Hey everyone! I’m excited that we’ve wrapped up the first quarter of 2022, and we are now almost halfway through Q2! I can’t believe how fast time flies.
I do have to admit, Q1 for me was very VERY challenging. I was in uncomfortable situations and kind of felt very overwhelmed with trying to scale my business.
I took some time to reflect on these few months and I’ve summed up the main lessons I’ve learned into three points.
Let’s unpack this together.
PRIORITIZE PRIORITIZE PRIORITIZE!
This might seem like a “no sh*t Sherlock” tip but I truly couldn’t leave it out of this blog post. As I said during Q1, I found myself very overwhelmed with trying to scale my business.
Although I hired quite a few team members to help out, I still had a lot on my plate and felt like I had to get EVERYTHING done in 1 day and if I didn’t, I FAILED.
My mental health took a big hit, and I constantly felt like I wasn’t doing enough. In my daily journal, I would write down literally EVERYTHING I had to get done that week and expect myself to finish that full list in one day. Obviously, this rarely happened, and it sucked.
I realized that it was unrealistic for me to put this much pressure on myself and to feel so disappointed when I didn’t get everything done.
Instead what I started doing was PRIORITIZING what needed to be done that day and out of everything I wrote down, to highlight 3 things that, IF I got done that day I would feel good about myself.
These 3 things were usually the most crucial to get me one step closer to my goal, so that at the end of the day I am making progress at a good pace.
Instead of punishing myself for not getting to-do list items done, I would just move them to the next day and go through the PRIORITIZING process again.
Don’t skip out on your MORNING ROUTINE.
This one was LIFE CHANGING. I am the type of person that likes to get up, hold her phone in bed, take a quick skim through emails, and get right to work.
I feel like I wake up and my brain is already wired to begin working and getting things done. I found that doing this leave me very burnt out, and sluggish throughout the day.
I would feel in need to do something for myself, constantly getting distracted and overall not in the best mood.
However, one day, I decided I’m going to create a morning routine that I love.
I decided I’m going to wake up earlier than usual, move my body for at least 20 mins (usually through mat pilates), then take a shower, make my coffee, spend some time learning something new, THEN I start to work.
That way I feel energized and ready to start my workday with the right mindset. Instead of being reactive to all the emails I’m getting and demands from everyone else, I am not taking matters into my own hands, being proactive, and allocating my time in my own way.
Hold people accountable, even if they have BIG personalities
For my last tip here, I wanted to mention something that I think everyone will encounter at some point during business.
As I said, we were going through a major expansion phase during Q1 and so we hired quite a few people to help us out with this.
Some hires were great and some weren’t.
What I realized is even if you hire very experienced professionals. You are still the CEO of your business and you know your brand better than anyone.
My mistake was I trusted blindly, I said of course because this person is SUPER experienced and well connected, they’ll get us the results we expect.
Unfortunately, that isn’t true, and just because someone has built a name for themselves doesn’t mean you shouldn’t hold them accountable for the results they are supposed to deliver.
Of course, this forced both me and my business partner to have a very uncomfortable conversation with a BIG personality and I was SCARED!
At that point, I felt like a little fish in a HUGE pond and I started to doubt all my authority and knowledge.
The conversation actually ended up going great but this experience has taught me to hire smart, but to remain aware.
Just because this particular hire seems to be very experienced and well-versed in their field, doesn’t mean you should avoid holding them accountable when they don’t deliver the results you expected.
Until next time,
