Author: Joanne Manville

Today I’m addressing some big stuff. We are on the absolute brink -and some people may say we already are- in an economic crisis and doom and gloom and recession. And I’m here to state it and not to get caught up in it. And…with every problem there’s an opportunity and there’s a key point to learn. The key is to be prepared.

Read on or watch the video

I’m going to tell you a little story, and this story has to do with me, back in 2009 when we were having another economic crisis. I was first trying to get my life together after I had made the decision to separate from my crazy ex, which came a little bit after 2009 – I didn’t know what to do.  I really hated feeling like I was running in circles, just trying to survive. I was in an economic crisis. The great recession still had that hold on us. It was actually a couple years after 2009 but I still had that FEELING.

It reminds me of today. Sure, we’re not in covid, but many of us are still in that survival mode. So – still in an economic crisis back then, I was faced with a big decision. What do I do about living with that abusive alcoholic?  I was quite emotionally unstable and to say I was scattered would be an understatement. What I discovered in those first few years of my business and in that economic crisis, the crisis that I was in inside and out, was that counterintuitively I really needed to slow down. I had been running FAST for a long time.

The process of slowing down was unexpected. It worked really well, and that actually opened the door to me being able to think again and say ‘yes’ to my own needs. Imagine that, right? So, I found an amazing mentor, and she helped me build my coaching practice step by step. Slowing down allowed me to see what God had put right in front of me. So I ask you this, imagine if you were able to believe in yourself with ease, without getting constantly pulled in other directions by your family creating or amplifying that feeling of being scattered by that direction pulling.  It’s so common among entrepreneurs who have the shiny object syndrome. If you dare to allow yourself to imagine this, do yourself a solid (like my teenager would say) and keep reading. I’m going to give you three tips.

The first tip to remember  is to get your confidence back.  If you are making a change…for example, -you’ve been away from your business for a little while, or if 

-you are going to the next level in your business, if 

-you’ve had a change in any way, you may have moved, 

-you may have gotten divorced,

or any number of changes- that impacts our confidence. We don’t feel “in the mode.” Getting that confidence back, it’s really important to slow down and to really start working on what makes you feel good. What light do you have to shine on the world? Even if you feel a little rusty since you have not done what you used to do, and even if you feel scattered, I invite you to consider  a time in your past where you were really on your game. When you place your mind there, you will walk out in the world with that confidence. It is a number one thing people are really looking for when they begin anew and being in an economic crisis and recession and all the doom and gloom and inflation – that can knock our confidence back and we can think ‘oh my gosh, I’d better run and hide’. I don’t want you to run and hide. Running and hiding will not get you there, I promise you that. 

The second thing to consider is really taking a look at your time management – and that’s what I didn’t do. What I did is I ran around like crazy. I had great experience in running around like crazy, throwing spaghetti to the wall, smiling, kind of pretending everything was okay. And you know what? As a business owner, some days you want everything to look like Disney, or to feel like Disney – as everything is not Disney. And baking it, you can kind of tell in the background that things aren’t working. So give your time and attention to what really matters. How do you know what really matters? Well, if you’re making money at it, it’s lighting you up and it’s and it’s really aligning with you and your vision then those are the things that you really want to focus on.  

Last but not least there’s a fear that some people have right now and that is that they will have to work full-time in order to support themselves, and that they will have no time to continue building their business the way they want because they just don’t have enough hours in the day.  So for that, what I’ll say is you don’t have to work full-time. What’s so important is that you have enough coming in to cover your bills or you have enough put aside somewhere to cover your bills for the next (at least) three months while you’re undergoing some changes in your life.  Whatever they are, whether it’s working on your confidence, taking care of your trauma, or maybe you’re in a business building program, whatever the case may be that you do have enough coming in or put aside, it’s actually really important.

The bottom of my iceberg graphic is economic and financial security. If you don’t have that it’s virtually impossible to really stay focused on the things that really matter. You’re going to be in constant fear and worry, and we don’t want you in constant fear and worry. 

That’s what I have for today. In summary, you have a beautiful opportunity  to harness the “crap of what’s going on in the world,” to take whatever transition you’re in, and capitalize on opportunities that present themselves. Transitions can be starting a new business, upleveling your existing business, changing your business model, getting divorced, getting married, or moving. Regardless, you must stay focused.  These are wise ways to do it. So stay tuned for the next lesson for those, which will come out on Wednesday.

What transition might you be in? Comment below and let me know!

Secret struggles and their surprising solutions

It’s a good time to talk about physical clutter because most of us (at least in the Northern Hemisphere), are still by and large in our homes. We’re not spending quite as much time outdoors. So it’s a beautiful time to really take a look around our homes as it gets a little bit brighter and nicer out because we want to make sure that we’re ready to go outdoors; we’re ready to feel free (not guilty) about doing that. It also helps us be more productive and happy in our homes, and in our offices, when we are indoors to really have it be as clutter free as possible. 

Let’s review 3 struggles regarding physical clutter, and the process of decluttering!

1. The first struggle is starting. Sometimes, it’s just so overwhelming!  Let’s say you desire to do some de-cluttering. However, it just feels incredibly overwhelming. Why might that be?  It could be that, if you’ve got a home and the whole thing is in clutter, not just your home office, but really so much of it – so where do you even start? So you find yourself procrastinating. You find yourself being on Facebook and you find yourself going out of your home being “too busy” to do these things. And it’s overwhelming. So that’s number one, how do you get started?

BONUS NOTE:  if you’re keenly self-aware, you may notice a lot of voices in your head saying, ‘why bother?’ Quite likely, comes back to this truth. The voices might say you “are not meant to be organized.” These voices that come into your head are REAL and they may prevent you from getting started. When something is too big, say- a whole house to declutter, make the project SMALLER!

SECOND BONUS NOTE: Don’t try to do everything. DO NOT TRY TO  “Organize everything and figure it all out” first.  You may have this idea that everything has to be all organized and figured out before you just do one little piece. The opposite is most likely true.. In fact, if you just do one little piece, that’s the momentum of starting. The momentum of starting helps you continue and be more motivated to do more. Go ahead and dial your project down into a manageable chunk. Sometimes, the first step must be so small that it feels ridiculous. Even if it’s just a “pavement change”, like a threshold in your mind that you are going over, (moving one piece of paper, for example) it gets you momentum to move two pieces of paper.  I’m running a group right now. We’re calling ourselves the Goldilocks Goal Getters, meaning not too big, not too small, just right!  We err to be smaller on our goals than bigger. Why???  When we have bigger goals, they don’t get done because they become so overwhelming. Small = starting.

2. The second struggle is consistency.  I had a client and she did a declutter of her home office. Then she ended up with a bunch of to-dos, and then that felt overwhelming. She asked, “what do I do first? Now I’ve got all these piles and all these to-dos, but then what do I do with them?” The answer is, again, make it small, one at a time.  So, how does she create consistency? She might choose to spend an hour a day on each of these to-dos. That’s a great beginning.  Then what can happen?  Those darn voices can come in and say “but you’ll never finish it.” KNOWING THAT THE VOICES ARE NOT ‘YOU’ OR ‘TRUE’ IS POWERFUL!

I had a client with a backlog of client actions that needed to be taken, and this person is still super busy with the work that they’re doing day in and day out. So to get through that backlog a little bit at a time almost seems like throwing stones in the tide, and it’s not that way. Let’s use a beach metaphor. You’ve got the whole beach and you’ve got the tide, but maybe there’s a little pool right where the tide is, the tide has come in and then left some water there, and then it’s gone out a bit. And you get to address just that pool right there, and that pool matters, and that pool feels manageable. That’s how to do it in the short term. Sticking to things in the short term is all about dialing it into a manageable chunk, and then being okay with doing these things. It could be one hour a day, or it could be one day a week on a Saturday, something like that. A big part of this solution is “being okay” with the fact that it’s not going to be all done all at once. Sounds kind of silly perhaps, and I find that  we think it has to get done all at once. That’s ‘all or nothing’ thinking, and ‘all or nothing’ thinking is a great way to guarantee that you will fail.

So,  allow yourself those small steps, those baby steps. Reward yourself along the way, even though you think you shouldn’t get a reward, “because it’s too small of a step”. It’s actually the opposite. Doing the small steps and then rewarding yourself  will actually get you somewhere, and you will start to feel good and gain that momentum. 

3. The third struggle is longer term consistency.  How do you sustain this for the long term? One way is  to enlist external help. You’ll start to believe in yourself with your shorter term consistency, saying for example, “hey, I just cleaned out my ‘command central’ area in my kitchen”.  Many people have their command central in their kitchen – they’ll have mail, their phone, a calendar, etc.  This example  is more of a home organization type, and all systems  bleed together when we’re an entrepreneur. So once that’s  set up, now we can take that success and bring it outside to elicit external support. We can bring in our family members, we can bring in our colleagues, and we can say, “Hey, look, I’ve got this success, now how do I do my next thing … and my next thing … and my next thing?” Before you know it, the whole house (or office, or organization) is dealt with- little bits at a time. Actions every day, every week, every month, and giving yourself those prizes, continuing asking for help, giving yourself bigger prizes and being okay when things do fall apart, because it’s most likely they will…all those are steps for LONG term, consistent success.

CAUTION: That ‘all or nothing’ thinking can return! That thinking that “unless I’m done perfectly and it stays this way forever, I may as well not bother.” So remember, that thinking is  a great way to guarantee failure. 

Now that you know the top 3 struggles and how to overcome them, what will be your next step? Set a goal, for example, first day of spring on Mar 20, 2023 to create one small habit that will create momentum.

Comment below and let me know what that step might be!

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You are NOT alone!