When I did less, I had a wake up call and learnt these 5 lessons

In the run up to Christmas last year I was stressed. I had been putting pressure on myself to grow my life coaching business and was dissatisfied with speed of the progress I was making. This is despite a 70% increase in clients year on year! I decided to take a complete break from my business. I put an out of office on my email, signed off from Facebook and kept away from other social media channels.

As a result of my Christmas break, I learnt these 5 lessons:-

1 To put my family first and commit to reconnecting, properly. If I am out of balance and putting too much thought and time in to my life coaching business, or other distractions, I do not show up well as a mum. My fuse gets short, my tone gets grumpy, my patience gets poor. When I am not distracted, I am a much better mummy. I put boundaries around my family time and am available and fully present to my children. Want to know how to be present and productive when there is never enough time? Learn about The 5 Gears.

2 Stuff still happens when I take my foot off the accelerator. Over my Christmas break I had my first coaching clients, through Google and The Life Coach Directory, and my second client through one of my postcards placed in a local shop. I am still being consistent with my visibility but I’m not pushing a bolder up a hill all the time. By doing less I am still pushing the boulder, but it’s on the level now and rolling much easier!

3 To know my re-charge. As a mum, we all need time to work on our self-care. I had not been re-charging. My re-charge is to laugh with my children, speak to a friend, write in my journal and take time to pray. I committed to doing something to re-charge me at least once a day. Click here for recognising you may need to improve your self-care.

4 To know I am enough. I am enough to be successful, I am enough to be fulfilled. I found out about this great project, originally set up to help those with addictions. You are enough. http://www.iamenoughproject.org/ Want to be happy? Stop trying to be perfect. That applies to me as a mum, wife, entrepreneur and friend. I need to give myself permission to be enough.

Effort + Courage to show up = Enough (Brene Brown)

5 To make changes as a result of my new learning. Something had to change. I decided there and then to only work on my life coaching business during term time, and to book the school holidays off in my diary.

What is your take away from this? Are you in a position to bring about the changes you desire? What steps do you need to take? A coach can help you to focus on what is important to you and to help you to put a plan in place to get you from where you are now to where you want to be.