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Spring-clean your mindset
In the last week or so my friends and I have really had a sense of a new dawn. Springtime. It has felt so positive - we have felt the sun on our faces, we've looked up to the light, we've begun to notice more birdsong, the air warmer, buds beginning to fatten.
It is time for new growth, and it feels really good.
My business is now three years old, and I am so proud of what I have achieved in that time. For all of us running our own businesses, this last year in particular has been a time of incredible challenge and incredible change. It has been the kind of change that is just imposed on us randomly, and we have had to adapt to that.
Some of us may have lost revenue, we may have lost clients, we may have struggled with supplies... Some of us may have been affected by changes to trading rules due to Brexit as well. It has been over a year of changes being imposed on our businesses, our "babies", that we have just had to deal with it.
Yet now it feels like now there is an opportunity for us to manage change more consciously. It is a time for new growth and planned change. It is time for a spring clean.
The first part of that process is a mental, spiritual and emotional spring clean for yourself, as a human being. Go back to the basics of who you are. What are you doing spending all of these hours working in your business? I know you have bills to pay and people to support, but why are you doing this work in particular?
Remind yourself of your values, and the values of your business. Think about how you have personally dealt with the changes of the last year. Has it taken a lot out of you? Or have you found a new resilience?
Both answers are valid. Finding new resilience means that you have a new tool, a new power that will allow you to grow and change. If it has all, understandably, taken a lot out of you then now is the time to pause and heal.
Last year has gone. It is done. Once you give yourself a chance to let it go, you will find that you have room to start to dream about where you would like to go next. Get back in touch with your dreams. Have they changed, have they grown? What is driving you the most? What is providing resistance? What do you want to let go of to allow some new growth?
What we need to do at this time of year is an audit. To sit down and go back through our calendars and really look at what we have coped with, what has happened, and what we have left. Get a piece of paper or a notebook and write it all down - the good and the bad. Then take a breath. Think about where you want to grow next, which branches you want to push out further, which leaves you want to unfurl this year.
It can be really useful to get some coaching on this, to sit and brainstorm with another person and then to think about which areas of your business and life you want to focus on.
This is all work we can do as individuals, but if we have a team within our business there is another part to this process of spring cleaning and new growth. That is to involve your team, right at the start of the process.
I have worked in change management for many years and I have seen time and again that successful change is bottom up rather than top down. You are the innovator as the leader of your business, but when you have a team they are the experts in their part of your business, and they will often have a much better idea of what would be involved in the implementation of your ideas than you do. So talk to your team. Just brainstorm with them, have a virtual lunch to chat things through. Allow the people who work with you to mull over your ideas, to play with them, to understand them for themselves.
If you do this early on, you will end up with a lengthier process to formulate the plan, but it will be organised and positive change that will be implemented much more smoothly and efficiently - because everyone involved in the change will be on board.
I still see businesses doing top down change and then they cannot understand why they encounter resistance and delays and pitfalls. The more you engage with your team the fewer of these challenges will occur.
We small business owners are lucky because it is just us or maybe us and a small team. Yet it is still important to check in with our team - or simply have an immersive check in with ourselves - before putting our plans into action.
I hope that you are feeling this growth vibe and are feeling excited about where you want your business to grow this year. Plan in some time with yourself, if applicable plan in some time with your team, and then go for it! With the tax year coming to an end now is the time to pause, reflect, check in with ourselves and plan.
Turn your face to the sun once more and start to move forward.
How to improve your career and business success by improving your relationship with yourself, your self-love, self-esteem, self-worth and self-confidence. Better self-love allows you to make the moves and take the risks that allow you to achieve your career and business goals and reach your potential.
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Your relationship with yourself is the most enduring and important one you'll ever have, allow yourself to nourish and deepen it, so you can feel better inside, have more confidence and self-esteem, and enjoy life more.
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