EMMA: [00:00:00] I was silly enough to pick the word intentional for the year. Sounds simple, right? But have found it to be one of the hardest things to do in business. Slowing down enough to actually be intentional, not reacting to things, sleeping on decisions versus making those snap decisions. And I know it's not just me.
I see women running. Businesses at full speed, ticking off lists, saying yes to everything, filling every gap in the diary, and then wondering why. Hmm? Why aren't the results matching the effort or where they're arriving to the end of the year? Absolutely cooked.
I've been there, I've done it, and I've learned sometimes the hard way that speed is not the same as progress. Hell, sometimes I still do it because I'm only human. And today I want you to ask yourself this, Is this me? You may think on the surface you have it nailed, but keep coming back to that question.
Is this me? I talk a lot about the messy middle in [00:01:00] business, that stage where you are growing, but it feels a bit chaotic and overwhelming. And one of the patterns I see is people adding more things into their diary without pulling stuff out. More offers, more content, more events, more yeses. And before you know it, you are running so fast you can't even tell if you're running in the right direction.
I think we've all been there. This is a conversation more for myself than anyone else today anyway. I had a client who came to me who was absolutely flying. She was successful by anyone's measure, but she'd hit a point where she was asking herself, when is enough? Enough? She was ambitious, she was driven doing all the things, and yet something.
Something just felt a little bit off. She wasn't burnt out exactly, but she was running on autopilot and when we dug into it, she realized she'd been focused on the next milestone and the next milestone. So much so that she'd forgotten to check whether the milestones really [00:02:00] actually mattered to her.
Have you ever done that? I have to admit that I have not proud of it. Any who hashtag human, it was a new season for her, almost like a rebirthing, which was so beautiful to watch, and the first step wasn't adding more. It was pausing long enough to ask her some reflective questions. What am I doing to look after myself?
Do I have something to look forward to? Is there hope in what I'm building? And those questions, they changed everything for her. I only knew to ask those questions 'cause that's what I had to do a few years ago in my business when I felt like I was doing all the things, putting all the content out, having all the right conversation, and yet nothing felt like it was getting traction.
And it sucked, and also motivating. And I felt like I was banging my head against a brick wall and that I didn't have the energy to keep going. All made up in my head, of course, all the narrative I was telling myself, but I did [00:03:00] finally decide to look under the hood and ask myself what's actually going on.
I listed all the things that gave me joy and all the things that didn't. I looked at the things I needed to keep doing because they're the things. I needed to keep doing and the things that I couldn't keep doing because I didn't need to do them, and that was a turning point. And it it only happened because I slowed down long enough to be honest with myself.
Now I've learned to watch for warning signs and the signs that tell me I'm moving too fast and not being intentional enough. And for me, the red flags are really obvious. They're resentment, they're reduced gratitude, and they're increased complaining. So when I start noticing those little things creep in, I know I need to take a step back, go quiet and assess.
And I also see this in my clients. One of the big ones is what I call the busy trap. I had a client who was winning work then getting busy, then telling herself she was too busy to win more work, and then finished her delivery and [00:04:00] started panicking because the pipeline was empty. So she'd go into hustle mode to find new clients.
There was no consistency in cash flow, no consistency in energy, and she was running from either a place of desperation or a place of overwhelm, and there's no middle ground. We've all been there, you know it. So we had to help her reprogram herself. Yeah, it took a couple of months to get into the rhythm that you don't stop building relationships even when you're busy, you don't stop selling. And if you get to the point where you can't take on any more work right then and there, you tell people you need a little start a little bit later. You tell them you sold out for a month. You take a phased approach, you start a wait list, you put your prices up, but you don't just disappear when you get busy.
People laugh, but we do disappear when we get busy. It's head down, bum up season. But that's what happens when you are not intentional. You're being reactive instead of proactive and reactive. Ladies, reactive is freaking exhausting, don't you reckon? So then the question is, what does it [00:05:00] look like to slow down and be intentional?
It's not about doing less for the sake of doing less, it's about doing the right things with the full attention. Now, my word of the year originally was slow, but in true Emma style, I found that a bit boring. So I had to switch it to intentional. And here's how it turns out. For me, it literally starts with how I set up my day.
I do a guided meditation first thing in the morning to feel grounded. I go for a walk so that my body is moving, and the first half of my walk I do in silence. Even when my hubby's with me, we just get into that rhythm. I eat breakfast, I have a cup of tea, and when I head into my office, I put on a diffuser or a candle that sets the tone for the day.
I've also built in a daily nap, which started when I was unwell, but I kept it because it became a deliberate reset in my day, even when I don't actually sleep, especially on my busy coaching days when we dis are discussing big things that can feel heavy, and so I need a [00:06:00] way to reset my day so the next client doesn't get the dregs of me.
If you know, you know, right. It gives me a clear break and some I come back sharper for the afternoon. Speaking of lunch, I always try and eat my lunch in silence. I put in as much quiet to my day as I possibly can because that's what gives me energy and I've become a huge fan of jomo. The joy of missing out.
I'm very selective about what I say yes to. I say no more often, and I've got comfortable with missing out. Honestly, I'm okay with missing out. One of my favorite things is something so simple. It sounds silly. I stare out the window. Honestly, it's free. It allows my brain to process the day. I also love having a, you know, lovely hot cup of tea and a beautiful tea cup and just thinking about nothing, zero, zilch, and I do it more than I care to admit.
I, and I love it. There's a little piece of scientific evidence about this. If [00:07:00] you have heard of a psychologist called Dr. Adam Fraser, he wrote a book called The Third Space, which is time in a corporate organization, moments between meetings, or moments between tasks or moments to just give yourself a breath.
And it only takes five seconds normally. But what I try and do is, and I coach my clients around driving in silence to their next thing, driving home in silence. If you work from home, it's a bit harder to do, so I have to do lots of steps. But if you are actually driving somewhere, drive somewhere in silence.
Allow your mind to process the day. Allow your mind to get into whatever mode you need to when you hit home. And on the way to work, start thinking about work so that when you get there, boom, you're ready to go. My clients have told me that this is a game changer. I find it a game changer. Silence. It isn't a grand gesture.
The silence are [00:08:00] small, intentional pockets of stillness that keep me sharp for the big stuff. Being intentional also means getting really clear, really clear about what you're spending your time on, and sometimes a little framework helps. So of course I'm going to help you with that. I've talked about my approach before to managing overwhelm and it works.
Just as well here first. Ditch what you don't need anymore. Then delegate or outsource to whoever has the skills and the will to do it. And finally, figure out what you actually need to do, what you actually need to do. The non-negotiables. I also pop a time in my diary on a Friday to work out my master list for the following couple of weeks, and I allocate the top three things to do each day.
I like to sit down at my desk first thing and get those three things done immediately. Normally, they're quite big things, so they take a bit of time and a little bit of mental energy. I wanna do that when I'm fresh, and once those three things are done, guess what I do? I stop and celebrate. [00:09:00] Yay for me.
That used to be taking the dog for a walk. Now it's just me and my thoughts. Movement, movement, movement, movement. Moving around the block, moving around the house moving also gets a bit more important when you get a little bit more mature, shall I say? It sounds simple, right? It sounds so simple, but don't be fooled into thinking that it's easy because it's all about consistency and creating those habits, and it'll take time and you'll bugger up. I bugger up all the time, but guess what? The next day is a fresh day. How cool is that? I also wanna share what happened when I got intentional about my offers.
When I hit a certain dollar figure in my business, I think it was about 720 I had 11 offers out 11, and I thought I was gonna go crazy, so I stopped. I pulled out a piece of paper and I jotted all my offers down. Then I worked out the offers that brought me joy, and then I worked out the offers that were a commercial.
Some of those didn't match always. Hopefully they match. Some of them didn't. For me, I [00:10:00] widdled it back to three offers. You would've heard this before on the podcast, one-on-one coaching, thriving Women, which is my signature program and my corporate programs three offers simple, but that clarity only came because I slowed down long enough to look at the full picture instead of just adding more.
There's a caveat to this. You need to keep doing this. You know the drill. Someone says, I want a little bit from column A and a little bit from column B, and suddenly you have a totally new bespoke offering which you then add to the website, you talk about on your socials, and then you do it again and again, and then you're back to where you started constantly.
You need to be constant with this. I had a few people say to me, I would really like a one-off session with you. And I was like, what can we possibly get done in one session? I'm not the magic bullet. And then I actually realized something. I realized if they'd done some pre-work and literally bought one thing to discuss, it might actually work.
So I built out, uh, our program called A Month of Momentum based [00:11:00] on my name, which is a one-off session with me and 30 days of support. And I popped it on the website as an experiment. And it's been so popular, it's a way to pick my brain. Uh. It feels like a fair exchange and a way for people to see if they like working with me.
My style and a way for me to help people get themselves out of a sticky spot, we might craft a cool offer. We might deal with a difficult conversation. We might look at someone's org chart. We might see where the leaks are. I might help someone craft some feedback. People have used it for. All of those things.
Now, I tell you this because I have a rule in my house now, which is one in one out, which means if you bring in a T-shirt, another T-shirt has to go in the donation pile. My family hate it. I do that in my business as well. If I think of a new offer, I experiment with it, and if it stays, something else has to get thrown out.
I take the opportunity to look at the offers that work or don't and rearrange them as I see fit. Now, if you've been around for a while listening to my [00:12:00] podcast, you would know how much I love routine strategy and discipline, and I use habit stacking as a way to ensure that some of this intentionality actually sticks a reminder.
For everyone on habit stacking and for a great book, James Clear Atomic Habits, amazing book. And basically you take something you already do automatically and you attach a new habit to it. And I've got a self-care routine that I do every evening. I have a shower, I get out, I put on my Jimmy Jams,
I do my face routine, which is maybe three steps.
I brush my teeth, I have a drink, I take my progesterone. Very important for menopause. Those things feel automatic to me now, but they're habits. Stacked over time, and we just do it slowly. And we've all heard that habits are formed in 21 days. Mm. I don't think that research is right. Some say 66 days.
Does it really matter? Either way, regardless of how long it takes, just stick with it. Be patient with yourself, and also give yourself some grace. [00:13:00] We all fall off the habits from time to time, and that's okay. So when you are building in these intentional moments, Whether it's a morning meditation, a thinking hour or two, or a Friday planning session, stack it onto something that you already do.
And review your list regularly while you're doing your to-do list. Maybe have a to don't list next to you so you know what your trade offs are, what you are negotiating on, and what you will and what you won't do. Wouldn't it be amazing if a to don't list freed you up? If it gave you better boundaries? I reckon it would.
I had a wonderful conversation with Mil Melissa bougie on the podcast. It was a long time ago, and she talked about her default style and how it is task focused, and when she's stressed or under pressure, she so shows up in a way that's very results driven. She had to be quite disciplined about carving out intentional time for the people element of her role which is actually the most important part of being a leader.
Don't you reckon? And I loved what she said about [00:14:00] knowing her style, you know, knowing your style. Know how you show up when you're feeling stressed or overwhelmed, and put some practical boundaries in place that are going to help you correct those behaviors that might be presenting in unhelpful ways.
It is almost a look at yourself first. Funnily enough, self-leadership before you can really lead anyone else or anything else. And that self-leadership, it starts with slowing down. It starts with being intentional about how you're showing up, not just what you're getting done. We had another podcast episode.
I had Kylie Broadfoot as the guest, and she said something similar when she was on the show. She talked about working out whether you're being busy or being productive, and I think that distinction is pretty interesting because busy feels like movement, productivity.
Actually is the movement, You can only tell the difference when you slow down long enough to check. So here's my challenge to you this week. I want you to pick one thing. You could block [00:15:00] out one hour this week. That is just for thinking, not doing, thinking what's working, what's not, what needs to change.
Stare at the carpet if you need to, that's free. Or two, look at your diary and find one thing you can remove or delegate something that takes your energy but is not moving you forward. Three, I'd love you to build one pocket of joy into every day. Every day this week, a slow morning, a little walk, lunch in silence, a cup of tea in a beautiful teacup, something that gives you back your energy or Write your to don't list, put it next to your to-do list and see what shifts. Pick one, start there and D me on Instagram, and tell me how it goes. I'd love to hear what wins you get from doing that, and you will get wins, I promise. Slowing down is not a luxury. It's a strategy. And the women I see thriving in business, they've figured out that being intentional with their time, their energy and their decisions is what creates sustainable success.
And as my [00:16:00] friend Emily Riggler said on the show, business ownership is hard and. Sometimes easy, but more than not hard. It has its moments of being great and it's still a business. And if you're gonna do this business, let's do it in a way that doesn't leave us all running on empty, and especially giving our family the dregs.
If this episode resonated with you, please share it with a friend or a business buddy, or someone need who needs to hear it. That's all for now. See you next week.
