Kat Millar

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5 Stages of Mindset Change

 

We are collectively walking together through a crisis period, one that is filled with great uncertainty for many of us.

We are in a time of loss. We still have so much to be grateful for, yet we have also lost a lot.

And I believe important to acknowledge that and grieve the loss in a healthy way.

I think it’s wise to acknowledge and feel our feelings, whatever they are.

None of us have ever been through this. And many of us are struggling to adapt to the changes that have happened so fast.

Stress happens when our bodies feel fear and we don’t process our thoughts and feelings in a healthy way.

We can’t function and perform well for ourselves, our clients, our communities or our businesses if we live in a constant state of stress.

We can’t pour from an empty cup.

So the first step is becoming aware of what’s happening internally.

How we walk out this crisis is determined by the mindset we choose as we navigate through it.

I’ve recently noticed a cycle in my own thinking through this time, and also in the thinking of some of my clients and friends.

I have named this cycle the 5 stages of mindset change.

In this video and article I share the 5 stages in the cycle and how they manifest in your life, so you can determine how to move to the next stage and use this time to become more resilient.

Stage 1 – React

The first mindset change is to react. We are all reacting very differently to the circumstances around us.

There’s one thing we can’t control and that’s the circumstances around us.

The circumstance is neutral until we put thought and meaning to it. A circumstance cannot make us feel anything.

There are plenty of things we can control, like our thoughts, our emotions, our actions, and our results.

This isn’t anything new, this is well-known in the world of psychology.

This is the way our brain works and what happens when we realise that our reaction to a circumstance is within our control.

We might not control our initial impulse to react, but we can control the meaning we give to the circumstance.

We can control our thoughts about the circumstance, which then controls our feelings about it. Our actions and behaviours follow on from there.

Realising there is so much we can control is very helpful when we feel out of control with a lot of uncertainty in our lives.

We all react differently. Some people are in different stages.  If you think about the stages of grief, there is shock, then there’s numbness. I’ve definitely had some numbness where I’ve found I’m not remembering things and my brain is foggy.

Some of us do what I call going to ‘BED’.

B is for blame

E is for excuses

D is for denial.

We might rotate between blaming other people and blaming ourselves for how we feel. We make excuses. We can start saying that we are not going to achieve our goals or we are not going to move forward.

We can deny our feelings and the changes and almost ‘pretend it’s not happening. In this stage we are reacting to what’s happening rather than taking control of our responses. It’s like we want to just hang out until it’s all over.

Stress occurs in a number of ways and can show up in physical, mental, emotional and behavioural red flags.  We might feel irritable, moody and unmotivated. We might find ourselves over-consuming and indulging in bad habits. These are all symptoms of stress and occur in the ‘react’ stage.

Stage 2 – Reflect

In this stage, we start to reflect on how we’ve chosen to react. Some people never make it to the reflecting stage.

Have we chosen to retreat or advance, to become stronger and grow, or have we hidden from facing the reality of the crisis?

To reflect is healthy. Be open with yourself about how you are feeling and how you have been handling the situation.

Reflection allows us to GROW from this situation.

We can choose a growth mindset that takes what’s thrown at us and we can use it to become stronger, more powerful and more evolved.

We can live at the ’cause’ side of the equation.

Or we can live at the ‘effect’ side.

We all have a choice. We can choose to retreat or advance, choose to become stronger or diminish during this time. This all starts with reflection. 

Stage 3 – Recover

The next stage that a lot of people move to, is what I call recover.

In the recovery stage, we’ve reflected on how we’ve reacted, and then we start to recover.

We start to become more self-aware, self-accepting and accepting of the situation.

We may have been frustrated or angry at having things taken from us.

For example for me, I was so frustrated that I couldn’t use the gym! Going to the gym has been part of my life for 25 years and it was wired into my habits and lifestyle and even identity. It was a coping mechanism.

I would go from feeling frustration at not being able to go to the gym, to feeling guilt and beat myself up for being silly that it’s such a ‘first world problem’. Then I went to feeling compassion for myself for the loss. Even if it seems small and insignificant to someone else.

I’ve realised that I had to grieve the loss of that part of my life. That it’s ok.

Have you lost things that form part of your identity and are also a coping mechanism? If that’s you, I understand.

There is a sense of loss and grieving that comes with any type of loss of something or someone we’re used to.

When you start to recover, you look at the possibilities.

You ask yourself things like “How do I want to be in this season? What can I do differently? How can I meet my needs in a different way, now that restrictions are in place?”

Stage 4 – Reset

The reset stage is a stage where you need to have empathy for yourself and for others.

This is the stage to show yourself kindness, grace and compassion for what you’ve been going through.

This is where the rebooting and recharging kicks in and your creativity gets turned back on.

Recently, I’ve been wanting to plant some things on my balcony. I want to do some painting and I want to write more poetry.

I want to sort out my online systems and I feel more motivated to make changes, whereas in the first few weeks of this, I was feeling numb, confused, lost and a bit all over the place.

In the reset phase, we make empowering changes.

For example I’ve committed to a friend to meet in the park and motivate each other, go for bike rides and take the weights out.

I’ve committed to some non-negotiables of daily sunshine, nature and movement.

I’ve committed to showing up online, regardless of how I feel. I’ve committed to being productive.

The reset stage is putting in some routines, making sure that you have a schedule and keeping some sense of certainty.

Your brain is freaking out right now because there are so many unanswered questions. We don’t know how long this is going to last. There is so much uncertainty.

Having routine brings certainty to your brain. I need a sense of routine every day. I need to stop staying up late. I need to go to bed earlier and get up with a plan every day. I need to stick to my daily plan and weekly goals.

If you’ve fallen down and gotten off of the track, forgive yourself, pick yourself back up again and start showing up in a way that inspires you.

Stage 5 – Resilience


Resilience is your ability to bounce back from stress.

This is where we shift from the stress response to being strong.

Resilience is about acknowledging your feelings of stress and being kin

d to yourself and deciding to use them to grow.

When we are in the resilient stage, we feel strong, resourceful, creative and powerful.

But then something might happen and we find ourselves back in stage 1 as we react again and go back around the cycle again.

We’ve all been feeling certain levels of stress. It’s important to acknowledge that it is stress and that your brain doesn’t feel safe due to the upheaval we have all been experiencing.

When you feel stress rising up in your body, take a moment to do some stress relief actions:

* Deep breathing or meditation.

* Increase your movement and intake of healthy food.

* Externalising your thoughts – journaling, or processing with a coach or friend.

* If you have nervous energy and find yourself scrolling, find something to create something and do things with your hands.

Remember that comforting yourself is different to caring for yourself.

Most of all – be kind to you. You’re doing great, my friend. Even if you don’t think you are.

I know we all try to be strong and independent, powerful leaders, but we’re all going through this together. It helps us if we are open, honest and vulnerable.

When we face these feelings, it allows us to move on to the resilience stage more quickly.

You don’t need to rush to resilience. The by-product of reflecting, recovering and resetting will be resilience.

Love to hear your thoughts.

Are you a service-based business owner?

Do you need help setting up an online funnel, so you can attract new clients?

I’m offer a free 30-minute strategy session here

*First-time sessions

I’ll help you clarity your next steps to building your own, profit-producing marketing funnel, fast.

Looking forward to helping you get more clients online!

Take care and stay strong,

Kat

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Handling Chaos Well

In the midst of the current world chaos, there is no better time than to talk about strategies for how to handle chaos well.

This week I’m taking a break from the normal business topics, to talk about mindset and how to manage your mind throughout the season that we’re in.

Not everyone knows this but I do a lot of mindset work with people and I’ve been studying the mind for the past two decades and I’m fascinated with the mind, our thoughts, psychology and the brain.

I spend a lot of time researching and contemplating the mind, this is an area that I’m passionate about. The reason I chose business is that I love working with entrepreneurs like yourself, who want to grow their business.

Mindset is key when developing our businesses. Often people bump up against a roadblock, a limiting belief, a negative emotion of fear that holds them back.

It’s not until we work on this area of mindset that we get unstuck, and start flowing and taking action again in our businesses.

So I want to share with you some ways to manage your mind throughout this chaotic time that we’re living through. All of us are feeling the effects of the Coronavirus. A lot of people are feeling fearful, anxious and worried.

If that’s you, I want to give you some ways to think that might be helpful for you, and some mindset tips that you can take away and implement immediately.

These are keys that you can also share with those you influence; your family, your employees, your neighbours and your community.

Understand What You Can Control – The TEAR Model

Firstly, we need to understand the realities of what we can control and what we can’t control.  I teach a model called the TEAR Model to a lot of my coaching clients.

The TEAR Model is a four-step model that shows that circumstances are not the thing that actually drives our feelings, our actions or our results.

T – Thoughts

E – Emotions

A – Actions

R – Results

Circumstances are neutral. The facts about the Coronavirus, the facts about what’s happening are neutral. They are a circumstance. They are the only things we can’t control. We can control the other 4 aspects which is our thoughts, emotions, actions, and results.

If you’re a coach, I recommend it’s so important at the moment to be coaching your clients in managing their thoughts, because we cannot necessarily control the circumstances and the events that are happening. Nor can we control the facts.

We’ve got to be careful with what we view as facts. Make sure that what we are believing is fact and not an assumption of someone around you.

Remember, we cannot control the circumstances, but we can control our thoughts, our emotions, our actions and our results.

It always starts with our thoughts. Our thoughts about a circumstance is going to lead to our emotions. Our emotions that come from those thoughts are going to lead to our actions. Our actions are going to lead to the results we produce.

An example of this is the circumstance with the supermarkets. People’s thoughts are leading them to the emotions of fear, panic, worry and stress. They think they are going to run out of food for their families.

Their thoughts are driving their emotions to overtake common sense and their actions are to panic buy. The result of this is no food or toilet paper left on the shelves.

Another person may walk into the same supermarket but have completely different thoughts, emotions, actions and ultimately results. They may see the empty shelves and think the shops will get restocked, they don’t worry because they know they are cared for.

These people walk in peace and joy, as they know everything will work out for them. You’ve got to separate the facts from the circumstance.

Watch what you put into your soul through your eyes. I call it the eyes gate. And watch what you listen to through your ears (your ears gate).

The media feed us a cocktail of fear. They show what’s happening and the panic and fear grow.  It’s important what you ‘feed’ your eyes and ears at the time. Be protective over them and that of your children (if you have them).

Our social media feeds are called a ‘feed’ for a reason. We’re getting fed constant fear and panic, and that part of our brain is actually getting addicted to it.

The more we are consuming the fear in our feeds, the less that we’re looking at all the beauty in the world. We are overlooking all the love, all the communities rallying together, all the support and all the wonderful things in the world.

3 Don’ts for Managing Chaotic Times

1) Don’t Look to Others to Decide How to Feel

It’s so important that you don’t look to others to decide how you should be feeling.

We need to step up and take leadership, and be great role models.

A lot of people are looking around at people’s eyes and looking at the news and looking at their social feeds to decide how to feel. If someone is panicking, it’s easy to feel like you’ve got to adjust how you feel.

You can almost feel a little bit bad that you’re feeling calm and happy. I feel very calm, and I almost feel tempted to go into guilt for feeling calm and happy!

Use your thoughts to decide how you want to feel.

What feelings do you WANT to feel and what thoughts

Step back and look at this – we are living in a unique moment in history. We are on this journey together as the humans. This is our journey right now and we get to choose how we decide to view it.

How do you want to be known as to how you handled 2020 and what’s going on in the world right now?

We get decide how this time will be remembered in our lives and in the lives of our children.

I choose thoughts that help me stay calm and created and resourceful.

I know that the calmer and happier I am, the more that I can help other people.

It’s important for me to stay calm and to do that, I have to choose the right thoughts.

I have to choose to trust, I have to choose to believe that whatever happens, we will handle it.

2) Don’t Feel Bad for Feeling any Feeling

Please don’t feel bad, guilty or shame for feeling whatever you’re feeling. Whether that’s feeling like you should probably be sad right now, because people are dying, but you don’t feel sad.

If you’re feeling happy and you’re getting on with your life, don’t feel guilt! If you are staying on purpose, and feeling that for you it’s important not getting distracted, that’s the best thing that you can do for the world right now.

Don’t feel bad if you feel scared or if you’ve had to cancel an event. If you’ve got elderly parents and you feel concerned for them. That’s okay.

It’s ok to allow yourself to feel the disappointment, feel concern or feel the hurt. Don’t try to buffer or numb feelings. It’s healthy to sit with your feelings for a while. But you don’t need to stay there.

Be conscious of how others are being impacted by these events and don’t minimise the experience of others. It’s so important though, that we don’t get sucked into depression, anxiety or fear in the midst of this situation.

The leaders that are successful are those that will stay calm. When you’re stressed, you don’t think clearly, you’re not intelligent or smart decisions. As emotion increases, intelligence often decreases.

In this time of uncertainty, it’s good to give your brain certainty.

So stick with routines that keep a level of certainty about your life, like going to the gym or doing workouts and making healthy food. Routines help keep certainty.

3) Don’t Give in to Urges That Don’t Serve You

Resist urges that make you want to drink alcohol, give up your healthy routine or make you want to just stay in bed and not focus on building your business because the world is at a standstill.

Choose things that will benefit you and your business. If it means not looking at the news, then choose not to read or listen to the news. If it’s not helping you, it’s not serving you.

I’m putting my energy into my business into coaching people, focussing around mindset and helping people with their emotions.

3 Do’s for Managing Chaotic Times

1) Focus on Thoughts That Make You Feel Better

Think about what’s going to make you feel better and feel calm. For me, I trust that whatever comes my way I can handle it. I trust that the authorities are doing the best that they can and I trust that I will be provided for.

I know that I have a great community. I know that I can learn from this. I take this as an opportunity to grow.

There’s no point suffering for no reason. There’s no point sitting in anxiety, when you have tools and resources, and people that can help you get out of it.

Sometimes I’ll just stop and sit on my chair and I’ll just write out positive, helpful happy thoughts. It’s not denying the facts. It’s not putting your head in the sand.

You’re looking at the facts and deciding what you want to think and feel about them.

2) Increase Positive Input and Decrease Exposure

How much time, are you spending on your Instagram, Facebook or LinkedIn feed? How much negativity are you allowing into your eye and ear gates?

Double down on your positive input. Listen to positive podcasts, positive addresses on Facebook and spend positive time with your friends. Match the amount of negativity you are seeing and hearing, with the equivalent of positive input.

Coaching is one of the best things you can do at the moment, because coaching helps people let out their concerns. It’s like cleaning your house; you can clean out all the mess inside. Clean up your mind and have a listening ear.

Don’t be scared. You’re not going to run out of work. You have so many people that you can help at this time. Please don’t sit back and wait for people to come to you. Reach out and ask people how you can help.

Offer free coaching sessions and help people with managing their minds. As coaches, we help people manage their minds and focus on what they want.

3) Use This Time to Grow Stronger, Be Creative and Innovate

Put on a growth mindset. People with a growth mindset welcome challenges. They think, ‘How am I going to grow? How am I going to learn?’ They believe the world is going to get better.

We need a filter change. If we filter to see only the bad, we will only see the bad. We need to take precautions and we need to be safe.

We need to choose a positivity filter to view life at this time. Choosing a positive filter means you will see this time as an opportunity to grow. You may have to pivot and run those live events as webinars, but look for the opportunities within this time.

This is an opportunity to get stronger, to look at how you can innovate. Be creative. Join together and form stronger communities. Do your best to be part of the solution.

If you’re a business owner and you’re struggling during this time, I’d love to offer you a free coaching session*

‪If you need help or support for yourself personally or in business, you can book a free 30-minute coaching session here

*First-time sessions

Don’t suffer alone. We’re all in this together.

We the humans are amazing, resilient and resourceful.

We will get through this.

Take strong and take care,

Kat

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5 Essentials of Influential Social Media Content

Creating consistent content is so important in growing your business.

But to attract your ideal clients, it’s not about just posting any content; it’s about posting influential content.

It’s SO important that your content on social media is influential. You can spend so much time in your content, and if it’s not influential, that time can be wasted.

You could have been investing and doing something more important in your business that was actually going to get you a result.

If you post influential content, you’ll be way more likely to help people to move along with the journey towards you, and have them take that step closer to becoming a paying client.

You want to think about what the purpose of your content is, (rather than just posting for posting sake).

You want to ensure your content is really helpful, relevant and influential, meaning you’re helping people to actually take action to change their life, not just to entertain them.

Recently one of my clients said to me; “Kat, I’m thinking I need to post more funny stuff on my Facebook business page, because the funny stuff gets the most likes.”

I’m not sure if you’ve fallen into that trap before, but likes are not the goal. Getting people to take the next step towards you is the goal – the step towards becoming a paid client.

Be careful not to just chase engagement – in terms of likes, but actually encourage a relationship with that person, inspire that person to become someone to change, and to take action for themselves.

Really the test is: Are people coming through your funnel? Are you getting people off social media and onto your website, onto your landing page and onto your online domain?

Ask yourself; ‘What is going to get people over the line?’ ‘What is actually going to make people want to sign up for you?’

People will sign up with you because you inspired them to want to take action. It’s because you educated them on the importance of taking action, of the cost if they don’t take action and why you’re different. Entertaining them is important. I’m not saying don’t post funny stuff. Use funny stuff as a break from your day, but it doesn’t lead to paid clients.

Paid clients purchase premium products that inform, inspire and educate. The purpose of social media is for potential clients to get to know, like and trust you, so they want to take the journey with you.

We need to make influential social media content that brings our clients across the line.

Here are 5 Essentials of Influential Social Media Content:

1) Design the Purpose of Your Post First

Decide prior to commencing your post what the purpose of your post is. Use strategy and intentionality when developing your social media posts. Think through what will lead to bringing money into your bank account.

Remember as a business owner if money is not going into your bank account consistently to cover your lifestyle and bills, you will always be stuck in a job, working for someone else.

If you really want to be an entrepreneur and get money into your bank account from working with people, you’ve got to think about the journey your potential clients will take to get there.

Usually, a future client’s journey starts with interacting with your social media post. That post leads them along the journey to become a paid client.

Be helpful, relevant and have a purpose and reason for your post. Building rapport, connection and trust with your future client is the beginning of their journey with you. A piece of content might be made to overcome a specific objection a client had. It might be to show a little bit more about your story, so they relate to you a little bit more.

It might be to showcase how you can help them by telling an example of a great story that you’ve had with a client, a case study or something that happened to you that week that was an excellent lesson. The lesson should help them to take more action towards you. Be strategic and ensure your posts all have a purpose.

2) Speak Directly to Your Ideal Clients’ Desires and Challenges

A lot of people don’t have goals, but they know what they want. A lot of people have dreams, but they might not even think that they can achieve their dreams. Many people may have goals, but how many are actually realising them?

If you were to ask a person, ‘What do you want?’,  most people know what they want. Ask a person, ‘What are you struggling with?’ and they will be able to articulate their struggles to you.

Speak directly to your ideal client, not broadly as thought talking to friends or family. Speak directly to the person that you want to work with, to your target market or avatar. Speak to their desires. Speak to their challenges. The deeper you go, the better for your potential future client.

It’s not all about demographics. It’s about psychographics. What are their thoughts, their feelings and beliefs? What are they thinking about themselves? What are they thinking about you?

Go deeper. WHY do they need to change? WHY do they want that goal? WHY do they need help with it? Start talking about that. Be really specific about their desires and their challenges.

3) Help Them Overcome Barriers to Action

‘How To’ videos are abounding on the internet. It’s the most searched term on Google. But we’ve got to remember, that it’s not just about people learning, it’s about people doing. It’s about people taking action on what you’re teaching them.

When you’re thinking about your content for your social media, ask yourself; ‘How can I help them overcome their resistance to changing?’ ‘How can I have them overcome their biggest objections to investing in themselves?’

You can address these questions through your social media content. So when you’re thinking about money in your bank account and your potential client becoming your paid client, you must work your way back to this regarding content. What is going to stop them from getting to this point?

And it’s not just about getting a paid client. It’s about transforming someone’s life. It’s about helping them become who they want to be. It’s about helping them out of their pain and helping them get relief.

You’re helping them to avoid, become or create something in their life and to be the person they want to be.

4) Show Them How Else You Can Help Them

Build into your pre-planned strategy, a way to incorporate further development for your future client. Show them how else you can help them. It might look like: Giving them one thing that they could go away and do. One small result so that you’re showing them that you actually have seven. ‘This is one part of my ‘7-step strategy’.

Or it’s one recipe that you’ve got, out of your 50 recipes. Or it’s one technique to overcome a limiting belief, out of all the 50 interventions that you do with people.

You’re not just giving them enough that they feel satisfied. You’re giving them a little taste, so they go, ‘Oh it tastes good’ and they want more. You’re showing them how else you can help them.

You’re not just giving them this false illusion that their problem is solved. We know that no one is going to change their life from one piece of social media content. It’s a layered journey. So build that layering within your strategy document.

People often know what to do but they don’t know how to apply it to them and that’s where you can come in and help. It’s about planting seeds in their mind so they think, ‘Ah, when I need to work on that, I will go to the go-to person’. Planning your strategy is key.

5) Have a Call To Action or Engagement

Your call to action is your next connection and interaction with a future client. It could be, ‘Jump onto the call with me’ or ‘Come to my free webinar’ or ‘Join my five-day challenge’. It could be, ‘Download my freebie’, or ‘Drop a comment or put a yes in the comment box’.

Your call to action is asking your potential client to do something with you and it also works to build engagement. The reason that asking for ‘comments’, ‘likes’ or ‘shares’ works on Facebook, is that Facebook sees these actions, and then pushes your content out to more people in the community.

To recap my 5 tips;
  1. Decide the purpose of your post first
  2. Speak directly to your ideal clients’ desires and challenges
  3. Help them to overcome barriers to action
  4. Show them how else you can help them
  5. Have a call to action or engagement

Applying these 5 tips will help you lead your potential client on a journey towards being a paid client.

P.S. Want an effective content creation game plan, so you can start attracting more paid clients FAST?

? Check out our new exciting upcoming workshop…

CREATE CONTENT THAT CONNECTS

A 2-day live action workshop in Sydney

Get Your Entire Client-Attracting Content 6 Month Game Plan DONE… in one weekend!

Learn More About The ‘Create Content That Connects’ Workshop

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What To Do When You’re Feeling Overwhelmed

We’ve all experienced it before, the debilitating feeling of overwhelm.

The problem with being overwhelmed is that it can really kill your creativity, your joy, your ability to overcome problems and find solutions because your brain totally shuts down into that fight or flight mode.

Whether you’re feeling overwhelmed now or whether you know you can become overwhelmed quite easily, I’ve got some practical things that are going to help you.

I really liked this description of overwhelm I came across when I was doing some research about it.

This is written by a Ph.D. Professor, Marla W. Deiblera, she says:

“Overwhelm comes when we think a stressor is too great for us to manage.”

It’s like when we think we don’t have the resources to do what we need to do, we feel like we don’t have the time, the energy or the money.

Being overwhelmed is usually not caused from having too much to do. It’s not knowing what to prioritise first.

Overwhelm also comes when we are not feeling equipped to be able to do it.

You start doing something and you get stuck and you don’t know what to do. You don’t know who to ask. You don’t know how to solve that problem.

When that happens, you move onto something else, when it gets too hard, you start another and so on and so on, until suddenly you’ve opened these loops in your brains and it freaks out. This is what causes overwhelm.

Ultimately, being overwhelmed is a feeling that is triggered by our thoughts. But the problem is, we don’t always know what thoughts are triggering this feeling, because it’s often unconscious or subconscious. So, we just think, we’re overwhelmed.

That’s not true. We can choose the state of overwhelm, overwhelm is a choice. We must remember that it’s not circumstances causing our overwhelm, it’s our thinking that causes overwhelm drives our feelings and drives our results in our actions.

You’re always going to have lots to do. It’s not a case of, I’ve just got to get through this, and I’ll be fine. If this is a pattern in your life, you’ve really got to look at the root cause of what’s going on.

Usually, it comes down to a limiting belief that we have about ourselves. We’re putting way too much expectation on ourselves, or we think that other people have a lot of expectations for us and that’s causing the state of overwhelm and it stops us from taking action.

We go into that fight or flight mode, where we freeze and kill time by doing something easy, something that we know how to do. We go shopping, the movies or we scroll our phone because we just don’t want to feel the stress, which is going to make it worse.

It causes us to procrastinate, to stress and doubt ourselves. That’s terrible for our relationship with ourselves because we start doubting ourselves, our capability because we’re not finishing things. We’re not getting things done.

I was talking to a friend recently and we’re talking about how we use overwhelm as a bit of an excuse. We both realised that we did this rather than focusing on one thing and finishing and completing it.

We thought if I do this and this and this and this and this, then I’ve got this excuse for not finishing that. When you focus on one thing, and you complete it, it’s very much a binary result you either did it or you didn’t.

For example, in January, I decided that I was going to focus on one habit only because I usually have lots of habits that I’m working on. The research says the more habits you’re trying to change, the least likely you are to change any of them.

90% of the time if you try and change one habit, it drops right down to 70% If you try to change two habits and 50% or less if you try and change three habits. When I set my goals for 2020, I decided it’s one habit per month and my habit for January, was journaling. That was it.

But on the side, I was trying to work on my health, my time management, skill acquisition and I still ended up doing way too much. The problem was, I got to the end of January, I hadn’t completed a full 30 days of journaling.

When you’re overwhelmed, you’ve got to look at why. You’ve got to ask yourself some questions.

So I’ve got some questions here to ask yourself to help you reduce overwhelm:

1. What matters most right now?

A great question to ask yourself is what matters most right now? It sounds simple. If you’re not overwhelmed right now, it sounds simple to say that question. But when you’re in it, when you’re frustrated when you feel like you can’t handle anything else…

…You need to step back and ask yourself, what matters most right now. Sometimes it’s a mix of people and tasks. You got to have these clear decisions of what matters.

For me, when I get overwhelmed, I’ve always got to think what matters right now is people over tasks. Maybe you’re managing a team and you think I’m so overwhelmed, whose opinion matters most right now?

Do you need to get something through that’s has a clear deadline, and you find yourself doing things that aren’t that important? For me, personally, I have a rule that I always put my paying clients first.

2. What am I already trying to achieve?

Sometimes we get so in the detail that you’ve got to lift yourself up above it and say, what am I ultimately trying to achieve here? And why am I getting so caught up in this detail and maybe the stuff that doesn’t matter?

I see some of my mentors they put things up that aren’t perfect, I was talking to Jess about this yesterday,  we were saying we see people put stuff out that’s not perfect, and they are still really successful people.

I think why I get so caught up about typos or things that aren’t perfect on my path points. Yes, I want to do my absolute best, I want excellence, I want to get 100% but perfection doesn’t exist and sometimes I think we can waste a lot of time on perfection.

3. What Can Wait?

Sometimes I just need to stop and think, what can wait?

Maybe I’ve got a messy bedroom or maybe I haven’t cleaned my car lately.

It’s important to think about what can wait right now. Maybe it’s not that important to catch up with your Facebook feed. If it’s not that important, it can wait.

4. How can I best Manage Expectations?

Whether that’s an expectation that you’re putting on yourself, or whether there are expectations that other people have of you, ask yourself how can I best manage them?

Maybe you need to contact someone and just be honest. Just say, I’m really struggling right now, I’ve just got so much going on. I just want to let you know that it’s going to take me longer or I can’t come to that thing.

Put up those boundaries to manage your expectations.

Often, it’s our own expectations of ourselves. That’s the biggest problem. How can you best manage that?

5. What’s my Next Best Action?

This question is GOLD and I ask it to myself all the time, what is my next best action because there are always so many actions we can take. There are so many articles we can read, posts we can write, so many things we can do to grow our business.

But what’s the thing that’s really going to move the needle forward in business? Those are usually dollar-producing activities. Whether it’s sales conversations or creating an email newsletter, rather than sitting back and creating something that is going to take too long, start putting things out there that are going to get a result quickly.

I also want to share with you some things that you can say to yourself.

When I was feeling overwhelmed last week, I reached out to a friend who said “Do your reasonable best, and trust God for the rest.”

Whether it’s trusting yourself, the universe, God, a book, a system, you got to trust. Sometimes you just must ask what’s my reasonable best?

Your reasonable best is not perfection. It’s what’s reasonable in this timeframe. Sometimes we have a bit of shame around submitting something that’s not amazing. But it’s not reasonable to think that we can always do everything amazingly.

My sister left me a message that said, “You’ve just got to get through this try to manage it the best you can. Then going forward, say no to more things”. I love that!

When I’m really feeling my heart racing, when I feel like being overwhelmed, I’ll say things like “I’m okay, everything’s going to be okay. I’ll get through this. I can handle this.”

You’ve got to encourage yourself, build yourself up and be your own cheerleader. If you’re struggling to do it yourself, reach out to a friend and get them to tell you.

So to recap the five practical steps to overcome being overwhelmed
  1. What Matters Most Right Now?
  2. What am I Already Trying to Achieve?
  3. What Can Wait?
  4. How Can I Best Manage Expectations?
  5. What’s my Next Big Action?

 

What was your favourite step? I’d love to hear! Post below in the comments.

P.S. Would you like a free chat to help you through your feeling of overwhelm?

I offer a complimentary 30-minute session where I can help you feel better straight away and leave the call with greater clarity and direction.

You can book your free session here*

* First-time sessions only. For you if you’re committed and serious about getting unstuck and growing your business

 

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5 of the Most Costly Mistakes Coaches Make and What to Do Instead

Every 6 months, my sister and I go away and do what we call a ‘summit’.

We book a house or resort and spend the time dreaming, visioning, planning, coaching each other on our challenges and creating.

It’s an amazing experience! (highly recommend)

I’ve just finished one up with Vicki in NZ. We booked a house at Tauranga that looked over a beautiful garden and water.

Vicki is also a Coach so we talk a lot about our businesses and how we can best help our clients.

We talked a lot about the mistakes we’ve made as Coaches, and the mistakes a lot of our clients make.

If you have been in the coaching industry for a while, you’ve probably seen a massive rise in the number of coaches.

Many Coaches are incredible at what they do, but sadly, meeting a profitable Coach is rare.

There’s a big demand for great coaches, but a lot of coaches are getting disillusioned because they’re not making the money that they want.

In today’s video and article, I share with you 5 of the biggest mistakes coaches make and what to do instead to put money into your account and be profitable as a Coach.

If you have been in the coaching industry for a while, you’ve probably seen a massive rise in the number of coaches.

Many coaches are incredible at what they do, but sadly, meeting a profitable Coach is rare.

There are so many people who need help. There’s a big demand for great coaches, but a lot of Coaches are getting disillusioned because they’re not making the money that they want.

Sometimes they wonder if it is even possible for them to become a profitable Coach. 

It doesn’t have to be this way.

ALL the enthusiastic, positive, grateful clients imaginable are out there right now, ready and waiting for you.
But you may be making mistakes that are preventing you from attracting and signing them up.

Here are five of the most costly mistakes Coaches make:

1. Too Broad a Niche

When you start out as a coach, there is a temptation to call yourself a life coach or to call yourself a coach who “helps people discover what they want” or “helps people get unstuck/move forward in their life or fulfill their potential”.

It’s really important that you have that one thing so that people know that you’re masterful at that one thing.

I see this on their Facebook a lot on Facebook pages or websites, they’re too broad and when you’re too broad, you’re not going to attract the right clients because you miss them – and they miss you.

This is a problem that keeps coming up time and time again with the clients that I work with.

They can’t find you because you’re talking like everyone else. You’ll never be an expert, you’ll never be masterful as an authority if you are too broad.

A broad niche might be, for example “I help people get fit” or “I help people get on purpose” or “I help people reclaim their joy”. These types of niches don’t separate you from everyone. They don’t show your uniqueness.

A micro-niche however, is where you can say, for example, “I help busy Mums in the eastern suburbs to get fit at home and have more energy, even without a gym membership”.

It’s not trying to help men, bodybuilders or people who want to put on weight, it’s very specific. It’s Mums, they’re busy and they live in a specific location.

Another micro-niche might be instead of saying, “I help people grow their business”, you might say…

“I help real estate agents go from six figures to seven figures.”

or “I help busy women declutter their homes in 6 weeks or less”

It’s got numbers and it’s very clear that you have mastered a problem a client has. 

2. Not Focusing Enough on Dollar Producing Activities (DPA)

A lot of us get caught up in the fluff, looking at what other people are doing. reading articles, looking at  YouTube clips, going to free courses but there’s no overarching strategy, no step by step clear plan.

Without a focus on DPA wake up in the morning, open your laptop and start feeling busy, but you’re fooling yourself by thinking you’re being productive when there are things you could be doing that directly puts money in your bank account.

How often are you directly speaking to your ideal client and making them an offer?

Ideally, you want to focus on sales conversations and building automated funnels.

My client Gaynor, for example, has set up an automated funnel that leads to a course online. People watch her webinar, click on the link that directs them to the sign-up page for her course. 

That’s a dollar producing activity. It takes time and effect but has incredible rewards. She recently ran a course, where 30+ people had signed up to her course from her webinar and made $10,000 from the funnel.

3. Not Investing in resources and support

As a business owner, you need to pay serious attention to what you’re investing into.

Some people will say to me things like I tried funnels, but it was too hard.

Things that matter require investing the time, energy and commitment. 

If you don’t invest in quality, you’re not going to get a quality result. 

If you’re a Coach and you’re not investing in a Coach, for example, then you’ll feel that incongruency. It’s not aligned, because what you’re selling is something that you’re not buying. 

We all need a Coach. 

So are you investing enough time, resources and technology to get things done? Whether it’s setting up a funnel, webinar or workshop – it all takes energy and resources.

The Coaches that aren’t making it? They are not investing the time, money and resources to make it happen. 

4. Not having enough sales conversations

When you get on the phone and talk to someone that is the most direct line to having money go into your bank account.

A lot of people say … I hate sales. I don’t want to sell, I’m not a salesperson and I get that because I’ve been and I’ve said that many times before, I’ve avoided sales, I’ve avoided sales training, I haven’t even wanted to think of myself as a salesperson.

But sales is the only thing that allows you freedom. If you can’t sell, you’re really stuck building someone else’s dream. And when it really clicked for me, because freedom is my highest value. I had to learn it. There’s no way around it. I had to just learn this skill and learn how to do it.

Sales conversations can happen anywhere. You don’t need to have a product to dive in and start selling something but you can start asking questions.

How many people are you asking questions? How many people do you ask questions to? Finding out their problems, finding out their concerns?

You can do this at networking events or online through Facebook groups – anywhere there are people.

Sales conversations aren’t necessarily the view to sell, it can open up the conversation and see whether you’re a match. 

If you’re not doing that on a regular basis, you’re going to struggle as a coach. 

5. Not using proven systems

Not using proven systems is like reinventing the wheel, trying to figure it all out yourself…

…you might get there but it takes so long when you have people who have proven systems tested and measured and allow us to model after them.

I’ve got millionaire mentors who I’m always looking at what they what they’re doing.

I’ve invested in their programs, I’ve invested over $100,000 doing programs and learning from people who have proven systems.

If you’re struggling, ask yourself am I using proven systems?

You don’t want to be struggling on your own. Being in business as a Coach on your own is so hard to do.

It gets discouraging if you’re not getting clients that hit your income goals and allow you to have the lifestyle that you want. 

If you’re not hitting your goals, then you need to invest in yourself and you need to make sure that you follow proven systems. People have gone before you, figured it all out and you can walk in their footsteps.

 Here’s a recap of the five costly mistakes coaches make and what to do instead:
  1. Having too broad a niche
  2. Not enough focus on dollar producing activities
  3. Not investing in resources and support
  4. Not having enough sales conversations
  5. Not using proven systems

Would you like help to avoid these mistakes and know exactly what you need to do to attract and sign up coaching clients in 2020?

Come along to our workshop on Saturday, 1st February, ‘Get More Coaching Clients’.

If you want to know EXACTLY what to stop wasting your time on and learn the SPECIFIC actions that sign up clients, then this workshop is for you.

To find out the best strategies and tools to help more people and make more money, click below to learn more ?

? In This One Powerful Day You Will Learn:

? The BEST methods to connect instantly with your audience and INFLUENCE them to your ideas

? How to become a master influencer and build authentic trust and a powerful connection with your ideal clients

? How to use neuro-marketing to influence the SUBCONSCIOUS mind in your written and spoken content

? The MOST effective way to design your marketing plan so that you nail your message, and attract the right clients

? A proven, effective marketing plan that you can tailor to your business

If you want to grow a profitable coaching business, this workshop is a must.

2020 is the year to finally let go of what’s holding you back and create the life you dream of!

➡ Full Details Here 

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