Two weeks ago, I had a GREAT week! I have no doubt that it was because I had a plan in place BEFORE the week started.

Last week was not as successful and I have no doubt that it was because I DIDN’T have a plan in place. 🤦🏻‍♀️

So, I’m going to make this coming week a great one and I’m sharing my workout plan in case you want to join me. Comment below if you are in. 🙋🏻

If you haven’t tried Beachbody OnDemand, click here for more info or to sign up for a FREE 14 Day Trial!

Which mindset do you have when it comes to your business – Abundance or Scarcity?

 

While I HATE to admit it, looking back, I started out my small business years ago with a scarcity mindset. I was so fearful that I was going to miss out on sales because people would choose a different coach or a different product over working with me.

 

The trouble with this mindset is that I was focused on me and not helping others reach their goals, whether they became customers or not.  

 

When our businesses are focused on what they can do for us, they are VERY likely to fail.  But with a simple mindset shift from serving ourselves to serving others, we open up a much more positive, much more encouraging mindset.  We focus on the good of others and our businesses grow as a result of genuinely desiring the best for others and that they would reach their goals regardless of how they get there.

 

Scarcity mindset believes that “there will never be enough” and that “more for you means less for me”.  It is a very self-centered focus often by a very self-conscious individual.

 

In the 7 Habits of Highly Effective People it says, “Most people are deeply scripted in what I call the Scarcity Mentality. They see life as having only so much, as though there were only one pie out there. And if someone were to get a big piece of the pie, it would mean less for everybody else.

The Scarcity Mentality is the zero-sum paradigm of life. People with a Scarcity Mentality have a very difficult time sharing recognition and credit, power or profit – even with those who help in the production. The also have a a very hard time being genuinely happy for the success of other people.

 

The Abundance Mindset is the exact opposite believing that “there will always be more”.  The individuals with this mindset believe that their businesses should exist to serve others they aim to give more than is expected.  As a result of their focus on serving and giving that they experience success.

 

Which mindset do you have when it comes to your business – a scarcity mindset or abundance mindset?  Do you stay focused on giving and serving your customers instead of what your business can do for you?  Have you been actively supporting and cheering other female business owners on?  

When creating our Business Basics Course, Rachel King and I decided that we wanted our courses to be communities of women who support one another.  Powerful things happen when women come together to network, support, brainstorm, and cheer one another on!

 

Interested in being a part of our next community going through Business Basics?  Click here for more info.

 

 

Have you ever heard of a life plan and wondered what exactly it is.  Since becoming a certified Life Coach, kicking off my Intentional Living Academy, and sharing this passion on social media, I have received a lot of questions regarding what a life plan is and why I think it’s so important.

A Life Plan is a living document that helps you to focus in on the areas of your life that you personally want to improve, it helps define and follow through with goals and action step to move toward the life you desire and helps you to become the best version of yourself.

About a year ago, I discovered the power of life planning and how it helps to get a clear picture of the progress and passion in each major area of your life.  Not only does it help you to determine where you currently are in these areas, but it also helps you to improve your life moving forward and experience positive change.

One thing that I have heard repeatedly from the women in my Intentional Living Academy as well as women on Life Coaching calls is that the process of writing their life plan sounds overwhelming at first, but once they get started they found it was not at all overwhelming and they thoroughly enjoyed the process and results!

Life planning is for you if . . .

• You are interested in becoming the best steward possible of the life the Lord has given you.
• You often find yourself saying things like “I’m busy” and “There isn’t enough time in the day”.
• You desire to give your best to the people that matter most, but feel over-committed and overwhelmed by the many demands on your life.

If so, I’d love to share my FREE Intentional Living Assessment Workbook with you! In this 7 page workbook, I will walk you through steps to determine your priorities and define actions steps to move you toward the life you desire and the purpose God created you for!

Ready to turn your hobby business into a successful, growing business?

 

Hiring a business coach was a game changer for me!  It helped me take my hobby and turn it into a business.  

 

I will never forget the excitement of seeing my small little checks from the network marketing company start to grow.  My small business started to grow and evolve as I found my niche, and in time, those weekly checks started to pay for bills and luxuries that we wouldn’t have otherwise had.

 

I remember being scared and really questioning my decision to invest in a business coach.  I wasn’t totally convinced that it was necessary or that I was going to get a return on my investment.  Looking back over my business finance statements recently, I was pleasantly surprised at the growth that my business has made. I truly believe that hiring a business coach and going through a course on business basics was what brought the change.

 

There have been many benefits that have come from this investment and relationship.  Some of them include:

 

CONFIDENCE – My coach pushed me, very often outside of my comfort zone.  She believed in me and helped me get over my fears.  I am doing things now that I never thought that I could and I truly believe it’s because I was pushed and encouraged and challenged by someone else.

 

ACCOUNTABILITY – Many of the tasks that are most important in growing a small business are tasks that aren’t my favorite.  They are things that I could easily procrastinate on if someone wasn’t holding me accountable.  Each time that I has a call with my coach, she gave me a list of action items.  They weren’t always things that I wanted to do, but each of them pushed me toward growth.  I knew that I was going to be accountable for those assignments and action items, which is what helped me to focus in and get them finished.  

 

COACHING – My business coach pushed me to think bigger!  She challenged me to never settle.  She helped me set goals and then hustle to make them happen.  She was a sounding board often helping me take my ideas and improve upon them so that I could better serve my ideal client.

 

NEW LEARNING – I had no idea what I was getting into when I first decided to work my business after partnering with a network marketing company.  I quickly learned that there was a lot that I didn’t know.  I learned a great deal from my coach, but was also made aware of other incredibly valuable resources that would help me to fill my specific needs as a business owner.

 

TEAMWORK – One of the huge benefits of working with a business coach is the community of female entrepreneurs who are also working with your coach.  Powerful things happen when women support one another.  I have developed an abundance mindset as I have worked with this group of women.  There are so many entrepreneurs with a scarcity mindset, afraid that if they support other entrepreneurs that they will lose business.  Instead, I’ve learned to recognize that incredible number of people that can and need to be helped by my or others in my community of female entrepreneurs.  We do this through supporting each other on social media, as well as referring people to one another’s programs.

 

It is because of the value that we saw in hiring a business coach that Rachel King and I have decided to put our passions and knowledge in the areas of growing a small business, systems, organization, productivity, and business finance to teach you what we wish we had known much earlier in our businesses.

 

We would love to be your business coaches!  Helping you to grow in confidence, coaching you to think bigger and challenging you, inviting you into our community of female entrepreneurs to network and support one another, and teaching you systems, processes, and marketing strategies.  
If you are interested in our next Business Basics Course, please click here to learn more!

Photo credit: Nancy Wilson Photography

The secret to achieving your goals this year is making sure that you’ve set clear, specific and meaningful goals and that you have a plan to reach them!  Then break them down into small and achievable goals!

Here are some suggestions for setting and achieving your New Year goals:

1. Make one change at a time. Setting too many goals makes it hard to stick with all of them.
2. Take a few days to decide what it is that you really want to achieve and more importantly WHY you want to achieve that specific goal.  Knowing your motivation behind the goal will help to keep you on track.
3. Break your goal into small achievable steps that are measurable and have a deadline.
4. Email your goals and plan of achievable steps to yourself at FutureMe.org.  You can decide when you want them to appear in your inbox to remind you and keep you on track.
5. Reward yourself each time you reach one of your small goals. This will help you to stay on track to reach the big goal.
6. Recruit support and accountability!  Find a friend or family member that will check in with you to see how you are doing as you work toward your goals.  Accountability makes a big difference.  I’d be happy for you to email them to me so that I can check in with you, if you are needing added accountability.
7. Track your progress.  Grab a notebook or journal and keep track of the progress you are making.  Those who track their goals are much more likely to achieve them.
8. Don’t give up when you get off track!  Just refocus on your goal, why you set that goal, and jump back in.

If you are working towards health goals and are sick and tired of diets failing, check out my new “No Diet Diet” progam!

If you are working toward growing your small business, check out my Business Basics course!

Over the last 4 years, I have been a full time working mom trying to run a business on the side.  Then after I had the twins, I became a stay at home mom trying to run a business. Now, I am working part time out of the home and part time from home, while still trying to balance taking care of my family.  None of these were easy!

Balancing home and running a small business is HARD.  

For a lot of years, one always seemed to win out over the other.  Either I was doing a great job at being a wife and mom and the house was somewhat put together, but my business suffered OR my business was doing well and I was struggling to stay on top of my family and home.

I’ve learned a lot of lessons the hard way and want to save you from the frustration and failure that I felt.

For the first time, I feel like I’m finally in a groove with balancing my daily tasks for home and my business.  I won’t tell you I’m perfect at it, but I’ve come a long way.  While I’m always aiming at being and doing better, I’m happy with where we are now.

Here are the three things that have made a huge difference in finding that balance.

1. Work from a list.  I have a list of the activities that I need to complete daily to move my business forward.  I call this my Power Hour.  Each day I sit down with this list and plow through it, being sure to stay on task until it is time to go on to the next task.  No longer am I killing time trying to figure out where to start or trying to decide what needs to be done first and then not getting to other important tasks.

1. Have a schedule.  I have a daily schedule that clearly defines family time vs. work time vs. me time.  Having this schedule in place helps me to focus 100% on what I’m doing in that moment.  It has helped me to be very intentional about spending uninterrupted time with the kids, as well as getting really focused on working without feeling like I need to go change the laundry over or start dinner.

1. Take 5 minutes each morning to devise a plan.  Making lists and a plan for the day has made a huge difference in my productivity.  I start the day with much more clarity on what I need to accomplish and tend to get a lot more done when I have this list created.  

If you are interested in signing up to receive the list that I work from daily, CLICK HERE to receive my FREE Guide: “Boost Your Power Hour”. 

 

 

When I start to get stressed, overwhelmed and exhausted, there are almost always two things that have happened.  

First, I realize that I’m trying to control things on my own.  I’m likely not seeking the Lord’s direction in prayer and I’m exhausted from trying to carry burdens and make decisions on my own without His guidance.  

Turning to the Lord in prayer to seek Him and His direction is such an easy solution, but for some reason I seem to carry things on my own for far too long.  I hate to admit this but it’s often not until I find myself in tears or losing my temper that I realize that I’m not seeking Him and His will, but instead trying to control things on my own.

What incredible promises and reminders we have in scripture on this topic.  

Psalm 55:22: “Cast your cares on the Lord and He will sustain you; He will never let the righteous be shaken.”  

Isaiah 41:13:  “For I, the Lord your God, will hold your right hand, Saying to you, ‘Fear not, I will help you.’”

Matthew 11:28-29:  “Come to Me all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.  Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.”

Philippians 4:6-7:  “Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God; and the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.”

What incredible reminders!  We don’t have to carry those burdens on our own.  All we have to do is turn to Him, release our stress and walk in His peace!

The second reason that I tend to feel stress, overwhelm and exhaustion is that I have likely let my world become cluttered.  For me, this can be that my thoughts are cluttered and I’m carrying way too much around in my head OR it can be that my home and things have become very cluttered.   Very often for me it’s a combination of both.

When my thoughts have become overwhelming, sitting down to do a “brain dump” on paper is incredibly helpful.  I need to get the many tasks out of my head and onto paper so that I can free up space to think clearly and then develop a plan to tackle all that needs to be done.  It can also be incredibly helpful to sit down and journal my prayers to get my thoughts out on paper and recognize what’s really going on.

Webster defines clutter as “a collection of things lying around in an untidy mess.”  When my space becomes physically cluttered, it’s not time to put things back in place, but instead time to get rid of some of the “stuff”.  Decluttering my home is an ongoing process.  We declutter and somehow more stuff sneaks back in and takes over.

I wouldn’t ever have believed how much decluttering can help me to relieve stress, but it works every time.  Here are a few of the questions I ask myself about each item as I declutter and get rid of items from our home.

1. Does it bring me joy?  I got this from “The Magic of Tidying Up” by Kon Marie.  I have to admit that it seemed silly at first.  But there is real decision making power in this question.  If it doesn’t bring me joy, it likely needs to go.  
2. Do I use it on a regular basis?  If it is functional and gets used regularly, then I likely just need to find a place to keep it where it is no longer cluttering my space.  If I don’t use it regularly, it needs to go.  
3. And if it’s something that I decide to keep, does it have a home?  Everything that’s worthy of keeping needs to have a place where it’s put away.  If it doesn’t, it’s going to continue to end up being left out and causing stress and clutter.

The power of releasing burdens through prayer and clearing clutter are two of the most powerful ways to relieve stress and overwhelm in my life!

I’d encourage you to give both of these things a try today and see if you don’t feel instant peace and contentment.

If you are in need of more support as you declutter your spaces, I’d love to talk with you and see if my Focused Productivity Program would be a good fit for you.  This program focuses on helping women declutter their lives, develop systems to get and stay organized and increase productivity so that they have more time for the things and people that matter most!

Click here to schedule a FREE 15 minute consult call.

I would love to tell you that I’ve got it all together, that I never lose my cool, and that I’m never stressed or tired.
I’d love to be one of those moms whose house is always clean, laundry is always done, and a home cooked meal is served each night.

The truth is that I’m not that mom!  I’m not even close to any of those things.

I will tell you that I have changed greatly over the last 4 years. I decided that I don’t want to live stressed and frustrated and feeling guilty for the rest of my life.

I decided to let some things go.  I decided that I wanted to get really clear on who and what I care about most and give them my best.  I decided that I wanted to walk in peace and joy.  I wanted to stop letting others or the perception of others dictate who I am and how I feel about myself.

I’ve also developed systems that help me to stay organized and productive and therefore have more time for my family and the things that bring me joy.  It’s amazing how some simple changes in our lives can make a drastic difference in how we approach the day, our mindsets, and greatly increase our productivity.

I’m still busy, but now I’m busy doing what matters and brings me joy.  I’m busy playing with my kids.  I’m busy being intentional in growing my marriage.  I’m busy running a small business that I love and that brings me great joy.  I love watching other women get intentional and productive in the things that matter most to them.

This is why I’ve created a new Focused Productivity Program for busy women.  In this 21 day program I walk women through steps to simply their lives, develop systems to decrease stress and overwhelm, and tips/tricks to get your organized and increase productivity. . . . all in just 15 minutes a day!

I’d love to offer you a free 15 minute consult to discuss if this program would be a good fit to help you get more productive, organized, and intentional in your life!

To sign up for a FREE consult call click here!  I look forward to visiting with you soon!

 

You can’t do it all . . . so decide what’s important and do it well!

I don’t know when I started to buy into the belief that I can and should do it all.  There seems to be this underlying expectation that we should be everything, to everyone, and do it all perfectly.  The truth is . . . we can’t!  We can’t be the perfect christian, perfect wife, perfect mom, perfect homemaker, perfect friend, and perfect employee. In fact, we can’t be perfect.  There is only one person that walked this earth without sin.  

For a lot of years, I worked my tail off trying to be a fantastic employee, putting in tons of extra hours, while also trying to be a great wife and great mom.  I failed miserably at all three.  Many days ended with me in tears feeling like a failure and sadly that phrase used to come out of my mouth regularly and usually through tears.

I don’t want to live that way.  I don’t want regrets and constant frustrations and to feel like a total disappointment.

What I started to discover is that striving for perfection was going to always leave me falling short, feeling defeated, struggling with guilt and comparing myself to others. So I let myself off the hook and have experienced peace, fulfillment, and joy as a result.  I like this me a lot more.

While I will never be the prettiest, most fashionable, skinniest, or most well-liked, at the end of the day I rest in knowing that I did my best, gave my all to the people that matter most, and hopefully encouraged a few people along the way.  

Here are a few things that have helped me to let go of trying to do it all.

1. Staying Focused on What Matters Most.

Be clear on who and what you want to focus most.  Is it your family?  Career?  A perfectly cleaned home?  Your volunteer positions?  There’s no right answer for everyone, but you do need to be clear on what matters most to YOU.  Knowing this makes it a lot easier to say no to things that don’t fall in that category.

2. Don’t say yes, without saying no to something else.

So you want to serve on a committee at your child’s school?  Great!  But don’t add that commitment without taking something that you are already doing off of your plate.  We can’t add time to our day, so when we add something to our schedule, we are actually pushing something else off the schedule.  Sadly, without realizing it, we are often pushing the people and things that matter most to us.

3. Simplify, simplify, simplify!

Simplify in every way!  Start with #2 and simplify your schedule.  Do less so that you can do more of what matters.

Then move on to your material possessions.  Stuff doesn’t make us happy.  In fact, it can

weigh us down without even realizing it.  If you don’t use it regularly and it doesn’t bring you joy.  Get rid of it.

Next, simplify your thoughts.  Do a brain dump and get everything that’s floating around in your mind written down in one place.  Journal about any anxious thoughts or stress you are having.  It’s amazing how quickly we can become overwhelmed by our thought lives.

4. Take time for you each day.

This is a hard one, but it’s like the oxygen mask on an airplane.  If you don’t take care of you, then you likely aren’t going to be as helpful to anyone else.  Self-care can be done in a million different ways.  Find what fills you, makes you feel calm, at peace, happy, and brings clarity.  For me this is morning routine of Faith, Fitness and Focus.  I don’t ever enjoy waking early, but I’m always glad I got out of bed and had time alone to pray and study God’s word, exercise, and create a plan for the day.  This alone time make a HUGE impact on how I approach my day.

5. Celebrate each day

I still fall very short daily of who I want to be.  But I’ve started celebrating each day.  Letting go of what I didn’t get accomplished and resting in the fact that I’m loving and serving my family. The rest of the “stuff” will get done in time.

So, join me in being less than perfect.  Let’s aim to do our best, knowing we’ll fail daily, learn from our mistakes, celebrate our successes and press on!  We can’t do it all . . . but we can do what matters most well.