Creating time for working on the business

Transcript

I talk to many business owners who are looking for a big shift in their business results. And yet, they’re not willing to do the things they need to do to shift the needle in a big way. Today, we’re going to be chatting about how important it is to carve out time to do the work on your business and specifically how you can do it.

Hello and welcome to the Clare Wood podcast, where myself and incredible guests share about money mindset, financial successes, and how to manage your money in a fun and practical way to create wealth and abundance in both your business and your life. I’m your host, Clare Wood. I’m a business coach and a money mentor. I strongly believe that money has the power to positively change the world. I can’t wait to help you transform your mindset around money, create a love of numbers and build the business of your dreams so you can live a life of financial freedom, giving and global impact.

It’s very fitting that I’m recording this episode today, talking about taking time to work on the business. Because you may be able to tell by the different acoustic sound, I’m actually not in my usual place, which is recording in my walk-in wardrobe. I’ve actually taken some time out to come away with a biz buddy of mine, Anita Siek, the founder of Wordfetti. And she’s actually been a podcast guest of mine in the past. So I’ll make sure I pop the link to that episode in the show notes for today. But we have come away to a rainforest, a little house in Montville, Queensland, Australia. And it’s a little house in the rainforest in the middle of nowhere. And we’ve come away just for two nights to really step back and spend some time doing some journaling and some strategic work on the business. And that’s what inspired me to create this episode for you guys today.

Now, I know straight away this might’ve triggered some things in you. You might’ve thought, you’re so lucky that you can have the opportunity to take time away from your children like that. You’re so lucky you’re able to invest to go and stay at a place for two nights. And yes, I totally acknowledge all of that. I’m very blessed that my husband has been supportive and has agreed to look after the kids for a few nights to give me this space to spend some time working on my business. But today what we’re going to do is we’re going to dive a little bit deeper and say, even if getting away from business isn’t an option for you, we’re going to dive into how you can create space in your own business to do the strategic work that you need to do.

Why do you need to have time to work on the business

So often as business owners, what happens is we get really caught up in the doing. Emails, client work. And if we’re wanting to make more money, what do we do? Usually take on more clients which perpetuates that cycle of more emails, more work and more client time. But the big needle-shifting changes happen when we stop doing, doing, doing, and start spending some time thinking and then make the shifts that we need to make off the back of it. As business owners, have you found when you go away on holidays, that you get some really cool ideas about your business. I know that every time I’m on a break, I get super inspired and excited. And I think of all these new things where my brain isn’t so caught up in the day to day. That it opens up to completely new possibilities.

So how do we create the opportunity to have space in our business if we can’t get away to the rainforest or on a holiday? Well, it requires making some really tough decisions yourself. You need to make the choice to step away and do the work. So what does that look like? You need to make a conscious decision that enough is enough and that you’re ready for a new thing, you’re ready for the next level. The best way I can suggest to do this is to carve out time in your calendar to work on the business, and you have to make it a non-negotiable. This advice is advice I’ve been giving to clients of mine for years, and I haven’t been so great at taking it myself. So this year I have drawn a really solid line in the sand and I have blocked out my calendar all day, every day, every Friday to do purely strategic work.

Already a few times have come up where a client says, “I can’t make my appointment, can I please book in on the Friday?” Or someone’s asked me to come on their podcast and the only day they can do is a Friday, but I’ve stood really firm to my guns because I know how important taking that time to do the strategic work is. So first step, make the decision and then take the action. Commit to yourself, I am going to take this chunk of my work week to do the strategic work. It doesn’t have to be a whole day if you don’t have that luxury. It can just be one afternoon or one morning a week. But carve the time out and whatever you do, don’t let anything else encroach on that precious time.

What is strategic work and how do I do it?

Next, you might be wondering, well, what exactly is strategic work? Strategic work is big needle-shifting actions. This isn’t about doing work in the business, it’s not about emails, it’s not about social media, it’s about strategizing and working out how you can get your business in front of more eyeballs. How you can attract more of your dream clients. Maybe it’s working on branding. Maybe it’s doing big shifts to your website. What strategic work looks like will be different for all business owners. But I know for me on my strategic days, I’m going to be planning out ways to share my message with more people. Because this year, my word of the year is impact. And I want to help more people, even if it’s not in a paid capacity.

I want to be sharing lessons on an even deeper level that will help people right across the globe. The other big thing that I’m going to be doing on my strategic days is working on courses and reading books. I’ve invested so much in courses in the last year and unfortunately I haven’t really given them the time and energy they deserve. I know how powerful it is to learn from an expert, but often we don’t go and implement these changes into our business. So I’m making a real commitment to be working through my courses on this strategic day each week. I know that learning from an expert and then implementing the changes is one of the most powerful ways to get really powerful results and really powerful changes in a business.

Making the time to work on your business

One of the common objections I get to this is, Clare, I don’t have time. I get it, I know how important this work is, but I literally cannot find the time between my clients. Maybe you’ve got children. You can’t seem to see how this could possibly happen, how you can take space. Well, I’ll tell you this, if you keep doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different outcome, you’re going to be sadly disappointed. If you’re seeking a really different result, you need to do things really differently. And sometimes this involves doing something that’s really scary, which is saying no. Saying no to clients, saying no to opportunities. But no is one of the most powerful words in business. If you want to create something really magical and really different, you need to step away from the old version of you and step into a new version of you. One who is committed to playing a bigger game.

Just remember, you’re not the victim here, you are the CEO of your business. If you want do something, you can do it. If you identify that creating space to work on courses and work on strategy work is really important for you, you need to carve out the time. And yes, I’ve spoken about this on the podcast before, the financial resources as well to make those changes happen. You’re in charge. When I do this work with clients of mine, they feel so empowered when they take that big brave step and carve out some time. So you might intellectually understand this, but when push comes to shove, you can’t quite seem to do it. What is that? It’s fear. It’s fear of walking away from money that’s right there in front of you and not knowing if there’s going to be any more to replace it.

Here’s the thing with fear, fear is designed to keep us safe. If you know that you’ve got clients that are sitting right there and there’s money on the table, fear wants to keep you safe. It wants to keep you busy, busy, busy so that you know that you’ve got that security blanket there. And when you do carve out time to work on your business, there are no guarantees that the results will flow. That’s the thing. But I do know one thing for sure, if you keep being busy, busy, busy, you won’t have the opportunity to step back and have those quantum shifts. So to sum up today, if you want to create something really different in your business this year, you have the power to do it. Carve out some time and carve out some financial resources and commit to getting a really different result.

Thank you so much for listening today. And if you loved this episode, one of the best ways that you can thank me is by sharing it with your biz buddies. Have a wonderful week and look forward to chatting to you again next week. Thanks so much for listening. If you loved this episode, please share it with your audience and don’t forget to tag me on Instagram @claire_wood_coach. And also, make sure you hit subscribe so you never miss an episode. Have an abundant week, and I look forward to talking to you again next week.