042: Get Back On Your Business Bike!

Hey there, it's September! Did you notice? Did it make you feel exhilarated? That you cannot wait to start this next season for your business? Or, like so many others, has it left you feeling just a little bit of trepidation, a little bit fearful that now the summer is over here's where the rubber meets the road - It's time to actually commit to the things that you said you’d do and create the results that back in January you wrote in your vision, and you wanted so much to achieve in 2021.

If you've lost a little bit of confidence or momentum this is the podcast for you today. This is Action Taker Tribe and I'm Jo Ingram. Today we're talking about getting back on your business bike. If you're feeling just a little bit wobbly about your business, or perhaps feel like you have fallen off your bike over the course of the summer, this episode is for you. Let's dive in.

I love the analogy about getting back on your bike. What do you tell your kids when they're learning to ride a bike? Do you just say, oh, you've fallen off now, just give up, that was nice while it lasted? Or do you say, come on, get back on, it's just the beginning of your bike riding. You don't give up just because you fall off once or twice. Even more than that, once you get pedalling the momentum comes, you gain your balance and suddenly you have forward movement. You have progression. And actually, even though it's tricky at first to get those pedals moving and get that balance, once you're there, you get faster and faster with more and more ease. The pedals are turning, the wind is in your hair and you're feeling utter exhilaration.

In business terms, this is the difference between playing small and suddenly finding ease and flow and moving with excitement and enthusiasm as your business grows.

Now, if you tune into my podcast regularly, you'll know that I talk a lot about alignment - about the fact that when we take inspired action, our businesses grow with ease and we don't have to strive, struggle and effort in the way that so many of us have been taught through our conditioning, our corporate experience, or even just through our natural personalities to do. As I've been diving more and more into the subject of alignment, I’ve realised that for me personally, it's been like a pendulum.

I've moved from a person who was all about the efforting into understanding that the universe works in far more gracious ways once you allow yourself to receive and you allow inspiration to drop in, rather than that pushing and striving type of action.

Here's the interesting thing - as I've moved in that direction, it's like a pendulum has swung so far over to the other way that I felt I couldn't make a move without feeling alignment. Being more of a novice into the law of attraction space, I wasn't able to necessarily accurately sense when I was in alignment. I would worry that if I didn't feel like doing something, it meant I wasn't in alignment, and therefore I wasn't going to do it.

Well, if you've ever been in that position, you'll know that the days and weeks can pass quite quickly, and no progress is made. Whilst I am a massive fan of making spiritual progress, I'm now understanding that there needs to be a happy medium, and whilst your pendulum has swung so far over to alignment that you are in inertia, that is a problem if you're trying to build your business.

Let's never use alignment or lack of alignment as an excuse to shy away from our destiny - to keep us playing small.

Let's never say that a lack of alignment is stopping us, putting ourselves out there and being vulnerable to failure. Let's stay in alignment and get back on the business bike.

So, what are your goals for this autumn and how exactly will you get there? How are you going to avoid overwhelm? Let's not be shy of creating targets and goals whilst staying in alignment and when we're not feeling in alignment, let's ask ourselves, how can we get there? Instead of wallowing in a lack of alignment and a sense of inertia, perhaps feeling low energy, how can we manufacture those high vibrations and get back to a position where we're building our business with intention and inspiration?

What is the goal that you wish to achieve this autumn? What achievement would make you feel absolutely amazing as we draw towards the end of this year? More importantly, how are you going to avoid the overwhelm that might be associated with that? Well, the way to approach that is of course with chunking, where you simply break down a big task into much smaller pieces. That old adage about how you eat an elephant - one bite at a time - can never be truer than when we're building our businesses. But how many times have you done an exercise like this then looked at the list of the different tasks that you have chunked down and said, oh, I just don't feel like doing any of them? I don’t feel in alignment, I'm not feeling the energy, maybe I'll just do that tomorrow or later or never.

This week's podcast episode is talking about how to encourage you to pick yourself up, even when you're feeling like you don't want to do it, but yet staying in alignment.

Now, Abraham Hicks has something to say on this. They call it the Swiss cheese method, and it's simply an exercise in chunking. Once you've written down all of the different things - and Abraham Hicks recommends that you draw different size circles on a piece of paper, writing each of the tasks inside of them, with big tasks in big circles, small tasks in small circles etc. - you simply look at it and say, which one am I most drawn to doing right now? You don't have to feel immense levels of enthusiasm - being drawn to something outside first can simply mean saying, you know what, that one's only going to take 10 minutes, I'll start there. Or this one looks the most interesting to me - it might not be the biggest, most urgent, or most important task on the list, but I actually feel like doing it.

Of course, once you start, it's so much easier to gain more momentum. Abraham Hicks says that when Esther does this, she actually starts with one that she can tolerate doing, and before you know it, she's done four or five tasks because suddenly her vibration's lifted and she's feeling more momentum.

The beauty about being someone who understands what alignment is and values being in alignment as you build your business, is an opportunity right now to consider how to avoid the pitfalls that came before when you were not in alignment.

Take the opportunity to do an audit, to consider the ups and downs of your business so far this year.

What exactly have you learned? When I say, what have you learned, I mean both strategically, like the skills you've learned - perhaps you've learned how to create an offer or how to start building your mailing list. Perhaps you're learning how to engage on social media. These are strategic tactical business skills - but in addition to that, what have you learned spiritually? What have you learned about how you take action for your business? How have you learned to be inspired or to be in alignment? And what have you learned to avoid? Where was it that things just didn't go right for you? This is what holds us in the fear; the fear that we'll continue to make those mistakes.

For me earlier in the year, it was about burnout. I was driving myself far too hard, I wasn't seeking alignment and I was striving and pushing. Before I knew it, I just literally could not go on for a minute longer, and I'd worked myself so hard. I’d de-prioritised things that were so important in my life, like spending time with my family and my self-care that I had to take stock and do an audit of exactly what was going wrong for me. Similarly, if you’ve found yourself in a position as you're building your business, that you're shying away and retreating from some actions that you're taking, ask yourself what it was that you didn't like and how you can avoid it.

As we move into September and October, have the confidence and trust in yourself that you can move forward in a new and different way that’ll be supportive of a sustainable and joyful business that you deserve to create and run with phenomenal success.

Let's not be too afraid to fail fast; allow yourself the grace to try new things. For me, September has always been the back-to-school month. It's always been the time where I wanted to buy new stationery and start afresh. It’s always the new school term going back here in London, and I think even in my forties and running a business, I get a sense of possibility and excitement as September comes.

As I was talking with my pod mate only yesterday and describing the trepidation of fear that comes with expectations that you put on yourself, she reminded me that if you consider all the actions you take for your business as an experiment, it takes a tremendous amount of pressure off of you. It's about having fun. I was reminded too of some of the lessons I've learned about the universe and how this can be considered all a game, and as soon as we see our lives as a fun game, suddenly we're able to drop into the playfulness of building our business.

The fact that it's an experiment and it's not the be-all and end-all - if you launch and it fails, if you try something new in social media and it doesn't get a reaction, if you put yourself out there and it just wasn't what you wanted - let it go.

Take what there is to learn from the experience and simply move onto the next one, because no one in business - let alone online business - succeeded by playing small, hiding away and not trying new things, experimenting, being playful and having fun.

Now is actually this new time of restarting and if you've been quiet about building your business or making changes in your life over the summer, that is absolutely typical. People's normal habits change. People stop listening to their usual podcasts, they stop reaching out for help, they stop working on their businesses. They stop making big changes to their lives. Summer is often a time to just relax, spend time with family and not have to worry. Conversely, when we reach September people gear up and they really want solutions.

And here's the good news. You are in the business of creating solutions.

Our business is helping others; it's solving their problems. As they start to be more cognizant, remember what problems they have and start reaching out for solutions, this is our opportunity to be here ready to help.

If you're feeling any form of fear about stepping up this September, just remember that it is all about them - it's about the people that you serve. It takes the pressure away if you're starting to worry about things like imposter syndrome or not being enough, you need to be out there doing your thing because those people need your help.

Draw away from the poor questions that we so frequently ask ourselves, like, why haven't I made enough money this year so far? Why aren't my programs booked out? Or even, why haven't I created that program that I committed to writing back in January? Why isn't my business achieving what I wanted to achieve yet? Instead, ask yourself better questions such as, how can I help more? How can I serve? What else can I do to create an amazing transformation? How can I be present? How can I be engaged? How can I be where my people need me to be?

Now is the time to get back on your business bike.

I hope that you've had an awesome summer. I certainly have! I downed tools, took time off and went on some awesome day trips with the kids. They learnt to surf for the first time! We had an amazing time, but now it's time to put the energy into our businesses again.

It's time to reach out and get help if we need it - to find the missing pieces that'll help us move forward. To use our understanding of alignment to find the right ways of taking the next step, because that is all it is - the next step.

Let's be kind and gracious with ourselves. Let's create high vibe opportunities to let that inspired action drop in. Let's support each other as we build our heart centered businesses.

If you're all in on the combination of alignment and action and you need to take your business forward this fall with help, support, inspiration, and guidance, click the link to book a free strategy session with me. Here's to your inspired action this September. Take care.