Banishing Burnout In Your Business

Hey this is Therese Skelly.

You know I've been in business a lot,

A lot,

A lot of years and I have come to learn there are some really healthy practices,

Or I should say practices to stay healthy as a business owner.

And obviously the basics,

Sleep,

Hydrate,

Get some sun on your body,

That's not what I'm talking about.

I want to talk about mindset practices,

Energy practices,

Spiritual practices because that's way more fun than talking about water and exercise for me.

Alright so much of what you do as a business owner is beyond strategy.

We all know we have to do marketing,

We have to get our message out in the world,

We have to make the sales,

We have to create copy and social media and all the things,

There's so many things.

But you know what the most important thing is?

It's who you're being in the world.

Because when you're not being your full,

Vibrant,

Energetic expression,

People can feel it.

When you're showing up maybe exhausted or resentful or fearful,

What do you think happens to your sales?

When people can't distinguish you from your competition,

How do you think that's going to impact your bottom line?

So today I want to just give you some pointers to think about.

You can add these in or more so you can just check yourself.

It's not a bunch of how to's,

It's not do this for 15 minutes a day,

It's not in the three dimensional.

My work is in the energetic and the quantum and the soulful.

And I'm hoping you're enjoying this because you're also drawn to that world.

Okay,

So let's just start.

Number one,

How much are you focusing on you versus putting your energy in the world?

I know that might sound kind of like,

What?

Of course I'm putting my energy in the world.

Yes.

Where are your boundaries?

When I first started out,

I basically would see anybody that wanted to see me went in or anytime they wanted to see me because I was A,

Desperate for clients and B,

Well I'll just call it,

I was kind of codependent and I was more concerned about taking care of other people.

I remember the first time I decided I wasn't going to work nights anymore.

Oh,

That was a big one.

But I had young kids and I'm like,

Why in the world do I want to be rolling in at seven or eight or nine?

And so that's the first question is,

Does your schedule,

Does the way you work,

Does it serve your life or do you think you're having to do it because everybody else is doing it?

I just got off the phone with a client,

She's a therapist and she said,

Well,

I want to start doing groups,

But I have to do it at night,

Right?

I said,

Why?

And she said,

Well,

Because nobody comes to groups during the day,

They only come at night.

And I said,

Is that true?

What works for you?

See that's what happens.

We have these false assumptions like,

Well,

Everybody works and so I'll have to do it.

Now,

Now maybe you have a practice where,

Yeah,

Your people are primarily employed,

But,

And what if you get to have it the way you want it?

So that's the first question.

I want you to be rigorous looking at your time,

Your schedule,

Your output,

Your energy.

How much of it is serving you?

We have businesses that should serve our life and not the other way around.

That's the thing you may have,

Like I did a number of years ago,

I built my business to six figures and I remember a day where I was like,

I hate this beast.

It's killing me.

This is taking all my time.

Yeah,

It's making money,

But it's taking me away from my kids.

I'm not enjoying it.

So I had built this machine and then the machine was controlling me.

Are you in that situation?

So I don't want you to get there.

And if you are,

Let's start chopping things away because my vision for you and what I have for myself,

I have a business that works for my hours.

The times I want to work with the people I want to work with at rates that are compatible with what I desire in the world.

So that's question number one.

Is the way you're doing business,

Is it serving your life in terms of time,

Energy and money?

Okay.

Question two,

What is driving a lot of your business decisions?

This kind of ties in with question one,

Meaning are you making decisions based on,

Like I said,

My other client,

Like as a therapist,

I have to make decisions because people are needing to have nighttime appointments.

Are you making decisions based on making other people happy?

Are you making decisions based on proving energy?

What?

Sometimes,

Maybe when we're new we're in the business or maybe,

You know,

I'll acknowledge I came into this business with so many codependent patterns.

I really was like,

I have to take care of everybody.

So proving energy shows up in over giving and under charging and trying to make people believe that you deserve to be there and you're good enough.

I've had a lot of coaches that I,

Because I coach coaches a great deal and I've had many of them come to me and say,

Oh my gosh,

So and so,

They didn't get that result and maybe I did something wrong and I'm like,

Why would you think it's on you?

Right?

They were taking responsibility for something that wasn't theirs.

That's an example of proving energy.

Are you taking,

Are you working harder than your clients are working on their growth?

So a lot of this today is just questions designed to get you to go deeper like,

Whoa,

Because guess what?

It's your business.

You have a choice and I want you to design it in a way that it's like,

This is yummy.

It completely serves my life.

And so then the final question is,

If you could have it any way you want it,

What would that look like?

I work three weeks a month and I take that fourth week off.

The first time I decided to do that,

Oh my gosh,

That was such a stretch because a lot of people weren't doing it back in the day when I started,

But it is so restorative.

I get some,

Some weeks I just do fun things.

I just get massages and see friends.

Some weeks that I'm off,

I get caught up on my marketing and I explain to clients,

Here's the deal.

When you hire me,

I work the first three weeks of the month.

And guess what they say?

I've literally never had a person say,

Oh goodness,

There's no way I'm signing up with you.

You know what they say?

They say,

Wow,

Thank you for demonstrating how to take such good care of yourself as a business owner.

I think I'm going to do that too.

So if you could design your business in any way,

Scrap what you have on the paper now and just imagine blank slate.

What would you like?

What would you add?

What would you keep and what would you get rid of?

Because remember,

Your business has to serve your life.

One of the things that I add in all the time,

All the places,

Everything I do is joy.

I'm just a big fan of joy and fun.

And so for me on the weekends,

I don't work.

I spend time with my partner and it's just about replenishing me.

It's about what can I do to fill my cup such that when I come back on Monday,

I'm not dragging.

I'm not resenting.

I'm like,

Woohoo.

So Sunday nights are not like,

Ah crap,

I got to work.

Sunday nights are like,

Awesome,

Let's go.

Let's continue the fun and then I'll go to Monday.

So what are you doing?

So we got the business,

Right?

Okay,

That's how you want your business.

But what are you doing for restoration?

What are you doing to manage your energy,

To bring joy into your life and to make sure you are the best steward of the work that you've been gifted?

Okay,

Woohoo,

Lots of questions,

Right?

That's what this is for.

It's just asking you to go deeper.

Remember when you have awareness,

You have choice.

Maybe you haven't been aware that you're running some low grade resentment on your calendar.

Maybe you haven't been aware of like,

You're a little like not happy to see certain clients because you're not charging enough.

So now you got to do something about it.

So I would like,

Feel free to reach out,

Send me a message,

Let me know what you're doing and how this audio landed for you.

Because I really want,

I want you to do your great work in the world.

I want you to be happy about it.

I want you to be filled with peace and joy and make a good living.

Alright,

Lots of love.

Take care now.

Bye bye.