The life you live starts with decisions. You can either create a life you adore, or you can respond to everything around you and let life happen.
At one time I worked well over 90-100 hours a week, won awards, and had a financially successful business. But I also had strained personal relationships and declining health.
It took a doctor telling me that I was dying for me to reevaluate how I was spending my time. Up to that point, I was allowing life to happen to me.
But no more! Today I am intentional with everything that goes on my calendar.
And my profits are higher, my joy is greater, my relationships are stronger, and I'm here to tell my story.
You do not have to let your business run you in order for it to be successful.
Here are the 7 steps I put in place and now help my clients get going in their life too.
1 – Decide and Declare The Life You Want to Create
Many start a business with the dream of time freedom, but don't sit down and get clear on what that means.
As a result, everything is nebulous and unclear. When you are unclear, you often forget what you are working for and it is easy to get caught up on activities that are busy work rather than good uses of your time.
Are you clear on what your time freedom opportunity is?
Sit down with something to write with and a pen. Or pull out your recording device and start talking.
List everything you want to create in your life. What would you do if you were not working? Travel, more time with family, going out with friends, self-care, volunteering for organizations that are meaningful to you, learning, creating art?
If you have a significant other this is a great exercise to do with them too.
Catalyst Question
What are your deepest values?
What do you want your life to look like?
What are the things that are most essential for your joy, happiness, and fulfillment?
2 – Decide and Declare Your Weekly or Monthly Time Containers
Decide how much time in your week you want to give to your business, your relationships, spiritual practices, recreation, etc.
For example, if you want to work 20 hours a week in your business, declare that! Next, focus your intentions on getting clear about the activities that need to be done and the boundaries that need to be set in order for you to hit that goal.
Work will always expand to the container that you give it. We often spend significantly more time on things that do not have an impact.
I am a recovering workaholic and I recognize that this idea may sound impossible if you have spent your life being told that hard work is an admirable value.
And if you experience Imposter Syndrome and feel the need to prove your value through how much you work, this may also be a challenging concept to believe.
But, you can create an extremely successful, impactful business without having to work so much that you sacrifice the rest of your life for your business.
If I can do it, you can too. In fact, the year that I cut back the number of hours that I worked on my business, my profitability tripled. And my clients have experienced the same thing.
Catalyst Question
What is the first thought that comes up when you say:
I can easily make my income goal working _____ hours per week?
Your thought shows you your beliefs around time and money
and is your growth opportunity to address and shift.
3 – Decide the Days and Hours of the Week You'll Work with Clients
When you work in a knowledge service industry, it is easy to allow your time to get scheduled at any time your client wants. But if you do it this way, you end up with a scattered schedule and often scattered thinking through your week. If you are not careful, you will end up working all of the time!
By choosing the days of the week and the times of the day that you will take client appointments, you set healthy boundaries.
By setting healthy boundaries, your clients get the best of you when they meet with you!
This is not the time to determine how you will make that happen. Simply claim and decide what you want to make happen.
Examples for Inspiration
I schedule client sessions Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday from 10 am to 4 pm. I work on my business on Monday and often take Friday off.
Another business owner takes Wednesday completely off. She chose Wednesday as the day off because it was a great mid-week reset for her.
Another multi-million dollar business owner schedules business building activities on Monday, schedules clients on Tuesday and Wednesday, and has the rest of the time for her other life activities.
4 – Prioritize and Schedule Your Freedom – Choose Life Important Activities
If you have a big vision that you'd like to achieve and you are not achieving it, you have to be prepared to make some changes. As you begin to rethink the items you allow to go on your calendar, consider approaching your choices with curiosity and a “what if” perspective.
Catalyst Questions
What if I could adjust my way of managing and prioritizing my time
to create a really amazing life?
What would need to happen to make that a reality?
Treat yourself and the life you want to create like one of your ideal clients. Things that you can put on your calendar:
- business building activities – growing your audience, serving your clients, money-making marketing projects
- loving life activities you identified in step 1
Get rid of the things on your schedule that:
- are old obligations – things that at one time were important, but no longer are
- other people want you to do, but don't give you joy/freedom
- you think only you can do that really can be delegated
- your “I should” activities
- activities that don't support you being able to launch, grow, or scale your business
Get really good at prioritizing, hiring a team, delegating, saying no, and getting resourceful.
Catalyst Questions
Does my schedule reflect the life I want to create?
Is this business appointment request directly related to growing my audience, serving my clients, or money-making marketing projects?
What can I stop doing?
How could I free up more time each week?
How would my life be better if I had more time freedom?
Could I automate this activity?
5 – Evaluate Your Personal Habits
Your mindset, how you think about your choices, is important to you being able to create the life you want.
Time after time I witness ambitious solopreneurs and business owners working significantly more than they need to because of perfectionism, overdelivering, or procrastination.
When you identify the habits that cause obstacles to creating the life you really want, you are able to begin to retrain your brain to create new habits.
Oftentimes changing our habits can free up over 50% of our time!
Catalyst Questions
Do my personal habits allow me to enjoy time freedom?
How might I be sabotaging my dream life?
6 – Price Your Services and Products Based on Value, Not Time
If you are charging hours-for-dollars you have created a time freedom and money conflict.
If you charge based on the amount of hours that you work, and you have a high profit goal, you will naturally be inclined to work more and more.
If you charge based on the value that your client receives, it is a win-win for both you and your client. They are not charged for miscellaneous hours. You have the opportunity to get creative and deliver amazing results in less time, thus freeing up your time to do other things.
Note: I did not say “charge what you are worth.” Your value is infinite. There is no price high enough for your value. This statement often causes a mind mess for people working to switch to value-based pricing. Get clear on the value of the results your clients experience having worked with you and price based on that. If you'd like help figuring this out, let's talk.
7 – Develop Repeatable Business Systems
Every business activity you do without a system robs you of the life you want to create.
You spend hours wasted time when you reinvent your business steps every time you do them.
You waste more time when you have to remind yourself how to do something because it is done monthly, quarterly, or annually and you don't do it often enough to remember the steps.
Operating your business in this way also makes it significantly difficult to delegate or even sell your business if you choose to leave. Everything in your head is not really a business. 😉
Business systems can be as complex as automated, multi-step, technology or they can be as simple a series of steps that you document in Google Docs. You can create step-by-step processes, hierarchical processes, or flow chart processes.
Anything that you do more than once in your business can have standard operating procedures (SOP) created.
Systems that will enhance the foundation of your business:
- Customer/Client Service
- Financial Management
- Follow Up
- Invoicing/Billing, and Revenue Collection
- Marketing
- People: Human Resources
- Personal Productivity Systems
- Sales
- Technology
Overview
- Decide and Declare The Life You Want to Create
- Decide and Declare Your Weekly or Monthly Time Containers
- Decide the Days and Hours of the Week You'll Work with Clients
- Prioritize and Schedule Your Freedom – Choose Life Important Activities
- Evaluate Your Personal Habits
- Price Your Services and Products Based on Value, Not Time
- Develop Repeatable Business Systems
Final Thoughts
Your life and business activities don’t have to be stressful. You don't need to experience constant fire-fighting and reactivity. It doesn't have to feel like you are constantly pushing to reach the life that you want.
Time Freedom is possible. But you have to be willing to claim it.
I learned years ago that there is a simpler, better way to run a business… and that’s one thing I help my clients achieve year after year.
If you’re ready to take your time freedom AND business to the next level, I'd love the opportunity to see if the programs I provide are a good fit for you.
And if you'd like help figuring what blocks you have in your way and how to blast through them to your success, I can certainly help you with that. Click here to get started.
Until we talk again,
Live Fully — Love Openly — Laugh Often — Leverage Your Brilliance — Connect Authentically — Get Your Message Out — Serve with Impact — Prosper Everyday
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