Moving forward into a clear vision for 2020

This is the time of year many people look back and review the year and/or decade and also look ahead to a clearer vision for 2020. Have you created space for yourself to reflect on 2019 and the last few years? Have you scheduled some time to look ahead, by yourself, with your family and for your business?

Looking back and learning

It’s great to reflect on the past. We can learn lots of lessons from our own experiences, as well as those from history.give yourself a gift create vision 2020 It’s very easy to think “that didn’t work”, and ditch the learning as to WHY it didn’t work. In fact, some of my biggest lessons have been from the things which didn’t work. You’ll find that repeated in the life stories of many successful business owner, sportsmen and women and celebrities.

It can also be freeing to look back knowing that the past is past. At one time I was stuck in a loop of my past failures. It was like I was stuck in the same spot not able to move forward and it felt like I was being tormented by decisions I’d made, or situations which had affected my life. The record in my head was stuck on the same words, going round and round. I couldn’t break free. It took a lot of tears, heartache and it felt like hard work to realise that I had a choice to move forward and away from the sticky mud which was holding me back.

Looking back doesn’t have to be a long process. It may feel scary, but you may have missed some great lessons that could be useful as you move into the new year and new decade.

Being scared v being scary

My 11 year old niece was diagnosed with, had removed, and needs no further treatment for a brain tumour in the space of three weeks this month. Yes, it was a scary time. It’s always the not knowing what’s going on that feels scary. Yet, I wasn’t scared. And for most of the time, she wasn’t either. She was incredibly calm and continued to be her bubbly self, entertaining others, talking to others and spreading joy in the children’s ward to children more poorly than her. My niece chose to accept this “thing in my brain that shouldn’t be there”, and carried on being herself. It was scary but she wasn’t scared.

I truly believe that her attitude of allowing things to be what they are and focus on staying positive and listening to her body has helped her recover well ahead of the average time for a situation like this. I’ve learnt lots from this experience. Different members of the family responded differently. There was nothing we as individuals could do apart from love and support my niece, and each other, and support the doctors and nurses who had the expertise to remove the tumour and help her back on her feet.

Looking back, I’m sure we’ll all see more things we can learn from this experience. I only hope that my niece and all the family remember that it’s OK to go through scary things in life. We have a choice whether to be scared by them, or put our trust in our own body and those experts who are supporting us.

Clear vision 2020 workshop series

None of us can know what lies ahead. But we can take control of our lives and put plans in place to make our dreams come true. Are you clear what your dreams are? What if all your dreams did come true? How would you feel?

“Peace of mind”, “Empowered to succeed”, “Experiencing love and connection”, “Feeling joy”, “Smashing my targets”, “I can see things clearly”, “Connected to my family again”, “Money flowing in like never before” are all words clients have used this year as we’ve worked together on one aspect of their life or business growth.

To help you learn from past experiences and move forwards into the new decade I’m working with Deborah Marie Isis, who I’ve known for about 4 years now. Deborah is a highly skilled coach. We’ve helped each other to grow ourselves and businesses, and suddenly had a light bulb moment a couple of months ago – why not work together to help others?

We’re putting our joint experience and expertise together to help you to do business differently as you move forward to create more personal and business success.

You can use the workshop series to either focus on your personal vision, or your vision for your business. Choose one for now. You can then use the replay to re-do the session for any other aspects of your life where you need a clear vision for success. Simply sign up for the fr£e workshops and get support through our online group. It’s truly amazing when you spend time looking at things differently – you see different things! 😉

As we all move into 2020, maybe with joy, often with trepidation about what lies ahead, I encourage you to spend time reflecting on what you’ve learnt this year. Take time out of the busy-ness to do things you love doing. For me, that’s reading and walking which isn’t easy when others around me just want to sit or there’s food preparation to do. Deborah and I are looking forward to help you reflect more deeply, and look forward with love to your future. I hope you can use our expertise to help you move from any stuckness you feel.

I wish you and your family health and happiness this festive season and a wealth of joy for the year ahead.

Have you created a clear vision 202o? Care to share how you’ve done this?

5 tips for being consistent to create success

being consistent is key to successConsistency is key to success.

Jack Hughes, age 15.

That’s what my son told me on the way home from run training on Thursday. He’d been discussing it with his running mates, and they agreed that when they were consistent they improved more. They could feel the difference in their performance. He told me it wasn’t about being quick or slow, or even completing the session that was set. It was about doing something every day.

He’s noticed that consistency in his school work helps too. He’s learnt that to do some French word revision every day helps him retain and grow in understanding the language.

Isn’t it fascinating that we can learn lessons from all parts of life and apply them to others?

What does your week look like when you’re consistent? What does it feel like?

And what does it look and feel like when you’re inconsistent?

Quite different I imagine! It is in my life!

Some people talk about “being in the flow” and feeling that nothing can go wrong when they’re in this state. I find that this state comes when I’m focused and am being consistent in my approach and work over the past few days.

5 tips for being consistent

That’s the big question isn’t it? HOW to do it. You know that it reaps results, but how do you get there?

  1. Know the result you’re aiming for.

For my son, he’s got a goal of being in his county team for national cross country championships, and doing well (he hasn’t defined that any further, but he will closer to the event). And he’s working towards some grade goals for his GCSEs next summer which he’s set himself. He’s clear what his goals are.

Every time he does a piece of work, some revision tests or reading, or goes for a run or does his pilates session, he knows why he’s doing it. Some days he doesn’t feel like doing it, so may not work at 100% effort. But that’s OK. Each step is a step however big or small it is, and he can see that each step is worth it towards his goals.

KNOW YOUR WHY

Do you know why you’re working towards something?

I often have clients say, “I have to create content on social media”. “Why?” Is my response. What purpose does sharing a post on social media have for you? How is it helping towards your long term goal?

If you’re clear about why you’re doing something, it makes it much easier to take small steps and do little things which help you achieve your goal. For example, if you’re trying to grow your online presence to share your expertise with a wider audience, then sharing social media posts consistently helps you be visible to your potential audience. If your audience doesn’t use social media channels, then it’s probably not the best thing you can do with your time to be continually posting online.

  1. Know what time you’ve got available to work towards your goal.

Life is busy, and we all have many responsibilities and interests which take our time. There may be fixed things you have to do, (sleep is one of them!) that you have to do every day. You may have some weekly activities you’re involved with. Put these in your diary or schedule first.

Once you’ve got your regular activities and commitments in your schedule you can see more easily what time you’ve got available for your work towards your goals. It may be that this month you’ve only got an hour a week. That’s fine. Use the time effectively and you’ll still be making progress. Remember, consistency is key.

  1. Work out what’s the most important next step

There’s lots of different ways to get to the top of the mountain. Once you know what you’re wanting to achieve, and you’ve identified the time you’ve got to work towards it, you need to know what your next step is.

There may be some things which have to happen first. For example, if you’re making a cake, you need to buy ingredients before you can weigh them out. You have to do some things in a certain order.

So what’s the most important thing for you right now?

  • Make connections?
  • Set up a structure or system?
  • Create some product?
  • Make some more space in your week to work on your ideas?

Whatever it is, think about the order you need to do things in.

  • Do you need to create a piece of art before you go to the gallery to ask for exhibition space?
  • Do you need to know how much your item will cost to produce before you set your pricing structure?
  • Do you need to have some product to sell before you meet an interested group of customers?
  • Do you need more training to grow in confidence about your service?
  1. Write your tasks in your schedule

My son has a revision timetable. He has scheduled time in his week to revise, and he’s set himself small tasks to do in those available times.

If you’ve got a list of things you want to do, and time available to do them, sometimes it’s matching the time to the task. Some tasks take longer than others, so you need to assign that time accordingly. Other tasks you may be able to fit in to smaller slots of time. Checking emails for example can be done in smaller chunks of time than creating a piece of artwork!

In our house we have a rule, “if it’s not in the diary it’s not happening”. In theory whatever goes in the diary first is what we commit to. The boys know that if they put things in the diary we’ll help them to do it, and they take this into their weekly planning now too.

  1. Take action

It’s all well and good having all these great plans, but if you don’t do anything nothing will happen. So follow your schedule, do the tasks and keep being consistent. If it’s one hour a week, or five hours a day, you’re making progress towards your goal.

Some days will be harder than others to do everything you’ve scheduled. Life happens. Phone calls interrupt you. New opportunities you didn’t expect show up. But what you’ll find is that if you stick as closely as you can to your scheduled tasks is that by being consistent you’ll see growth.

Growth could be personal growth. Learning how to do things better. Understanding what’s best for you and trying out new ways of doing things.

Business growth can also be seen well through being consistent. A client told me that when she posted daily on one of her social media accounts when she physically met people they’d talk to her about her posts. They weren’t necessarily turning into sales each day she posted, but by opening up the conversation just by being consistent in one area of her marketing it allowed her potential customers to know what she did and how she could help them. It made her more accessible to those people who were happy to talk about her posts, which led on to talking about her services.

Being consistent is about working towards your long term goals. Each step or task helps you move a little bit closer. Even if you find you need a slightly different path, you wouldn’t have discovered that without being consistent in your approach.

How will you find out how being consistent can help you?

You are most likely part way there, and feel like you’re falling off the wagon when your schedule gets disrupted. At least you’re on the wagon most of the time! It can feel frustrating when you have good weeks and bad weeks, high days and low days.

I’ve often found it helps if I have someone I’m accountable to apart from myself and my diary. When I work with my coaches I always set tasks and then write them in my diary. I check back in with them to update them on my progress. It helps to keep me focused.

The Action Learning Sets (or mastermind groups if you prefer that name) I’ve created also help you stay focused, and support you each step of the way. I currently have some spaces in the Lancashire meet up, 2nd Tuesday every month and the online group, 3rd Wednesday every month. If you’d like to learn more, book an explore call.

Do you have any tips for being consistent in your life? Please leave a comment below.

When is it a good time?

I’ve had a few conversations with friends and clients these past few weeks about “when is it a good time” to do something, tell someone about a decision, or make a life change.

No-one likes change. We’re human. It’s how we’re made.when is the right time

And then there’s the mind monkeys, or gremlins, whatever you call those voices you hear in your head. They talk to you all the time prompting more self doubt than you had in the first place. We all have them. They’re normal for humans too. We can learn to control them, so we start to hear them less and less.

If you find yourself saying:

  • When that happens I’ll do…
  • If only I could…
  • I need to wait until…

then you’ll understand that “when is a good time” is a common question to ask oneself.

Working out when is a good time

There may not be an answer to this. If a friend asks you when they should do something, what do you say to them? When a close friend asked me this the other week, my response was, “is there ever a good time?”. She thought about it, and agreed that there wasn’t. So we then talked about what was “right”.

Now right for her may not be right for me or you. I suggested she listened to herself, and when she felt it was the right time it would be good too.

By listening to yourself and working out what’s right for you, is the only way you can work out when a good time is for you. [Are good and right the same things? Maybe that’s a conversation for another day. I’ll continue to use both here as I’ve found people use them interchangeably. So that’s what I’ll do too.]

If you continue to ask others for their advice, you’re not owning your own choices. I know they’re hard and you want someone else to take responsibility. However, it’s hard because you know you want to change something and it feels like you’re ready. You’re just waiting for the right time to do it.

I was forced to make a big change

When I was growing my first business, I knew I was getting close to making the decision to leave my salaried position to grow my business further. Then I was made redundant and the change was made for me. I was fortunate that I had no control over this in one way, as it made me step up and continue to grow the business with a new focus.

You’ll hear some coaches talk about thinking about each day being the day before you die – what would you want to achieve today? What would you do if you knew this was last day that you could do that thing? Would you still stall and not do it? Or would you take the opportunity to just do it?

If I was to tell you now that if you don’t do it today you never will, how would that make you feel? That you have to make a change? Or it’s not worth it?

Life changes whether we like it or not

It is a fact of life that life changes. We have no choice. There are the seasons we live through. Natures life cycles of birth, growth and death. We accept that spring follows winter. We accept that death is a part of life.

Yet we often struggle to do something which only takes a few seconds to do. Yes, telling someone about a decision you’ve made only takes a few seconds, even though it’s taken hours, maybe months to think about it. Farrar Storr’s book, The Discomfort Zone brings this to life. If you’re living in discomfort because you can’t find “the right time” to tell someone about a change you’d like to make, how much are you stopping yourself from moving forward in your life?

Most change makes us feel uncomfortable. You may well feel that the change is outside your comfort zone so you don’t want to take that step. Yet you know that magic happens when you take that step. It’s all so confusing.

All of this is going round and round your head. You’re stopping yourself going anywhere with all this self-talk.

Keep it simple

Whilst the change/s you want to make may be complex, if you can keep your steps simple, you can make the change happen more easily.

Know what you want to achieve

If you know what you want to achieve, you’ll find the small steps to make changes easier. If you’re still confused about what you want, talk it through with a friend or coach and get it clear first.

Stick to your values

Be yourself. Your core values are just that. If the change you want to make is to support your values then you’ll know that it’s the right thing to do.

Ensure you’re staying safe

Whether you’re making a life change or changing careers, staying safe will be important to the timing. I include your mental health as well as your physical health here.

Creating the change at the right time

When a friend asked me to go to Malawi with her to a village in the south of the country, I felt too that it may not be the right time. However, I couldn’t find any reason why I shouldn’t go with her. It’s a fantastic opportunity to live in a village for two weeks and contribute some skills. I’m leaving my family, who are very able to look after themselves, and my business, to go off exploring. Is that a bad thing? For me it’s not. I’m excited and delighted my friend asked me. I’ve had three weeks to think about it and two more to prepare everything I need.

What questions do you ask yourself to work out when is it a good time for you? If you need help working something out, book a complimentary Explore call or work with me.

Are you listening to your business?

” Change is part of our existence. How you respond to change is what creates the impact. ”
Tracey-Jane Hughes

are you listening to your business and yourself

Pin to your business growth board https://www.pinterest.co.uk/pin/244320348522160650

How often and how clearly, do you listen to yourself? Do you always take notice? For instance, if you’re body is tired, do you go to bed earlier that night? If you need a break from work, do you get up, stretch and grab a glass of water? These are simple things that we need to respond to to change our state, how we’re feeling, and create an impact on our body.

What about your work life? If you run your own business, do you notice what’s going on in your business and in your industry? Are you listening to your customers – whether it’s feedback or lower sales? Do you investigate each aspect of your business regularly?

In the 15 years I’ve been in business there’s been massive change in technology, buying habits, the shape of the high street, media coverage. And of course, social media has changed how news and ideas travel, and what people see regularly. We may not like the changes that happen in our society, but they affect the environment in which we live and work, so at the very least we need to notice them. And ideally, notice what effect those changes are having on our own life and business.

Are you listening to your business as well as yourself?

If you don’t spend time noticing and listening to yourself or your business, you won’t make changes. Maybe there’s some tweaks you can make to your product or service, or exercise plan or nutrition that will make an impact on the results you want to achieve.

I’ve noticed that some business owners I work with are frightened of change. In fact, I was the same at one time, so I do understand. When you’ve got a plan, you feel you need to complete the plan otherwise you’ve failed. None of us like to fail do we? How about you think about making changes to the plan in response to what you’re hearing and noticing? What if you listened to yourself and realised that you don’t actually like doing that part of the work you do. Could someone else do it instead and benefit the growth of each individual and the business? As humans we’re very good at hiding things deep inside. We put things in a box and hide it in another box, and often throw away the key thinking we’ll be safe now. But you haven’t changed anything have you? You’ve just hidden something hoping it will go away.

These past few months for me have been about change. It’s been brought about from completing my book, “Passion is not Enough – Explore your passion and grow your business or social enterprise“, which is available this week. I’ve listened even harder and changed the shape of my businesses, and my focus, to do what I really want to do – Inspire others to listen to themselves to take the action to move forward so that they can inspire others.

I won’t lie, it was hard at first, as I had all these plans for the year ahead. I felt I was letting people down by not completing them. But then I realised I’d be letting myself down if I didn’t listen to myself, and letting others down if I stuck with things which weren’t quite right for me. It’s not easy. But I can say now, in launch week that it’s totally worth it.

So my focus has shifted slightly, and I’m delighted to be offering a series of short workshops and Q&A to help people turn Passion into Profit. If you’d like access to these, or join a session live, please join us here (you need to confirm you want this information sending to you). By the end of the two weeks there’ll be 8 short workshops, plus Q&A with attendees on different topics relating to growing your business. There’s a conversation channel too for continuing to learn together, and support you to listen and explore any changes that you want to try in your life and business.

Book launch 17th May 2019

I invite you to my online book launch on 17th May, 1pm. I’ll be holding this on Facebook, and I’d love to celebrate this day with you. You can pre-order the book here, and I’d be delighted to send you a copy from the office, for yourself or a friend who’s currently exploring setting up a business or social enterprise. The feedback from a wide variety of readers has been that it’s helped individuals explore all sorts of aspects of their life and work.

Wherever you are on your journey, on your plan for the year, or your life plan, I encourage you to take time to listen. Really listen to yourself and notice what you’d like to change. The 90 day Passion into Profit programme (which will be slightly longer than that due to a short trip to Africa for me – more of that another time), is a small group programme to help you to do just that – listen more, and maybe listen differently to yourself and your business. We’re starting 3rd June. If you’d like to know more, message me and we’ll book a call to see if this is right for you. (Still got some technology fixes to do, like my online diary!)

“It’s really good to feel guided and supported and Tracey-Jane seems to have a limitless supply of encouragement” Lora

Your life your work your way

It’s been a fascinating few months for me. I feel like I’ve been hiding away, working on a few projects, and now suddenly I’m at the end of the tunnel where I can see the wonderful view. Ever felt like that yourself?

Your life, your work, your way

This is one of my personal mantras. I share this idea with those I work with, as well as friends and family. I’ve your life your work your wayshared it for a while. But it’s only these last few months that I’ve really understood what this means to me.

I’ve been writing a book. I now know this will be my first book, but I didn’t know that when I started it. I started out wanting to share my business story, so that others could learn from the mistakes learning points I’ve made in my 15 years of running my own businesses.

What I’ve learnt through this process, with the support of an amazing [book] coach Dale Darley, is that writing a book can really help you process everything in a new way. It’s a different way of thinking. I thought I’d done all my thinking, sorting and processing over the past 2 years, and had got my business models clear. I thought I knew what I wanted to focus on and what my skills were.

Writing the book has fine tuned my life, my work in the right way for me.

I may well have been hiding writing these past couple of months, but I’ve also been thinking and going on my own explorations with my own businesses and life.

Writing Passion is not Enough – Explore your passion and grow your business or social enterprise has helped me explore my own passions, and work out more clearly what my personal visions are for sharing them with others. I had to stop what I was previously doing to create time and space for this exploration.

I may have let some people down by this. If it’s affected you, I apologise. I know I haven’t taken opportunities which were available to me. It wasn’t the right time, and it was right that I let them pass by.

New way of working and living

At the end of this tunnel I’ve walked through is a new way of living and working for me. I’m clearer what I want, and how I want to achieve it. I know I’m a better listener, coach, mother, wife, friend, sister, volunteer, business owner, author, speaker, woman because of the time I’ve spent working through each step of this process.

The book is being launched 17th May, and I’m very excited about it 🙂 I’ve worked hard, but not in the way that most people imagine. There’s been a lot of soul searching. Daily journaling to get clear. I’ve used my team of coaches who have been so supportive and encouraging through these past few months. My online cheerleaders in the many groups I’m involved in and acquaintances who I’ve never met, but have encouraged and inspired. And my own Business Cheerleading Club members have been amazing. Thank you.

I’m clearer now about how all my interests and passions fit together. I’m focused on supporting others. I’ve created a new 90 day programme to help enterprise owners turn passion into profit. I’ve started my social enterprise Listen2Me.

And all because I listened to myself. Allowed myself the time to explore what was right for me.

I’d love to help you find your way too. I’m in the process of updating the ways I can help you, to make it easy for you to find a slot in my diary (some technological changes are needed). I suggest you book an Explore call for starters, and let’s see what’s best for you right now.

You are procrastinating for a reason

Do you think you are procrastinating for a reason?

It’s been fascinating working through daily journalling prompts from Dale Darley on the 101 days of Being Me be more yourself and stop procrastinatingjourney since the start of the year. Her prompts have made me think deeply about aspects of my life and work. Some days I’ve been inspired to do new things. Other days I’ve reflected on the past. The whole process has shown me just how important it is to be me.

These reflections and writing daily, (I’ve added in an extra daily session to focus on me, as I wanted to maintain my usual morning reflections which I’ve enjoyed for over a year now), have helped me re-look at aspects of my life and work which may not be totally me, and don’t fit naturally into my vision for the future. Things which others may be ‘expecting’ me to do, without any agreement on my part.

Some of those things, like shopping, cooking, cleaning, washing are part of a parent’s role. However, I don’t remember signing up to all these extra duties when I first became a parent!

How many of the roles you take on are assumed roles?

We all have multiple roles in our lives. Some we assume ourselves, and others which may be something we agree to, but simply happen. Take being a daughter or son – that’s a role we have by nature of being a human being. Each one of us will have a different sense of what that role means, and how we play it.

Then there’s those roles which you may have as part of your work environment – a teacher, mentor, introducer, networker, library of knowledge. Others will assume you’re happy to do things by virtue that you’ve always done them, or you’re in “that role”.

In your friendship group or community you may be seen as “the organiser”, or “the communicator”. Roles which others assume you’re OK with. Are you?

Looking at myself these past 101 days, I’ve realised that some of the assumed roles I’m seen as aren’t naturally me. I’ve taken them on or grown into them because it’s needed and no-one else will do it; or, I’m being helpful; or I can’t say no to people who ask me to help them. Some of them aren’t me though and it feels out of sync with who I am to continue.

Have you got roles which aren’t totally right for you?

Are you procrastinating for a reason?

One of the things I’ve noticed is that when I’m doing things which aren’t part of my natural instincts I’ll procrastinate. I’ll put things off, not do them, or make excuses.

I’ve always known that when you find things challenging that’s when you procrastinate more. What I hadn’t realised until this recent personal development work, was how much I do isn’t naturally me. When I’m using my skills and talents to help others I can whip through a list of tasks which surprises me. My productivity is like lightning!

When I’m sorting out the car insurance renewal, for example, or thinking about things which are part of a role someone else has assigned to me, it can take me ages to get things sorted out.

Are you the same?

Knowing yourself better helps reduce procrastination

Out of all my learning about listening, listening to myself has been one of the most important lessons. Just like the 101 days of being me has helped me learn more about myself and what makes me me, I’ve allowed myself to listen and respond to what I’ve learnt.

About 18 months ago I discovered the Five Institute’s Vitality Test, and have been learning more about myself from the team ever since. It’s fascinating and has helped me understand that to be me, I need to embrace my differences, not hide them.

We’re all unique individuals. We all have talents and skills different from the rest of our family, friends and community. But we are often not encouraged to be different.

As teenagers we want to fit in and be accepted.

We want to fit in and get a job, a house, a car. Be part of a team and community.

And to do this we often hide parts of ourselves.

One of the books I’ve re-read during the last month is Brene Brown’s The Gifts of Imperfection. It was perfect for my learning more about myself. The other one I’ve loved is Michelle Obama’s Becoming. Both these books tell the story of realising you are you. You are perfect as you are. You don’t need to hide any part of you.

Be yourself, it’s much easier

My Body Brain Balance mentor Laura Donnelly, says, “Ease anywhere, is ease everywhere”. If you’re being yourself there’s no need to hid anything is there? You can simply be you. By being you, you’re doing the things you love and there’s no need to procrastinate about anything.

Sounds simple, right?

Well, I’ve certainly learnt lots these past few years, culminating in the journalling journey of the past 101 days. All these books, ideas, and even writing my own book called Passion is not enough, have taught me that I simply need to be me. When I’m me, I do my best work. I help more people. My love for my work and supporting others shines through.

Get over Procrastination Workshop

Even though I’ve learnt lots, I love learning and am looking forward to learning from Nick Haines from Five Institute about Procrastination in this 60 minute expert online workshop for the Business Cheerleading Club.

Nick will help us to understand ourselves a bit better so we can catch ourselves, or change the way we do things so we’re more ourself and don’t need to procrastinate.

Do you think you are procrastinating for a reason?