Catch up on some related episodes:

How to feel confident in knowing what to focus on to grow your business (Path to Predictable Income Series)
The #1 strategy to ensure you're getting paid each & every month
The one thing holding you back from creating consistent income (Path to Predictable Income Series)

Today’s talking points:

The start of the year isn’t the time for planning, it’s the time to dig deep and get your ish together, ready for the new year ahead. Let me show you 3 areas you can focus on to improve your life and business in 2024.

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Happy 2024, happy January, and happy first podcast episode of the new year!

I hope you had a gorgeous time with your loved ones and I have to say - I'm feeling really inspired and pumped up for this episode which is all about getting your ish together.

This is meant to be a little bit of some hard truths - yes Sassy Holly is back for 2024 you’ll be glad to know!

But also a bit of yes Boss, we're in the new year, it's gonna be amazing. It’s going to be better than last year and I’m going to give you some really good things to reflect on.

This is 1000% not another training on 2024 planning because I know you’ve had enough of that by now… PLUS we talked about that topic loads on the podcast, especially in the series that we did at the end of last year.

Another thing we're going to touch on is about who is actually making your decisions.

Now, I know what you're thinking: “what do you even mean, Holly? Obviously I'm making my own decisions”. But you might be surprised that it's not you that you want to be making your decisions. So stay tuned.

We’re diving into three parts that I want to walk you through to help you get your ish together and have the best year ever in 2024. Here goes.

Audit your life & business

We're kicking off with a crucial piece: auditing your life and business. Why both? Because let's face it, your business intertwines with your life and habits. Whether you have kids, nine-to-five, or other elements, they all play a role in your business sphere. Plus, you know how I’m a life first business, always.

The goal here is to set goals for the year and the quarter that go beyond the traditional achievement goal setting. It's not just about mapping out goals; it's understanding the pivotal points driving your actions.

When setting annual goals, we often get caught in the vision, neglecting the actionable steps. Reverse engineering helps, but it's incomplete without acknowledging our current cycles in motion. You're not starting from scratch; you have existing patterns, habits, and commitments, both conscious and subconscious. It's these cycles that influence your everyday actions, not just a simple equation of "A plus B equals C."

What's the real deal then? What do we actually need to do to accomplish those goals that we haven't talked about so far? It's about understanding these cycles and making deliberate changes within them.

Doing a "Get Your Ish Together Audit” is what you need. I want you to do an audit of every single week of the last month. Sit down in a calendar with your Instagram story archives, your camera, roll your journal, and anything that you need to jog your memory.

Look at it objectively, assess your priorities, and assess what you're actually prioritising. Sometimes, your actions might not align with what you believe. It's about unmasking the truth behind your habits and actions, which often reveals a different narrative from the one you've built about yourself.

A real-life example for you, I had a call with a client last year before I went on my maternity leave. She's been really she's been feeling hyped up about her business and wanting to do all this work. We mapped out a plan and all of these things and when she was doing some journaling, she realised that she's stuck in a pattern of procrastination on her work due to limiting beleifs we identified. That leads to her feeling like she's not getting anywhere because she's not doing the work which leads to more self doubt and procrastination. The cycle then continues. This is a great example of how her beliefs are kind of defined in her actions in that sense.

When we’re auditing, we want to go through to see how you spend your time each week and then write down what your top two priorities for each week looked like, and then for the month as a whole. You’ve got to be honest with yourself here. You might realise the things you think about yourself aren’t true in your actions. For example, if you think you’re a fit person but over the 4 weeks you didn’t prioritise the gym or movement. It doesn't have to stay that way., but it wasn't a priority for you in that season. This is where we start to peel back who we believe we are, and our identity, and who our actions actually show us to be. It's scary sometimes because we live under the illusion of who our identity is.

See sometimes, the power doesn't lie in adding more strategies; it's about bringing awareness to your actions and aligning them with your goals.

Sometimes it's as simple as the four steps that are included in this audit process to get any of the changes or goals that you want to achieve. Those four steps in this process are:

Awareness
Intention
Action
Focus

Your actions tell the real story. It's not just about ticking boxes; it's about embodying the business you aspire to create and bringing awareness to the actions that you're doing and what results they're bringing. This is where the audit comes in.

embody your dream business

I couldn’t not mention this part. It's about treating your business the way you envision it, how you always wanted it to be.

You've probably heard this before, and for good reason. Treating your business like a business isn't just for new entrepreneurs, although they often hear this advice frequently. It's important even if you've consistently hit your income goals. If you don't treat your business at the next level, it won't get there—it's that straightforward. Sassy Holly's taking charge today, and I want you to consider not just ticking boxes month after month to hit your goals. Instead, think deeply: What's your vision for your business? Are you treating it that way?

My personal belief is that actions speak louder than words. It's not just about what you say but how your actions align with your business vision. If you're stuck in a rut, questioning why things aren't working, the answers might lie in this "Get Your Ish Together" audit. Are your actions aligning with the business you aspire to run? I'm saying this with genuine care because the truth drives progress.

Building a successful business isn't a once-a-week endeavour. No successful entrepreneur has built a sustainable business with minimal effort. Success varies for everyone, whether it's a booming empire or simply spending quality time with family. But consistent effort is essential.

So, regardless of your audit findings from the past month, make sure that you are treating this business like a business and that next-level version of the business that you want it to be.

the ‘how’ and ‘who’ of your decision making

For this third and final part we're diving deep into how you make choices and who's behind those choices. Both the 'how' and the 'who' matter here.

Recently, one of my mentors posed a question that struck a chord: it wasn't just about the decision at hand, A or B, but rather how I approached the decision-making process. Sometimes, both options could be great, so it was less about what decision I made. It was more about how I was processing and making my decisions. Looking at which part of me leans toward a specific choice and if that aligns with my desired path.

It’s estimated that the average adult makes about 35,000 a day. Some are conscious, others subconscious, and some are dictated by our existing cycles. They reflect our actions and priorities. So again, if you’re not treating your business as a priority your decisions will reflect that.

So let's talk about the how, and the who. Now, let's dissect the 'how' behind your decisions. Simplified, there are two key points to look at.

First, your coping mechanism when faced with tasks you don't want to do or are unsure how to handle. What do you do? Do you procrastinate? Overload your plate? Go deep here and be honest with yourself. I want you to start noticing when you take this action. How often is it happening?
Secondly, just ask yourself How do I make decisions? What is the process? Are you good at them? Do you make them fast? Do you typically overthink and pull five examples of racing decisions big and small and ask yourself Oh, you do that process? What did you do? Okay, now we know what to work on to become better decision-makers.

It's worth taking a moment to understand your decision-making process. Reflect on a few recent decisions, big or small, to see how you typically approach them. This self-awareness is key to achieving the success you're aiming for.

To put it simply, to reach your goals, you've got to be good at making decisions. So, take a good look at how you're doing this. Are you confident in your decisions, or do you tend to hesitate? Are you overthinking things? Identifying what areas you could change to give yourself a starting point to work on.

Now, onto the 'who' of decision-making. What I mean is, what part of you is making your decisions? It's not just about acknowledging that you're the one making decisions; it's about understanding what drives those decisions. Here are things to think about:

Think about recent business decisions. What part of you made that decision? Was the decision driven by fear, excitement, or abundance? Understanding this can help you recalibrate and make better choices.
Next, think about where your focus lies—are you focused more on where you are now or on where you want to be? This focus shapes your perspective and influences your decision-making.

The reason we talked about how you make decisions, and who is making your decisions is to see that it's not just the ‘what’ you're doing that is super important. You can't be successful just by adding on new actions constantly. You have to look at who you are, where the decisions are coming from, where you might be self-sabotaging, what your default behaviours are, and most importantly, what your actions are reflecting and creating versus what you might be used to believe in.

That can be pretty hard to face. But the most important thing to remember is that awareness is the very first step.

You’ve got this, boss.

In case you missed it, here is the last episode of the podcast (and the last episode of 2023!) - How to reframe "I'm not ready" to set you up for success