The Blog
The emotions, actions and thought processes of my creative work.
This is where I share what I’m doing and why, how I’m thrashing out problems and what I’m trying to achieve.
Where Are The Things That Make You You?
I was talking to someone the other day about bedtime routines, and they said that they had to go to bed early because “I can’t do the things that make me me when I’m tired”. And at the time, something about that statement clanged like a gong in my mind but I couldn’t put into meaningful thoughts exactly why it made me…uncomfortable.
How Reflecting and Realigning Has Shifted My Content Buckets
There are a few things that clients tell me they’re planning to do that always make me cock my head to the side and ask whether that is the most effective use of their time right now. These things are my alarm bells of procrastination. They’re the things that scream of someone fearful of putting their business out there, and therefore busying themselves with Very Important behind the scenes work that no one will ever see and that won’t make any difference. Updating their website is one of these t
How to Be More Decisive
Indecision is one of our greatest plagues as business owners. It can exist as a constant small doubt in your chest that has you anxiously seeking out validation, and it can also come in huge waves, dashing your confidence against the rocks. “I just don’t know what to do for the best” is one of the most common struggles I hear, and when indecision sets in we stop, lose momentum, stagnate and, sometimes, give up entirely. In this post, I address that indecision and help you learn how to be more decisive.
The Small Things That Build Your Self-Trust
If you read my Q3 review you will know that this current season of my work is fraught with what I’m calling “opportunities for doubt” and practical pitfalls. With the protracted end of a relationship and the shouldering of all the financial responsibilities, I now need my business to step up for me financially (and probably emotionally too). My trust in myself to actually do this has been tested pretty much as rigorously as it can be the last few weeks.
The “Work Is Hard” Myth
“This is work and work is supposed to be hard”. How many times have you told yourself that over the course of your business? Perhaps substituting hard for painful, or miserable, or just a feeling that it’s not supposed to be fun? It might be something you’ve used to justify not doing a project that you were really excited about, or it might be the reason you agreed to do something your whole body was ringing alarm bells about. It’s work, and work is supposed to be hard.
Find Yourself On The Inward Attainment Map – And Know What To Do Next
When you feel disconnected and don’t know how to get out of the funk in your business, it’s easy to try to work your way out of it by doing whatever trick or “must-do” you stumble upon first. Maybe you decide the way back to falling in love with your business is to start getting really serious about your Instagram photos, or that you will feel more joyful if you create a one-to-many offering.
Q1 2020 Quarterly Review
It was always my plan that this year I would share my quarterly reviews on the blog, although I hadn’t expected to be publishing the first one in the midst of a global pandemic. While it is not my intention to spend this whole post discussing tragedy, as a planet Q1 has been destructive and traumatic: Australia on fire, devastating storms and floods and now a global lockdown and millions of lives irreparably changed by a virus.
Why it’s so important to reflect before taking action
We live in a work culture where perpetual motion is valued highest. A constant state of activity and optimisation is more or less the only respected way to be working in your business. When things aren’t going as we’d hoped or we get disappointment, we tell ourselves we’re not doing enough; when things go really well and we get a big success then we say it’s no time no rest on our haunches, we need to make the most of this, do more of what’s working. Our view of business is action-centric, and if you’re not doing something you’re automatically failing.
Maintaining the New Year Energy
So I definitely had a bit of a New Year high this year. I flew down from the sky and landed in 2020 in superhero pose; around me, the dust of 2019 swirled and settled as I slowly looked up grimly towards the coming months, a vision of focus and determination. I was grounded and committed to my goals and intentions, I had so many ideas for content and products that my Notes app was getting out of control and I was going to make 2020 a positive and transformative year. But then January was 7 weeks long and things began to, fizzle.
Getting Into A Focused Mindset For A Productive Day
Sometimes we just need to have a really productive day. Maybe there’s a looming deadline, maybe you’ve got behind on your to-do list for the week or maybe you’ve got a precious free Saturday to work on your business. Whatever the reason, there’s an amount of pressure on that day – it weighs heavy with your expectations and you’re worried that you won’t be able to ‘make the most of it’.
Trusting The One Thing You Can Control
This post was first sent to my newsletter subscribers, and I thought I’d share it here as lots of people found it was what they needed to hear at the start of the year. If you’d like to get more pep talks like this to your inbox once a month (as well as a reading/listening list of resources) then you can sign up to my mailing list here
Create The Product *You* Want To Buy
Whenever we want to create something new in our business, we tend to start with ‘what do people want?’. This is good! In fact, you might go so far as to say that it’s a pretty hard and fast rule of business ownership – create products that your customer really wants. Do surveys and research and put together their suggestions with your know-how and hey presto! But sometimes, business ownership means breaking the rules…
Goals, Mindsets and Word of the Year for 2020
Here is the second part of my end of year ritual, moving on from the review of the old year by taking those insights and turning them into positive changes or actions for the new one. (By the way, if you’ve not yet read my review of 2019 this post will be more enriched by the detail in there!).
My Course Creation Process
Creating an e-course can feel like an overwhelming piece of work – developing the idea into an outline, spending weeks or months writing the course content, deciding whether to use video or images or slides or whatever else, figuring out the tech to deliver the course, and then all of the selling or marketing.
The ‘Own Your Space’ Myth
You’ve probably seen the advice to ‘own your space’. I’ve probably used that phrase myself over the last few years. But recently, as I’ve been working with clients to help them stand out in increasingly crowded markets, I’ve started to question whether this is actually the good advice it sounds like.
Using ‘Carrots’ To Stick To Your Marketing Plan When You’re Low On Motivation
If you read last week’s post you’ll have seen that I’ve been struggling with indecision and demotivation over recent weeks.
Experiencing ‘The Fear’ In My Business
Here’s the truth: I’ve got ‘The Fear’. The fear of showing up and being visible with my work, the fear of talking about what I do, the fear of creating anything new.
Renegotiating My Relationship With Instagram
A few months ago, Instagram and I reached an impasse. It had been a long time coming. For a while I had struggled with showing up there, feeling bound to it by its necessity to my business but deeply uncomfortable with all the layers of the ropes that weren’t really working for anyone.
A 3 Step Process To Lose The Dread Of ‘I Have To’
Something I encounter pervasively is the feeling we ‘have to’ do something in our business that feels draining or just ‘not right’. This is not just in the women I work with, but also within myself – I really feel the weight of expectation and duty without remembering to really question it.