Help!! I need more focus in my business NOW

11 May 2020

Whooo there is a LOT going on right now. I know the announcements from the government on Sunday have sent a lot of people into a negative spiral. Emotions people are experiencing include:

Overwhelm – What should I focus on / where do I begin / what does this even matter anymore?

Fear – What if I don’t make it through / what if I get ill / am I missing an opportunity to do something with my business?

Confusion – What am I supposed to be doing / how should I use my time / what is the point?

Anger – Why did this have to happen / when will it end / I don’t agree with X, Y, Z.

Oh I hear ya! So, to stop the downward spiral, here are four questions to ask yourself to bring your focus, energy and efforts back into alignment. Now can I just say – if you’re reading this in panic, fear, overwhelm or anger try to take a breath. Don’t just read it, that won’t help at all. Make a cuppa, give yourself 15 precious little minutes, breathe and ACTUALLY answer the questions. Forgive me for being so direct, but I had to tell myself the same thing so I thought you might need to hear it too?

So, here goes…

(1) How do you want to emerge from this?

As crazy as this sounds, our vision and intentions have immense power. What you focus on, you will bring about. This isn’t just a fact about the law of attraction, this is a statement about focus.

If you say to your brain: “Multiply some numbers together”, it’s going to fail. If you say to your brain “What is 5 x 5?” it’s going to pause and say “Dur, 25!”.

So when setting your vision, don’t say to your brain: “I am so overwhelmed I need help”. Instead, say “So brain, I want to build an online business that brings in £5,000 a month. What is the best approach for making this happen?”

When we FOCUS on how we want to emerge from any situation, a few things happen:

Our super computers (our brains) can get to work on a real solution based on clear parameters.
We start to spot opportunities that can help us – books, coaches, blogs, photo opps hehe.
We can spend time on what will help us get the result.
Like attracts like – the law of attraction will bring you more of what you want, rather than what you don’t want.

So, how do you want to emerge from this? Write down your answer now. Think about how you want to feel, where you want to be, what you want to be doing week to week and what will make it all worth it.

(2) Re-affirm your boundaries and create space

More people are online and looking for direction and guidance. More people are home with time to burn. More people need support and want to talk.

When you’re a heart centred person who cares about other people, your overriding urge is going to be to step in and help EVERYONE, leaving yourself tired, burnt out and stuck! You’ll reply instantly. You’ll hop on that call. You’ll turn up more often.

In moments like this, it’s important to re-affirm your boundaries and create space for you to do your work. Your work is important and it’s vital you stay on track.

Useful questions:

Here are some questions to help you spot opportunities to re-affirm boundaries and create more space…

Do you have autoresponders on messages so people know when you’ll get back to them? Just because someone messaged you, doesn’t mean you need to reply instantly! I often tell clients I reply within two working days and rarely on weekends. Sometimes I’m faster and that’s okay. But, they know when they can expect to hear from me so they’re happy to wait and trust I’ve seen the message, because I reply within that timeframe. Pop autoresponders on your emails and social media accounts and write polite messages to clients so they know how you work.

Do you have afternoons / whole days blocked out in the your diary with no calls so you can catch up on your day job or complete tasks uninterrupted? For instance, I can’t do client calls and write in the same day. The energies are too different. Blocking out the time in advance with things like “Blog writing” stops me from putting calls in all over the place and helps me switch off at night because I know I have time allocated for ‘that project’. You might have heard this called ‘batching’? Usually, I have most of Monday and Friday with no calls, because I need that time for projects I’m working on.

Have you told family and friends when you’re free to talk or why you’re not in the group chat as much? If you’re a business owner, you’re probably still working. When your family are furloughed or working from home, their reality will be very different. And that’s okay. Make sure you communicate that this is a really [busy / exciting / scary / intense / crucial] time for you and you’re [working hard / working differently / doing more work yourself / balancing more things] so they know why you’re not as available. Sometimes people don’t realise how different your experience is because they’ve never experienced it. With this, it helps to schedule in group chats or board game nights so everyone has time to look forward to together!

When we put boundaries in place, it creates three things: (1) Clarity for you and the people around you, (2) Reassurance on when you’ll turn up and (3) Space for you to do your work.

(3) Keep exercising

When we were first put on lockdown, I turned up in a big way online. I wrote an 8000 word guide on what to do next. I went live more often. I upped my client call volume. I made more tutorials. And whilst I didn’t realise it straight away – I stopped exercising (no time) and started eating more sugary food (faster / easier). I gained half a stone. And I could feel it! Bluegh!

The second I got out on my first run after months of inactivity I felt amazing! Tired, heavy, slow haha, but AMAZING. I came back feeling like a champion and I had more clarity, more focus and more energy for the work I wanted to do.

Even if you don’t want to, even if you ‘don’t have time’, can I urge you to squeeze 20 minutes of exercise in your day? It could be a fast paced walk, a kick around in the park with the kids and dogs, an online class. It doesn’t matter how you do it, or how well haha. Just squeeze it in and you will notice some major changes.

Exercise helps us to feel more energised, it fires up our creativity and it helps release tension from the body. I also find it helps me to be a lot more focused. When I’m running, I find myself writing blogs in my head. I find answers to tough problems pop up out of nowhere. And I feel the fog of lockdown lifting!

(4) Refocus your strategy

There is a lot happening online, I know! There are lots of offers, new social media platforms (TikTok anyone haha) and we’re all adapting to new ways of working. For example, before lockdown me and my team were meeting up monthly to film videos which they then edited and got ready to online. It was amazing! But since lockdown, we just can’t do that and I am having to adapt to find new ways to create, product and share content, whilst turning up for my clients.

It’s easy to start spreading yourself too thinly when you adapt to a change like this, jumping on the bandwagon and trying to be everything to everyone. But that won’t help them or you. The key is to reconnection with your vision and invest some invaluable time updating your strategy.

Above I wrote “spend time on what will help us get the result”. Read that sentence again. It’s so important. We don’t want to run all over the place. We don’t want to spread ourselves thinly. We want to spend time on what will get us the result. So what is that for you? Is it writing your book OR NOT? Is it filming a course OR NOT? Is it making more content OR NOT? Rather than get carried away with the opportunity or trying to keep up with others, remind yourself of the result you want and ask: What activity will help me get that result.

Questions that will help you include:

What am I trying to do here? (Result / outcome)
Who am I uniquely positioned to help? (Client / target customer)
How can I build a scalable model to do that well? (Strategy)
What output should I focus on? (Operations / delivery)

All four questions are important but the third one is particularly important. So what if you slow down with your content for a few weeks while you re-assess and re-visit your central scalable model? So what if you don’t reply to every message publicly because you’re replying to every message from your clients for now. And so what if you can’t do it all, like you’d planned in January (lol!).

Things have changed. We need to adapt. But we must also maintain focus.

Vision + strategy + focused delivery = results.

Looking for more?

Feeling overwhelmed? Watch this (6 min watch)

How to run a profitable business as a purpose driven entrepreneur (20 min read)

8000 word guide – what to do next – a business guide for responding to Covid-19

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Read Lisa’s brand new book, First Sh!t Version, which soared NO#2 in the Kindle chart on Amazon earlier this year.

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