly serve people.

A really great example of this is what happened during the Covid pandemic in 2020. A lot of businesses went under during this time. 

But the ones that survived went over and above to serve people in the community who were doing it tough. Those businesses that donated food or gave people work experience opportunities, or who contributed in other ways to people in their local areas, built loyal customers by simply demonstrating their core values around the desire to serve.

One of the most interesting aspects of finding the courage to make change is that it’s a lot easier when you have a big driver, when you are attached to something that is way bigger than yourself puts you way ahead of the pack in terms of commitment, persistence and motivation – and attractiveness to your audience!

So if your desire to help people and to be of service is so great that you’d be willing to do anything to achieve that outcome, then that drive alone means you’re more likely to succeed. You’ll keep going, there will be fewer ‘mindset’ obstacles and you will leap over the obstacles more easily.

In summary, if your desire to be of service and help others is great, then starting a business is an option worth looking at.

More purposeful work

The next step is about purpose. It’s great to want to help people, but you can still be aimless and unclear in that, or not driven to start a business. 

But if you are actively seeking more purposeful work, then running your own business might be a viable option.

This was me 15 years ago. I had already created a couple of successful businesses, but I was feeling disheartened with the industry I was working in. Through building a successful business, I had the opportunity to change legislation and change the way some aspects of that industry operate it. 

But I wanted a new challenge, and I wanted to impact individuals to improve their quality of life. 

This led me into health and wellness coaching, because physical, mental, and emotional health and fitness were way more important to me at that stage of my life.

My desire to find this meaning in my work was so great, that I set up and built a successful business and went on to teach others how to do the same.

In my own words, staying in a comfortable safe but unfulfilling role would have been living in mediocrity for me. I didn’t want to live a mediocre life, knowing that I had the potential to impact the lives of so many others.

Does that sound familiar to you?

Fast forward 14 years, and I can truly say that I look forward to getting up every morning, excited to go to work, and excited to make a difference in people’s lives.

After many years of unfulfilling work, I finally found my calling, and 14 years in, I am still as excited about it if not more so than my first day.

In summary, it’s great if you love helping people, but if you want to do that in a bigger way, beyond your everyday life to do more purposeful work – then running a business might be a good option.

Being your own boss

Sure you can work for someone else in a job and there is safety in that. And some people are frightened of doing anything without the permission or validation of other people, so they prefer to stay in a job. 

But please know that these fears can be overcome, and I would suggest that if you have a strong desire to be your own boss and carve your own path in life, then it’s worth tackling those fears, because your chance of success in business is excellent.

When I entered the workforce I was shy, quiet and didn’t want to speak up for myself. But I was just a number in a big machine, having no tangible impact. 

Plus, I had lots of ideas about how to improve systems and processes, ways of communicating and ways of improving businesses I worked for.

Over a period of time, I became a frustrated employee. Sure I liked my bosses, but I could see ways of improving things that nobody else could.

 

I took a hospitality job with a 5 star hotel for a year between my degree and Honours. On my first day in the job in 1992, I waitressed at an outdoor function and saw huge containers of untouched fresh food going into the bin. I wrote a letter to the manager and said ‘Hey, can’t we do something about this food waste?  Couldn’t a charity collect and distribute it?’

A few days later I got a letter basically saying, ‘Thanks, great idea, but it’s too hard with current food safety laws.’

Now 30 years later we have Food Bank, and other such organisations. Imagine if I’d had the courage to take action all those years ago?

This is one of many examples where I was a frustrated employee. Ultimately, I realised that I needed to be my own boss, so I could innovate, improve and create to my heart’s content, to make a difference in the world.

Being your own boss has a lot of benefits. It means that you can work the hours that suit you best, it means you can decide how much income you want it in, and it means that you can work in a way that suits you, your learning style, and your strengths.

Compare that with a job, where you have to show up and work the hours that a company dictates, you have to have a set salary and package, and you might have to do things that you disagree with or in a way that doesn’t suit you or your strengths, or where your ideas for improvement don’t fit in. Mostly when you show up for a job, there is a set job description that you have to fit into.

I have always hired on personality and personal strengths, with qualifications and experience being secondary. 

That’s because while qualifications and experience were definitely important, it’s the people that make a business and which attract all the clients! 

My question to you is – are you satisfied with being an employee? Is having a job comfortable, safe and familiar and satisfying?

If so, then you should definitely stay in that role. 

But if you feel hungry for more, or you’re a frustrated employee who wants to make an impact, to be in charge of your own schedule and your own earning potential, to be in charge of the scale of impact that you can have, then you’re probably more suited to running a business.

Being in business for myself has been challenging, but it has made me who I am today. I have gone from being a shy person who never spoke up, to a more confident and fulfilled person who lives and works on purpose. The challenges, skills and lessons along the way have helped me to grow personally and professionally. I like the new me MUCH Better! 

I’m more resilient, and I have more capacity to make a difference in the world because I took the leap into running my own business.

Running your own business is one of the best adventures you can possibly have in life.

SUMMARY

I invite you to reflect on how much you love your job and how many boxes it ticks for you. Is it satisfying, meaningful, purposeful and fulfilling? Does it help you grow personally and professionally? Does it help you to play to your strengths?

If not, if you are a frustrated employee, you might want to consider starting a coaching or other service-based business.

This is a great avenue for you if you are driven to help people, you are looking to live a more purposeful life, and you want to learn how to be your own boss.

It is difficult but also such an amazing journey of growth, and an exciting opportunity to create personal freedom and choice and to have a greater impact in the world.

Ready to get clarity on your pathway to success?

Understanding who you are and what you need will allow your business to thrive! If you’re truly ready to break old habits and get out of the rut I encourage you to check out the Habitology membership.

Learn more here:

Learn More