3 Ways To Get Your Business Back On Track For Financial Growth And Time Freedom
This year I’ve had to move stuff around in my business several times because of things outside of my control. One of the main culprits in messing up my diary has been school strikes. We get very short notice if my daughter’s class is going to be affected and in April/May, she had two days off school close together which also fell next to a Bank Holiday Monday. This meant I had two unplanned days where I couldn’t do focussed work or take client calls to instead be at home with a 6 year old!
Coming off the back of two weeks’ school holiday for Easter, it felt a bit like April whizzed by with very little time for work. At the time of writing this, our household will have three Mondays off in a row in May thanks to Bank Holidays and a family trip to welcome home my sister, brother-in-law and new baby niece from Australia.
I’m loving all the time with my family but when and HOW do I get my work done and keep growing my business? In this blog I’ll share how I get back on track quickly in my business after momentarily being blown off course.
One thing stood out to me in April: I seemed to get back on track in my business sooner than others in similar situations. Whilst some seemed to write April off and instead look ahead to May - I doubled down in April and had a great month in terms of sales:
I launched and sold a new 30 day group programme
I sold tickets to my first ever in-person event
I kept up with client commitments and thanks to the kids club at my gym, made it to my four gym sessions every week.
We did one glamping holiday over the first weekend of Easter break and during the rest of the two weeks’ school holiday we had play dates, day trips and visited family. With all this time off… how did I do it? Read on for three practical tips to keep your business on track…
How to keep your business on track and make sales with limited time available to work
I want to reassure you that I don’t have special powers to bend time and space to get all my work done and I’m not working late nights or early mornings to hit deadlines. This is good news because if I can navigate a messed up work schedule whilst juggling parenting duties and keeping myself sane by sticking to my self-care practices - so can you.
Over the past few years of running my own business, I’ve worked to develop what I like to refer to as “self-mastery” in terms of taking control of my business and my life. This means I’m not blown off course by my feelings, circumstances outside my control or indeed those urges to lie down and scroll Instagram for a bit because I have a pile of laundry waiting for me to deal with.
I’m happy to share this insider information with you!
3 practical tips for staying on track in your business:
1. Get clear on WHY you are running your own business
If you’re going through the motions with your work then of course you’re going to let disruptions be the excuse as to why you didn’t make any progress that month.
If making a certain amount of money in a given month is your sole motivator - that will only push you so far and it’s easy to decide to miss the goal this month and try to make more money the next.
You need something bigger than money to stay on track and navigate challenges when they inevitably pop up. You need MEANING.
Meaning is about our need to feel we are serving something greater than ourselves. It’s a sense of connecting to something bigger. It’s not easy to find your meaning in life! But you can start to ask yourself the question of WHY you do what you do. Perhaps the work you do isn’t setting you on fire and you need to change.
For me, I am driven by the desire to spend quality time with my family. I refuse to go rushing through life dropping off and picking my daughter up from childcare. I treasure our slow walks to school and picking her up at 3pm and having the afternoon to do stuff together. I’m motivated to make money to pay for holidays and fun experiences as a family. To be able to afford the ice-cream, to pay for the add-on treats and book Center Parcs in August (IYKYK).
You could say that my meaning is to be a present parent. I’m perhaps not here to change the world and that’s OK. For this phase in my life I want to be there for my family and pay for us to have some meaningful experiences together.
I also want to help other people running their own businesses to have more time freedom and make great money. I’ve worked hard to get to where I am today and I feel a strong pull to help other people enjoy their businesses and life more. This strongly motivates me to show up for my clients and help as many people as possible to make changes in their businesses.
Back to your Meaning…
Money will only motivate you so far - here’s what you need to do:
Think about what you want the money for. What does having the money you earn afford you in life? Security? Fabulous holidays and experiences you’ll treasure for a lifetime?
Get clear on what you want your life to look like and what a meaningful life looks like for you. Perhaps you want more time to get involved with your community - wherever that is.
Write down what you’d like your life to look like and how your business can help you to live that life.
Remember this WHY next time something comes along to stop you from achieving your goal and you’ll be more motivated to find a way around the problem.
Maybe it’s not about money at all for you - this can be a good realisation! Make sure you stay focussed on the bigger picture of why you are running your own business.
My example: Going back to an employed role whilst my daughter is still young is not an option for me. I won’t give up the time freedom I have. I will make the money to pay myself well so that I can support my family and pay for the fun experiences together. I will help other business owners to do the same. I feel this motivation deep in my bones.
2. Map your way to stay on track in the business
Have you ever written down at the beginning of a new year, quarter or month what you want to achieve in your business? And then never looked at the goal again? If this is you then this tip will help to keep that fire lit when life threatens to rain on your motivation.
Here’s how you create a Hope Map to stay on track and overcome obstacles in your business:
For your next goal (it could be signing a new client, launching a new service, redesigning your website) write down what you want to achieve in the business and WHY (see tip 1 above).
List out all the steps you’re going to take to get to that goal.
Once you have a list of inventive ways you can achieve your goal, imagine all the obstacles that might stop you from getting there. Write all the potential obstacles down.
This is the magic part: for every obstacle, write down a way you can overcome it. Get creative! There is a solution to every problem and if you’re not sure what the solution is, think on it for a while. Come back to WHY you want to achieve the goal and dig into what you need to do to overcome anything that tries to stop it from becoming reality.
Here comes my favourite part in this process: list out all your Support Systems to help you reach your goal. This includes folks in your life who can help you to get there. Business contacts, family, friends, experts on the Internet. Whoever can cheer you on, provide an answer, look after your kids or your dog or whatever you need to find an hour or two to DO THE THING - they go in this list.
Finally, write out again your big WHY. Make it specific to this particular goal. Wax lyrical about why you want to do the thing. What will it mean to you to accomplish this? Where does this goal sit in terms of the meaningful life you want to live? Write this down in all its glorious detail.
This process is called Hope Mapping and it works to motivate you towards your goal because you are tying the goal to a bigger WHY and through the process of looking at obstacles and how to overcome them - you can see a way to make it happen.
Whilst you’re working towards your goal, refer to your Hope Map daily to remind yourself of your WHY and all the steps you can take to get there.
3. Assess your business ‘to do’ list daily
My third tip for staying on track in your business when life throws unexpected curveballs at you is to review your ‘to do’ list and priorities DAILY. In fact, I do this every day anyway - not just when life forces me to move my week around.
Nothing will paralyse you into inaction quicker than overwhelm. Your antidote to overwhelm is to look your ‘to do’ list right in the eye and tackle it before it has a chance to cause you sleepless nights.
Here’s how to keep on track with the tasks in your business:
Before you start your working week (Sunday night for me), review everything you want to get done in the week ahead.
Estimate how much time each task will take. Write this estimate down next to the task.
Add up all the time you’re going to need to do all the things.
Realise you don’t have enough hours in the day to get everything done.
Go back to your big goal and choose the tasks that will move you closer to achieving that goal.
Prioritise these tasks and put the time in your calendar to get them done (this is called time-blocking).
Eliminate, delegate or move anything less important to next week.
If you run a service-based business like mine, you’ll need to fit client work in. Make sure that you time-block in your own work as well as client work. If you can’t fit all your client work in, move it to next week and let your client know when it will be done. Be honest with yourself if you are over-delivering or over-promising for clients or have taken on too much work. I’ve been there!
Why you need these processes to keep your business on track
Willpower is a finite resource. If you’ve had a lacklustre month in business, you can tell yourself that next month will be different but if you aren’t equipped to deal with challenges as they arise, you will run out of motivation to keep going.
Getting clear on WHY you are running your business will help you to stay the course. My vision for how I want my life and work to look has helped me to be super productive and get the work done to reach that goal. There’s more in this blog about how I built a 6-figure business working 20 hours a week.
Having a plan for overcoming the obstacles that will try to derail your plans is essential. The Hope Mapping process I shared above is scientifically-proven to help you reach your goal by staying connected to your big WHY and finding practical routes around obstacles.
Finally, we don’t have time to do everything on our list. As soon as you can get used to being uncomfortable with everything you aren't going to get done, the better. By assessing your tasks daily and using time-blocking, time won’t run away from you and you will be able to prioritise the steps on your Hope Map to get to your goal.
I’d love to know what your biggest takeaway from this blog is. Please comment below to let me know. I’d also love to hear how you navigate unplanned time away from work.