What self-care looks like for me

This past weekend I ran away from home.

After months of pushing really hard in my business and personal life, I was hitting a massive wall.

It was hard to admit at first, after all - I just home from a week in Punta Cana with my family, and the weekend before that trip I was at an art retreat.

But as most parents know, a vacation with three children is not "relaxing."

I put a lot of pressure on that trip to help me unwind and relax. I should have known better, I've been on trips like that before. While the kids are now old enough to not require me to be ON the entire time, we still had to coordinate a lot of people to do a lot of things, and they're still kids with a lot of energy and a lot of feelings.

I was so tired on that trip that between activities I didn't even have the energy to read a book, and I came home even more tired than when I left.

Meeting these pirates was a super fun highlight of our trip to the Dominican Republic!

As an introvert, transitioning to homeschooling my son has meant that I don't have much alone time - and I had been alone for most of the week for the previous six years so this has been a big shift and change for me.

I felt tired ALL the time. I didn't feel like I was thinking clearly any more. I was not working well as a mom or as a business owner.

I was nearing burnout - but it was really hard to admit that when I felt like so many things were going so right. Can you burnout doing things you love? Have you heard people say, “do what you love and it never feels like work.” It’s not true. You can love what you do and still get really tired and burn out from it if you’re not careful.

So, I left Friday afternoon and headed up to the family cottage (which I'm grateful to have access to when needed, but happily would have rented one or an Airbnb for the weekend) and just stopped.

What self-care looks like for me

I took a three-hour nap that went right through dinner time.

I read a book.

I watched Netflix.

I slept whenever I felt tired.

I had meals whenever I felt like it - 11 am, 3 pm, 9 pm.

I ate what I felt like eating whenever I felt like it.

I painted.

I stared out the window at the trees and the water.

I didn't intend to work but I didn't intend to NOT work.

The more I sank into nothing, the more my brain woke up. New ideas popped into my head. I felt excited about things I haven't felt excited about in a while. I had the bandwidth to contemplate next steps instead of feeling required to do it.

What does self-care look like for you?

We don't all need the same things to take care of ourselves, but we all need to make sure that we stop and think about what works and what doesn't, and we need to make sure we’re not getting too caught up in how we think we SHOULD be feeling and operating.

I work better and smarter when I have more time by myself doing nothing. It's not being lazy or self-indulgent, it's being productive and poised to take on the world.

Moving forward I will guard time for myself even more. I blocked off time in my calendar years ago for quiet and down time but over the last couple of years I filled ALL of that time with parenting stuff and/or appointments for myself to work on my health. Important, but not actually the down and quiet rest time I need. So I'm re-jigging my schedule again, this time to accommodate for parenting time, health time, and ME time.

If I want to be productive and effective in my work, this is mandatory; even though it feels counterintuitive to work less to make more money. We've been taught that the only way to make more money and achieve more success is to work HARDER. As someone who has never worked effectively on a traditional timeline, I need to keep reminding myself that doesn’t work for me.

When's the last time you did something to help yourself this way?

2018 Holiday Gift Guide for Business Owners

With the holidays quickly approaching I have once again updated the gift guide I have created the past couple of years. Take a look at this year’s gift list for the entrepreneurs in your life - because business owners are special!

If there's one thing business owners are always looking for, it's more time. The more organized they can be - the better. There are a lot of really fabulous planners out there, and here are a few I've used or know are really popular and people find a lot of success with them:

Help them plan

Planner Pad - This is a planner I've purchased several times over the years and works on a funnel down approach. You list everything you have to do at the top of the week and funnel it down to when it will actually get done. 

Passion Planner is a planner I haven't personally used, but know a lot of people who really love it. They like that it balances the personal side of what needs to be done with the business side, It also includes sections that help you figure out what you want to do and how to break down the steps to achieve them.

Self Journal is a planner that's also a journal. There is a lot of room every day to map out your day but also to map out how you're meeting your goals, your wins, your lessons and your gratitude. Each journal lasts for three months (I also haven't used this one, but it looks fantastic!).

Bullet Journal is a great concept because you can turn any notebook into a planner, and it's also great for non-linear thinkers (though I couldn't get it to work for me...). You can mix your brainstorms, your monthly plans, your weekly plans, your daily plans, and you can also buy one that is pre-setup for you. 

I love my Moo business cards!

Productive! This planner is designed by business coach, Shelagh Cummins, and is all about figuring out what your power moves are and working towards them. Check them out.

Paper, pens and stickers!

Entrepreneurs like me, like pretty stationary and fancy pens. Like, we really love them. Whether it's a gift card or a pretty journal, these are almost always a great gift idea (with the exception of a few people who have fully embraced the paperless way of life. :) 

These vinyl stickers from Sticker Mule are super durable

Scribe Delivery - My husband got me this for my birthday and I literally squeal when I get my package every month. So many fun notebooks and pens!

Stickers - I love stickers and you can get so many fun ones, including custom ones of your logo! Sticker Mule is one I've used a couple of times (you can get branded mailers and packing tape from them too. (Use that link to get $10 off your first order).

A gift certificate for the things they are regularly ordering - Vista Print, Moo, Staples, etc. - search gift cards if it doesn't seem obvious how to find them! 

Pens! Lots of pens! (I think I could get 365 new pens every year for Christmas and still have days where I can't find one). ;) 

Technology

Entrepreneurs use tech a lot, and if you're anything like me, it wears out way faster than you'd like. I'm going to admit to my Apple bias here, but I'm sure there are great equivalents in Android and whatever the other tech is that I pretend doesn't exist.

A new computer - last year I was ready to move away from my all-laptop-all-the-time computer ways and get an iMac for my desk and start using my Macbook Air just for traveling. What a difference that has made for me - no more issues with over full harddrives or rebooting a computer not designed to deal with the amount of video I was trying to get it to deal with. I can’t imagine going back to running my business from a laptop again!

A smart watch - I got my first Apple Watch last year too and it’s been nice, but I admit, I don’t LOVE it. I’d love to hear how other people feel about smart watches. My next watch might be a fitbit instead :)

Noise-cancelling headphones - I had no idea until this past fall what the magic of noise-canceling headphones is all about. I work at home and I'm all alone most days so I didn't think there would be any value in them for me. It turns out that the noise-canceling feature is incredibly calming for my ADHD brain and helps me be more productive, so you'll often find me wearing huge headphones with nothing more than a light whooshing noise being broadcast through them while I'm sitting at my desk getting work done!

No more cleaning, no more cooking

A huge theme that comes up is having someone else take care of the cooking and cleaning (a lot of my examples for these are local, but I'm sure you can find something similar close to where you live).

There are all kinds of great local services for cleaning that you can look in to and you can also check out personal chef services (The Magic Fridge is a local one run by a friend of mine) that take the stress out of shopping, cooking and cleaning up after you cook.

There are also lots of services like Hello Fresh and Chef's Plate that will mail you all the ingredients for a set amount of meals per week, taking the stress of planning and shopping out of your weekly schedule and also making the recipes really easy to follow with relatively little prep required. There's also Supperworks where you can go and assemble everything you need for your own meals or pay a bit extra and they'll assemble everything you need.

But if they do need to cook, they might love some cooking classes!

Pampering 

A gift certificate to their favourite spa or for a massage was high on the list for many of the entrepreneurs in my group.

A day away at a spot like Le Nordik or Scandinave Spa for example. A massage from a local clinic is also always appreciated, such as Byward Massage Therapy Clinic or the Massage and Treatment Clinic in Orleans.

Bring on the drinks!

Beer, wine, coffee, tea - we like a variety of drinks as entrepreneurs, whether it be for during the day or for when we put our feet up at the end of the day. Here are a few ideas when it comes to the drinks department. I'm a big fan of subscription services in this category. :) 

Beer subscription service - we have Brew Box here in Ontario but there are many great ones. 

Nespresso is a popular coffee machine with lots of varieties of coffees - even better if more comes to your door every month. 

How about a box of wine delivered to you every three months? If only I liked red wine this would be perfect for me. 

Meaningful bling

A piece of jewelry that speaks to our goals and dreams is a thoughtful way to commemorate all the hard work business women do.

I know for one I would love a bracelet like this from Citrus Silver with your word for the year.

For the “geek” in your life - check out Geeky Delight necklaces! Perfect for the Doctor Who or Harry Potter fan!

The gift of creativity

Unique, colourful and one-of-a-kind, Red Raspberry Studios creates art pieces that are as whimsical as the owner themselves! A piece of art from this studio will bring joy to whoever receives it - just check out the piece created just for me.

If the business owner in your life is creative, give them the gift of a full-day creative retreat experience! “Joyful Flow” is happening February 2nd, 2019. Includes light lunch, wine, guided meditation, intention setting, acrylic painting. No artistic experience required. Visit InDetail.ca for more information.

I had fun thinking of all the ways we could celebrate the entrepreneurs in our lives - maybe this sparked a few ideas for you. Leave me a comment letting me know if you'll be adding any of these to your shopping list!

To note: A few of these are affiliate links, most are not, but all are things I truly believe in and nothing is included just to make a buck :) 

How learning I have ADHD helped my business

This may sound obvious, but if we were all the same, life and the world would be really boring. We NEED people who are different, who think differently, and who don’t fit into the regular mould of things. Yet… when many of us don’t fit into the mould we often feel badly about ourselves. We get stuck thinking we should be able to do things exactly the same way as others. We beat ourselves up about the things we can’t get done without looking for other ways it can be done.

I’m here to tell you how my brain is different than your brain, and how I’ve learned to embrace what’s awesome about that. My hope is that what I have learned will impact the potential for you to see and do things differently in your life and business.

How learning I have ADHD has helped my business

I have ADHD and I was only diagnosed in the last few years. ADHD causes me to get distracted easily. I don’t complete things once they get boring. I’m often really bad at detail-oriented tasks. I have a hard time gauging how much time something will take, and I tend to feel deadlines are not real until they are in panic/almost due mode.

Before my diagnosis, I felt a lot of shame about those things. They were things that were hard to deal with in my business and often slowed me down. When I realized that a lot of it was because of how my brain works, SO much of the shame disappeared, and I stopped beating myself up (or at least beat myself up less). Embracing ADHD is what made having ADHD fantastic for my business!

ADHD means I am used to trying new ways of doing things, to complete tasks and to finish things without it always being last minute.

Jessica McCabe from How to ADHD recently wrote a song about how people with ADHD think differently and how it means that sometimes we just have to reframe how we’re thinking. It’s simple: when things don’t work out how we want them to “try different, try again,” and that’s been the key to my life and oftentimes how I coach people.

Over and over again, I talk to people who have a plan of action that they're not getting done. Months and months of not doing the task is only met with, “I just have to do it.” But here’s what I ask, “Do you? “Why will that work now?”

When something isn’t working I challenge you to try something different – what could you do instead to get you to the same goal? I bet there’s something really great that could work. You just need to give yourself permission to think that way.

I have Aphantasia

Every time I’m at an event or participating in an activity that starts with, “close your eyes and picture in your mind… a beach, your best life, how it would look, feel, smell, sound...” the room can probably hear my eyes roll back into my head.

Why? Because I am thinking, great… another activity I can’t do because I have aphantasia and can’t picture/hear/smell anything in my mind’s eye.

But here’s the thing – I’m super creative. I have a great memory. There’s a distinct chance I could tell you what you were wearing and where we were the first time we met, especially if you told me a story. Not being able to hear, see and smell things in my mind doesn’t hamper my ability to do most things in life (other than being able to pull things up in my mind, which sounds kind of amazing and I won’t deny being a bit sad I can’t do it).

What it highlights to me is how differently the brain works for different people. We all have different brains… we have different ways of learning, processing, and creating. That means that there can’t ever be one way to teach people, to ask them to do tasks, to motivate them, etc.

We need to find the right way for each individual person! So again, I challenge you not to get discouraged when something isn’t working for you, but instead ask yourself, what DOES work for you?

For example, I need to write things by hand and keep them in paper folders for my clients. It sounds kind of archaic, but if I don’t have the ability to write by hand I don’t remember things as well.

The brain is a fascinating thing and we need to recognize how differently it works for all of us.

Your brain and my brain aren’t the same, but we all have the ability to find the awesome in what makes us uniquely us and what works best for us.

If you want to talk more about the places you struggle with in your business – where you find yourself procrastinating, not getting things done, or beating yourself up, then book a consultation with me. I’d love to chat about how to find the different ways to make things awesome for you, because I 100% believe it’s possible!

Are your prices right?

Pricing, like sales, is one topic that business owners often get really uncomfortable talking about.

Are you charging enough? Are you making enough? Should we revisit that?

"UGH!! LARA!!! Leave me alone!"

As a business coach I don't have to leave them alone, because that's one of the reasons they want to work with me. ;)

Here are three things to think about when it comes to your pricing and whether or not it's time to make a change.

1) Are you making enough money?

When you look at how much money you're bringing home from your business (after paying your expenses, staff, saving for taxes, etc.), is the amount what you want to be bringing home? Is it meeting the minimum requirements you REALLY need? How far are you from having the amount of money you want/need to pay for the extra stuff that you'd like?

If you feel like you're working all the time and still not working enough hours (and therefore how could you ever make more money because you don't have any more time to give!) it may be time to look at your pricing. (It could also be time to look at your systems and where your time is going, but that's another conversation). :)

Do the math - how much more time do you have? How much are you making? Are you happy with that or does something have to change?

2) Are you remembering your non-billable hours?

When you own a business, not every hour you're working is something you're getting paid for. Networking, learning, updating your website, sales calls, blogging, marketing, etc. - those are all hours that you're not getting paid for.

If you think I have X hours available in a week and I want to make Y dollars and you figure out your hourly rate by dividing Y by X - you're going to have a problem.

Make sure that when you think about how much things need to cost for you to make the money you need, you're taking into account those non-billable hours.

Put it on paper - how many hours a week are you doing non-billable hours? Are you accounting for those when you think about how much time you have available to deliver services?

3) Are you charging what you would be charging if you didn't have to worry about what people think?

Some people really want to increase their rates but the fear of people telling them they're too expensive, getting mad at them, or deciding not to buy from them scares them so badly they never take action.

The fear of what might happen is impacting their bottom line.

Instead of worrying about the worst case scenario, let's think about how things could go well. Or how things have gone for other people...

I have had many clients increase their prices and even if a few people stopped buying from them at the new rate, the rate increase meant they were now working less and making more money.

I've had people increase their prices and not one single person made a comment or complained.

I've had people increase rates for new clients, but not for existing clients as a way to start phasing in increased pricing.

If you weren't worried about other people, would you change your pricing? What would that look like? What would it take to start making that a reality?

Take some time to answer all three of these questions and assess where you're at, where you want to be and what you should do to get there.

And if you want more help and support with that, I am hosting a two hour training on pricing that might be the right next step for you.

Take some time to look at your pricing so you can make what you need to be making instead of stressing about money (or lack thereof). That's not why you started this business and I want to make sure that's not what your reality is.
 

When "comparisitis" gets you down

There are days when you see someone posting all their successes online and you think:

“If they can do it, I can do it!”

“Wow, that’s so inspiring - I want to try it too!”

And other days all you think is:

“Where do they find the TIME (the energy/the will) to do any of that?!”

“Ugh, are they just trying to point out all the things I can’t make happen – is THAT the point of their "braggy" post?! To make me feel terrible? BECAUSE IT’S WORKING!!”

Now… I’m sure most of us, when we think about it calmly, know that all of those second set of responses are not about the other person at all, but more about how we’re feeling about ourselves. We’re SO hard on ourselves. We want ALL THE THINGS but don’t know how to make all the things happen and we resent that other people seem to have it all figured out.

It’s really important to remember:

• Nobody has it all together – just because they are having great fitness successes does not mean they're not struggling in other areas of their lives.

In every place that it looks like I have it all together, I very likely have an area I have decided to ignore or have dropped balls on. ;)

• We all have different priorities – someone who is focusing on one area of their business or life in a major way has probably stopped focusing on something else for that period of time, but we don’t take into consideration what OUR priorities are when we feel badly about what other people are doing really well at.
   
• It’s a constant work in progress – we’re always having to adjust and figure out what the best next step is for ourselves. Make sure to check in with yourself and see if you’re still prioritizing the right things, and if not, what needs to happen next?
   
• Don’t try to struggle through everything alone – make sure you have your people:  the ones you can talk to when you feel like you’re not doing a good job, the ones who can remind you of all your recent wins and how awesome you are (because you totally are!).

There are a few people in my social feeds who have been making me have "comparisitis"  lately. Particularly when it comes to health stuff (for you it might be getting more sales, more clients, people engaging with other content when people are not engaging with yours). I’ve had to remind myself that it’s because I WANT to be more active and feel like I’m doing the right things for my body, and my resentment towards them is more frustration at myself for not prioritizing that part of my life. So, I’m upping my health on the priority list for 2018 and re-evaluating how I’m spending my time.

I got an Apple watch and I’m working hard to track my steps and move more often. I’m going to go check out a gym I’ve been meaning to check out for a long time. I’m going to make a snowshoeing date with some fellow entrepreneurs. And I’m going to try my best to remember that it’s amazing that the people I know who are focusing on things I’d like to focus on in my life have worked hard, have struggled, and resenting them isn’t doing me any good. I either need to be OK with NOT focusing on that right now, or make some changes to make it happen for myself, because the only person who can make changes in my life is ME.

*Post brought to you by some whiny self-indulgent freak outs while scrolling through Facebook recently.*